by Charles Lamb
Even to the dust, apparently, through weight
Of anguish unrelieved, and lack of power
An agonising spirit to transmute,
Infer not hence a hope from those withheld
When wanted most; a confidence impaired
So pitiably, that, having ceased to see
With bodily eyes, they are borne down by love
Of what is lost, and perish through regret.
Oh! no, full oft the innocent sufferer sees
Too clearly; feels too vividly; and longs
To realize the vision with intense
And over constant yearning; – there, there lies
The excess, by which the balance is destroy’d.
Too, too contracted are these walls of flesh,
This vital warmth too cold, these visual orbs,
Though inconceivably endowed, too dim
For any passion of the soul that leads
To extasy; and, all the crooked paths
Of time and change disdaining, takes its course
Along the line of limitless desires. – p. 148.
With the same modifying and incorporating power, he tells us, –
Within the soul a faculty abides
That with interpositions, which would hide
And darken, so can deal, that they become
Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt
Her native brightness. As the ample moon,
In the deep stillness of a summer eve,
Rising behind a thick and lofty grove,
Burns like an unconsuming fire of light,
In the green trees; and, kindling on all sides
Their leafy umbrage, turns the dusky veil
Into a substance glorious as her own,
Yea, with her own incorporated, by power
Capacious and serene. Like power abides
In man’s celestial spirit; Virtue thus
Sets forth and magnifies herself; thus feeds
A calm, a beautiful, and silent fire,
From the incumbrances of mortal life,
From error, disappointment, nay, from guilt;
And sometimes, so relenting justice wills,
From palpable oppressions of despair. – p. 188.
This is high poetry; though (as we have ventured to lay the basis of the author’s sentiments in a sort of liberal Quakerism) from some parts of it, others may, with more plausibility, object to the appearance of a kind of Natural Methodism: we could have wished therefore that the tale of Margaret had been postponed, till the reader had been strengthened by some previous acquaintance with the author’s theory, and not placed in the front of the poem, with a kind of ominous aspect, beautifully tender as it is. It is a tale of a cottage, and its female tenant, gradually decaying together, while she expected the return of one whom poverty and not unkindness had driven from her arms. We trust ourselves only with the conclusion –
– nine tedious years
From their first separation, nine long years,
She lingered in unquiet widowhood,
A wife and widow. I have heard, my friend,
That in yon arbour oftentimes she sate
Alone, through half the vacant Sabbath day;
And, if a dog pass’d by, she still would quit
The shade and look abroad. On this old bench
For hours she sate; and evermore her eye
Was busy in the distance, shaping things
That made her heart beat quick. You see that path;
There to and fro she paced through many a day
Of the warm summer, from a belt of hemp
That girt her waist, spinning the long-drawn thread
With backward steps. Yet ever as there pass’d
A man whose garments shew’d the soldier’s red,*
The little child who sate to turn the wheel
Ceased from his task; and she with faultering voice
Made many a fond inquiry; and when they,
Whose presence gave no comfort were gone by,
Her heart was still more sad. And by yon gate,
That bars the traveller’s road, she often stood,
And, when a stranger horseman came, the latch
Would lift, and in his face look wistfully;
Most happy, if from aught discovered there
Of tender feeling, she might dare repeat
The same sad question. Meanwhile her poor hut
Sank to decay: for he was gone, whose hand,
At the first nipping of October frost,
Closed up each chink, and with fresh bands of straw
Checquered the green-grown thatch. And so she lived
Through the long winter, reckless and alone;
Until her house by frost, and thaw, and rain
Was sapp’d; and, while she slept, the nightly damps
Did chill her breast; and in the stormy day
Her tatter’d clothes were ruffled by the wind,
Even at the side of her own fire. Yet still
She loved this wretched spot, nor would for worlds
Have parted hence: and still that length of road,
And this rude bench, one torturing hope endeared,
Fast rooted at her heart: and here, my friend,
In sickness she remained; and here she died,
Last human tenant of these ruin’d walls! – p. 46.
The fourth book, entitled ‘Despondency Corrected,’ we consider as the most valuable portion of the poem. For moral grandeur; for wide scope of thought and a long train of lofty imagery; for tender personal appeals; and a versification which we feel we ought to notice, but feel it also so involved in the poetry, that we can hardly mention it as a distinct excellence; it stands without competition among our didactic and descriptive verse. The general tendency of the argument (which we might almost affirm to be the leading moral of the poem) is to abate the pride of the calculating understanding, and to reinstate the imagination and the affections in those seats from which modern philosophy has laboured but too successfully to expel them.
‘Life’s autumn past,’ says the grey-haired Wanderer,
– I stand on winter’s verge,
And daily lose what I desire to keep;
Yet rather would I instantly decline
To the traditionary sympathies
Of a most rustic ignorance, and take
A fearful apprehension from the owl
Or death-watch – and as readily rejoice
If two auspicious magpies crossed my way –
This rather would I do than see and hear
The repetitions wearisome of sense,
Where soul is dead and feeling hath no place. – p. 168.
