Surpassing the most fair ideal forms
Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed From earth's materials-waits upon my steps; Pitches her tents before me as I move, An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves Elysian, fortunate fields-like those of old Sought in th' Atlantic main, why should they be A history only of departed things,
Or a mere fiction of what never was For the discerning intelleet of man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day. -I, long before the blissful hour arrives, Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse Of this great consummation ;-and, by words Which speak of nothing more than what we are, Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep Of death, and win the vacant and the vain To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims How exquisitely the individual mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external world Is fitted; and how exquisitely, too, Theme this but little heard of among men, Th' external world is fitted to the mind; And the creation (by no lower name Can it be call'd) which they with blended might Accomplish:-this is our high argument. -Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft Must turn elsewhere-to travel near the tribes And fellowships of men, and see ill sights Of madding passions mutually inflamed; Must hear humanity in fields and groves Pipe solitary anguish ; or must hang Brooding above the fierce confederate storm Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore
Within the walls of cities; may these sounds Have their authentic comment,-that even these Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn? -Descend, prophetic spirit! that inspirest The human soul* of universal earth, Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess A metropolitan temple in the hearts
Of mighty poets; upon me bestow
A gift of genuine insight; that my song With star-like virtue in its place may shine; Shedding benignant influence, and secure, Itself, from all malevolent effect
Of those mutations that extend their sway Throughout the nether sphere !--And if with this I mix more lowly matter; with the thing Contemplated, describe the mind and man Contemplating, and who, and what he was, The transitory being that beheld This vision,—when and where, and how he lived; Be not this labour useless. If such theme May sort with highest objects, then, dread power, Whose gracious favour is the primal source Of all illumination, may my life Express the image of a better time, More wise desires, and simpler manners ;-nurse
*Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. Shakspeare's Sonnets.
My heart in genuine freedom :-all pure thoughts Be with me ;-so shall thy unfailing love Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!"
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K. G. &c. &c.
OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious peer! In youth I roam'd, on youthful pleasures bent; And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent, Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear. -Now, by thy care befriended, I appear Before thee, Lonsdale, and this work present, A token (may it prove a monument!) Of high respect and gratitude sincere. Gladly would I have waited till my task Had reached its close; but life is insecure, And hope full oft fallacious as a dream: Therefore, for what is here produced I ask Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem The offering, though imperfect, premature. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
Rydal Mount, Westmoreland,
A summer forenoon. The author reaches a ruined cottage upon a common, and there meets with a revered friend the Wanderer, of whom he gives an account. The Wanderer while resting under the shade of the trees that surround the cottage relates the history of its last inhabitant.
'Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high: Southward the landscape indistinctly glared Through a pale steam: but all the northern downs, In clearest air ascending, show'd far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung From brooding clouds: shadows that lay in spots Determined and unmoved, with steady beams Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed; Pleasant to him who on the soft cool moss Extends his careless limbs along the front Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts A twilight of its own, an ample shade, Where the wien warbles; while the dreaming man, Half conscious of the soothing melody, With sidelong eye looks out upon the scene, By power of that impending covert thrown To finer distance. Other lot was mine; Yet with good hope that soon I should obtain As grateful resting-place, and livelier joy. Across a bare wide common I was toiling With languid steps that by the slippery ground Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse The host of insects gathering round my face, And ever with me as I paced along.
Upon that open level stood a grove, The wish'd for port to which my course was bound.
Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms, Appear'd a roofless hut; four naked walls That stared upon each other! I looked round, And to my wish and to my hope espied Him whom I sought; a man of reverend age, But stout and hale, for travel unimpair'd. There was he seen upon the cottage bench, Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep; An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.
Him had I mark'd the day before-alone And station'd in the public way, with face
His graces unreveal'd and unproclaim'd. But, as the mind was fill'd with inward light, So not without distinction had he lived, Beloved and honour'd-far as he was known. And some small portion of his eloquent speech, And something that may serve to set in view The feeling pleasures of his loneliness, His observations, and the thoughts his mind Had dealt with-I will here record in verse; Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink Or rise as venerable nature leads,
The high and tender muses shall accept
Turn'd toward the sun then setting, while that staff With gracious smile, deliberately pleased,
Afforded to the figure of the man
Detain❜d for contemplation or repose,
Graceful support; his countenance meanwhile Was hidden from my view, and he remain'd Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight, With slacken'd footsteps I advanced, and soon A glad congratulation we exchanged, At such unthought of meeting.-For the night We parted, nothing willingly; and now He by appointment waited for me here, Beneath the shelter of these clustering elms.
We were tried friends: amid a pleasant vale, In the antique market village where were pass'd My school-days, an apartment he had own'd, To which at intervals the Wanderer drew, And found a kind of home or harbour there. He loved me; from a swarm of rosy boys Singled out me, as he in sport would say, For my grave looks-too thoughtful for my years. As I grew up, it was my best delight
To be his chosen comrade. Many a time, On holydays, we rambled through the woods: We sate-we walk'd; he pleased me with report Of things which he had seen; and often touch'd Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind Turn'd inward; or at my request would sing Old songs-the product of his native hills; A skilful distribution of sweet sounds, Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed As cool, refreshing water by the care
Of the industrious husbandman, diffused [drought, Through a parch'd meadow-ground, in time of Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse: How precious when in riper days I learn'd To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice In the plain presence of his dignity!
O! many are the poets that are sown By nature; men endow'd with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, (Which, in the docile season of their youth, It was denied them to acquire, through lack Of culture and th' inspiring aid of books, Or haply by a temper too severe, Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame,) Not having here as life advanced, been led By circumstance to take unto the height The measure of themselves, these favour'd beings, All but a scatter'd few, live out their time, Husbanding that which they possess within, And go to the grave unthought of. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least; else surely this man had not left
And listening time reward with sacred praise. Among the hills of Athol he was born; Where, on a small hereditary farm,
An unproductive slip of rugged ground,
His parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt; A virtuous household, though exceeding poor! Pure livers were they all, austere and grave, And fearing God; the very children taught Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word, And an habitual piety, maintain'd
With strictness scarcely known on English ground. From his sixth year, the boy of whom I speak, In summer tended cattle on the hills; But, through th' inclement and the perilous days Of long-continuing winter, he repair'd, Equipp'd with satchel, to a school, that stood Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge, Remote from view of city spire, or sound Of minster clock! From that bleak tenement He, many an evening, to his distant home In solitude returning, saw the hills Grow larger in the darkness, all alone Beheld the stars come out above his head, And travell'd through the wood, with no one near To whom he might confess the things he saw. So the foundations of his mind were laid. In such communion, not from terror free, While yet a child, and long before his time, He had perceived the presence and the power Of greatness; and deep feelings had impress'd Great objects on his mind, with portraiture And colour so distinct, that on his mind They lay like substances, and almost seem'd To haunt the bodily sense. He had received A precious gift; for, as he grew in years, With these impressions would he still compare All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms; And, being still unsatisfied with aught Of dimmer character, he thence attain'd An active power to fasten images Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines Intensely brooded, even till they acquired The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail, While yet a child, with a child's eagerness Incessantly to turn his ear and eye On all things which the moving seasons brought To feed such appetite: nor this alone Appeased his yearning:-in the after day Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn, And mid the hollow depths of naked crags He sate, and e'en in their fix'd lineaments, Or from the power of a peculiar eye, Or by creative feeling overborne.
Or by predominance of thought oppress'd, E'en in their fix'd and steady lineaments He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind, Expression ever varying!