In the same spirit, those illusions of the imaginative faculty to which the peasantry in solitary districts are peculiarly subject, are represented as the kindly ministers of conscience:
– with whose service charged
They come and go, appear and disappear;
Diverting evil purposes, remorse
Awakening, chastening an intemperate grief,
Or pride of heart abating.
Reverting to the more distant ages of the world, the operation of that same faculty in producing the several fictions of Chaldean, Persian, and Grecian idolatry, is described with such seductive power, that the Solitary, in good earnest, seems alarmed at the tendency of his own argument. – Notwithstanding his fears, however, there is one thought so uncommonly fine, relative to the spirituality which lay hid beneath the gross material forms of Greek worship, in metal or stone, that we cannot resist the allurement of transcribing it –
– Triumphant o’er this pompous show
Of art, this palpable array of sense,
On every side encountered; in despite
Of the gross fictions chanted in the streets
By wandering rhapsodists; and in contempt
Of doubt and bold denials hourly urged
Amid the wrangling schools –
a SPIRIT hung,
Beautiful Region! o’er thy towns and farms,
Statues and temples, and memorial tombs;
And emanations were perceived; and acts
Of immortality, in Nature’s course,
Exemplified by mysteries, that were felt
As bonds, on grave Philosopher imposed
And armed Warrior; and in every grove
A gay or pensive tenderness prevailed,
When piety more awful had relaxed.
‘Take, running river, take these locks of mine –’
Thus would the votary say – ‘this severed hair,
My vow fulfilling, do I here present,
Thankful for my beloved child’s return,
Thy banks, Cephisus, he again hath trod,
Thy murmurs heard; and drunk the chrystal lymph
With which thou dost refresh the thirsty lip,
And moisten all day long these flowery fields.’
And doubtless, sometimes, when the hair was shed
Upon the flowing stream, a thought arose
Of Life continuous, Being unimpair’d;
That hath been, is, and where it was and is
There shall be; seen, and heard, and felt and known,
And recognized – existence unexposed
To the blind walk of mortal accident;
From diminution safe and weakening age;
While man grows old, and dwindles and decays;
And countless generations of mankind
Depart, and leave no vestige where they trod. – p. 174.
In discourse like this the first day passes away. – The second (for this almost dramatic poem takes up the action of two summer days) is varied by the introduction of the village priest; to whom the Wanderer resigns the office of chief speaker, which had been yielded to his age and experience on the first. The conference is begun at the gate of the church-yard; and after some natural speculations concerning death and immortality – and the custom of funereal and sepulchral observances, as deduced from a feeling of immortality – certain doubts are proposed respecting the quantity of moral worth existing in the world, and in that mountainous district in particular. In the resolution of these doubts, the priest enters upon a most affecting and singular strain of narration, derived from the graves around him. Pointing to hillock after hillock, he gives short histories of their tenants, disclosing their humble virtues, and touching with tender hand upon their frailties.
Nothing can be conceived finer than the manner of introducing these tales. With heaven above his head, and the mouldering turf at his feet – standing betwixt life and death – he seems to maintain that spiritual relation which he bore to his living flock, in its undiminished strength, even with their ashes; and to be in his proper cure, or diocese, among the dead.
We might extract powerful instances of pathos from these tales – the story of Ellen in particular – but their force is in combination, and in the circumstances under which they are introduced. The traditionary anecdote of the Jacobite and Hanoverian, as less liable to suffer by transplanting, and as affording an instance of that finer species of humour, that thoughtful playfulness in which the author more nearly perhaps than in any other quality resembles Cowper, we shall lay (at least a part of it) before our readers. It is the story of a whig who, having wasted a large estate in election contests, retired ‘beneath a borrowed name’ to a small town among these northern mountains, when a Caledonian laird, a follower of the house of Stuart, who had fled his country after the overthrow at Culloden, returning with the return of lenient times, had also fixed his residence.
– Here, then, they met,
Those doughty champions; flaming Jacobite,
And sullen Hanoverian! you might think
That losses and vexations, less severe
Than those which they had severally sustained,
Would have inclined each to abate his zeal
For his ungrateful cause; no, – I have heard
My reverend father tell that, mid the calm
Of that small town encountering thus, they filled
Daily its bowling-green with harmless strife,
Plagued with uncharitable thoughts the church,
And vex’d the market-place! But in the breasts
Of these opponents gradually was wrought,
With little change of general sentiment,
Such change towards each other, that their days
By choice were spent in constant fellowship;
And, if at times they fretted with the yoke,
Those very bickerings made them love it more.
A favourite boundary to their lengthen’d walks
This church-yard was. And, whether they had come
Treading their path in sympathy, and linked
In social converse, or by some short space
Discreetly parted to preserve the peace,
One spirit seldom failed to extend its sway
Over both minds, when they awhile had mark’d
The visible quiet of this holy ground
And breathed its soothing air. –
There live who yet remember to have seen
Their courtly figures – seated on a stump
Of an old yew, their favourite resting place.