He had small need of books; for many a tale Traditionary, round the mountains hung, And many a legend, peopling the dark woods, Nourish'd imagination in her growth, And gave the mind that apprehensive power By which she is made quick to recognise The moral properties and scope of things. But eagerly he read, and read again, Whate'er the minister's old shelf supplied; The life and death of martyrs, who sustain'd, With will inflexible, those fearful pangs Triumphantly display'd in records left Of persecution, and the covenant--times Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour! And there, by lucky hap, had been preserved A straggling volume, torn and incomplete, That left half told the preternatural tale, Romance of giants, chronicle of fiends, Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire, Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbow'd, and lean-ankled too, With long and ghostly shanks-forms which once
Could never be forgotten!
In his heart, Where fear sate thus, a cherish'd visitant, Was wanting yet the pure delight of love By sound diffused, or by the breathing air, Or by the silent looks of happy things, Or flowing from the universal face Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power Of nature, and already was prepared, By his intense conceptions, to receive Deeply the lesson deep of love which he, Whom nature, by whatever means, has taught To feel intensely, cannot but receive. Such was the boy-but for the growing youth What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun
Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He look'd- Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay
In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd, And in their silent faces did he read Unutterable love. Sound needed none, Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank The spectacle; sensation, soul, and form, All melted into him; they swallow'd up His animal being; in them did he live, And by them did he live; they were his life. In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God, Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired. No thanks he breathed, he proffer'd no request; Rapt into still communion that transcends Th' imperfect offices of prayer and praise. His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him, it was blessedness and love! A herdsman on the lonely mountain tops, Such intercourse was his, and in this sort Was his existence oftentimes possess'd.
O then how beautiful, how bright appear'd The written promise! Early had he learn'd To reverence the volume that displays The mystery, the life which cannot die; But in the mountains did he feel his faith. All things, responsive to the writing, there Breathed immortality, revolving life, And greatness still revolving; infinite; There littleness was not; the least of things Seem'd infinite; and there his spirit shaped Her prospects, nor did he believe, he saw. What wonder if his being thus became Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires, Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,
Oft as he call'd those ecstasies to mind,
And whence they flow'd; and from them he acquired Wisdom, which works through patience; thence
In oft-recurring hours of sober thought To look on nature with a humble heart, Self-question'd where it did not understand, And with a superstitious eye of love.
So pass'd the time; yet to the nearest town He duly went with what small overplus His earnings might supply, and brought away The book that most had tempted his desires While at the stall he read. Among the hills He gazed upon that mighty orb of song, The divine Milton. Lore of different kind, The annual savings of a toilsome life, His schoolmaster supplied: books that explain The purer elements of truth involved In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe, (Especially perceived where nature droops And feeling is suppress'd) preserve the mind Busy in solitude and poverty.
These occupations oftentimes deceived The listless hours, while in the hollow vale, Hollow and green, he lay on the green turf In pensive idleness. What could he do, Thus daily thirsting, in that lonesome life, With blind endeavours? Yet still uppermost, Nature was at his heart as if he felt, Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power In all things that from her sweet influence Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues, Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms, He clothed the nakedness of austere truth. While yet he linger'd in the rudiments Of science, and among her simplest laws, His triangles-they were the stars of heaven, The silent stars! Oft did he take delight To measure the altitude of some small crag That is the eagle's birthplace, or some peak Familiar with forgotten years, that shows Inscribed, as with the silence of the thought, Upon its bleak and visionary sides, The history of many a winter storm, Or obscure records of the path of fire.
And thus before his eighteenth year was told, Accumulated feelings press'd his heart With still increasing weight, he was o'erpower'd By nature, by the turbulence subdued Of his own mind; by mystery and hope, And the first virgin passion of a soul
Communing with the glorious universe.
Full often wish'd he that the winds might rage When they were silent; far more fondly now Than in his earlier season did he love Tempestuous nights-the conflict and the sounds That live in darkness:-from his intellect And from the stillness of abstracted thought He ask'd repose; and, failing oft to win The peace required, he scann'd the laws of light Amid the roar of torrents, where they send From hollow clefts up to the clearer air A cloud of mist, that smitten by the sun Varies its rainbow hues. But vainly thus, And vainly by all other means, he strove To mitigate the fever of his heart.