But, as the remnant of the long-lived tree
Was disappearing by a swift decay,
They with joint care determined to erect
Upon its sight, a dial, which should stand,
For public use; and also might survive
As their own private monument; for this
Was the particular spot, in which they wished
(And heaven was pleased to accomplish their desire)
That, undivided, their remains should lie.
So, where the mouldered tree had stood, was raised
Yon structure, framing, with the ascent of steps
That to the decorated pillar lead,
A work of art, more sumptuous, as might seem,
Than suits this place; yet built in no proud scorn
Of rustic homeliness; they only aimed
To ensure for it respectful guardianship.
Around the margin of the plate, whereon
The shadow falls, to note the stealthy hours,
Winds an inscriptive legend. –
At these words
Thither we turned; and gathered, as we read,
The appropriate sense, in Latin numbers couched.
‘Time flies; it is his melancholy task
To bring, and bear away, delusive hopes,
And re-produce the troubles he destroys.
But, while his business thus is occupied,
Discerning mortal! do thou serve the will
Of Time’s eternal Master, and that peace,
Which the world wants, shall be for thee confirmed.’
– pp. 270–3.
The causes which have prevented the poetry of Mr Wordsworth from attaining its full share of popularity are to be found in the boldness and originality of his genius. The times are past when a poet could securely follow the direction of his own mind into whatever tracts it might lead. A writer, who would be popular, must timidly coast the shore of prescribed sentiment and sympathy. He must have just as much more of the imaginative faculty than his readers, as will serve to keep their apprehensions from stagnating, but not so much as to alarm their jealousy. He must not think or feel too deeply.
If he has had the fortune to be bred in the midst of the most magnificent objects of creation, he must not have given away his heart to them; or if he have, he must conceal his love, or not carry his expressions of it beyond that point of rapture, which the occasional tourist thinks it not overstepping decorum to betray, or the limit which that gentlemanly spy upon Nature, the picturesque traveller, has vouchsafed to countenance. He must do this, or be content to be thought an enthusiast.
If from living among simple mountaineers, from a daily intercourse with them, not upon the
footing of a patron, but in the character of an equal, he has detected, or imagines that he has detected, through the cloudy medium of their unlettered discourse, thoughts and apprehensions not vulgar; traits of patience and constancy, love unwearied, and heroic endurance, not unfit (as he may judge) to be made the subject of verse, he will be deemed a man of perverted genius by the philanthropist who, conceiving of the peasantry of his country only as objects of a pecuniary sympathy, starts at finding them elevated to a level of humanity with himself, having their own loves, enmities, cravings, aspirations, &c., as much beyond his faculty to believe, as his beneficence to supply.
If from a familiar observation of the ways of children, and much more from a retrospect of his own mind when a child, he has gathered more reverential notions of that state than fall to the lot of ordinary observers, and, escaping from the dissonant wranglings of men, has tuned his lyre, though but for occasional harmonies, to the milder utterance of that soft age, – his verses shall be censured as infantile by critics who confound poetry ‘having children for its subject’ with poetry that is ‘childish,’ and who, having themselves perhaps never been children, never having possessed the tenderness and docility of that age, know not what the soul of a child is – how apprehensive! how imaginative! how religious!
We have touched upon some of the causes which we conceive to have been unfriendly to the author’s former poems. We think they do not apply in the same force to the one before us. There is in it more of uniform elevation, a wider scope of subject, less of manner, and it contains none of those starts and imperfect shapings which in some of this author’s smaller pieces offended the weak, and gave scandal to the perverse. It must indeed be approached with seriousness. It has in it much of that quality which ‘draws the devout, deterring the profane.’ Those who hate the Paradise Lost will not love this poem. The steps of the great master are discernible in it; not in direct imitation or injurious parody, but in the following of the spirit, in free homage and generous subjection.
One objection it is impossible not to foresee. It will be asked, why put such eloquent discourse in the mouth of a pedlar? It might be answered that Mr Wordsworth’s plan required a character in humble life to be the organ of his philosophy. It was in harmony with the system and scenery of his poem. We read Piers Plowman’s Creed, and the lowness of the teacher seems to add a simple dignity to the doctrine. Besides, the poet has bestowed an unusual share of education upon him. Is it too much to suppose that the author, at some early period of his life, may himself have known such a person, a man endowed with sentiments above his situation, another Burns; and that the dignified strains which he has attributed to the Wanderer may be no more than recollections of his conversation, heightened only by the amplification natural to poetry, or the lustre which imagination flings back upon the objects and companions of our youth? After all, if there should be found readers willing to admire the poem, who yet feel scandalized at a name, we would advise them, wherever it occurs, to substitute silently the word Palmer, or Pilgrim, or any less offensive designation, which shall connect the notion of sobriety in heart and manners with the experience and privileges which a wayfaring life confers.