In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought, Thus was he rear'd; much wanting to assist The growth of intellect, yet gaining more, And every moral feeling of his soul Strengthen'd and braced, by breathing in content The keen, the wholesome air of poverty, And drinking from the well of homely life.— But, from past liberty, and tried restraints, He now was summon'd to select the course Of humble industry that promised best To yield him no unworthy maintenance. Urged by his mother, he essay'd to teach
Their manners, their enjoyments and pursuits, Their passions and their feelings; chiefly those Essential and eternal in the heart,
That, mid the simpler forms of rural life, Exist more simple in their elements, And speak a plainer language. In the woods, A lone enthusiast, and among the fields, Itinerant in this labour, he had pass'd The better portion of his time; and there Spontaneously had his affections thriven Amid the bounties of the year, the peace And liberty of nature; there he kept In solitude and solitary thought His mind in a just equipoise of love. Serene it was, unclouded by the cares Of ordinary life; unvex'd, unwarp'd By partial bondage. In his steady course, No piteous revolutions had he felt, No wild varieties of joy and grief. Unoccupied by sorrow of its own, His heart lay open; and, by nature tuned And constant disposition of his thoughts To sympathy with man, he was alive To all that was enjoy'd where'er he went, And all that was endured; for in himself Happy, and quiet in his cheerfulness, He had no painful pressure from without
A village school; but wandering thoughts were then That made him turn aside from wretchedness
A misery to him; and the youth resign'd
A task he was unable to perform.
That stern yet kindly spirit, who constrains The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks
The freeborn Swiss to leave his narrow vales, (Spirit attach'd to regions mountainous Like their own steadfast clouds,) did now impel His restless mind to look abroad with hope. An irksome drudgery seems it to plod on, Through hot and dusty ways, or pelting storm, A vagrant merchant bent beneath his load! Yet do such travellers find their own delight; And their hard service, deem'd debasing now, Gain'd merited respect in simpler times;
With coward fears. He could afford to suffer With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came That in our best experience he was rich, And in the wisdom of our daily life.
"We learn from Cæsar and other Roman writers, that the travelling merchants who frequented Gaul and other barbarous countries, either newly conquered by the Roman arms, or bordering on the Roman conquests, were ever the first to make the inhabitants of those countries familiarly acquainted with the Roman modes of life, and to inspire them with an inclination to follow the Roman fashions, and to enjoy Roman conveniencies. In North America, travelling merchants from the settlements have done and continue to do much more toward civilizing the Indian natives, than all the missionaries, Papist or Protestant,
When squire, and priest, and they who round them who have ever been sent among them. dwelt
In rustic sequestration-all dependent
Upon the pedlar's toil-supplied their wants, Or pleased their fancies with the wares he brought. Not ignorant was the youth that still no few Of his adventurous countrymen were led By perseverance in this track of life To competence and ease ;-for him it bore Attractions manifold;-and this he chose. His parents on the enterprise bestow'd Their farewell benediction, but with hearts Foreboding evil. From his native hills He wander'd far; much did he see of men,*
* At the risk of giving a shock to the prejudices of artificial society, I have ever been ready to pay homage to the aristocracy of nature; under a conviction that vigorous human-heartedness is the constituent principle of true taste. It may still, however, be satisfactory to have prose testimony how far a character, employed for purposes of imagination, is founded upon general fact. I, therefore, subjoin an extract from an author who had opportunities of being well acquainted with a class of men, from whom my own personal knowledge imboldened me to draw this portrait.
"It is farther to be observed, for the credit of this most useful class of men, that they commonly contribute, by their personal manners, no less than by the sale of their wares, to the refinement of the people among whom they
travel. Their dealings form them to great quickness of wit and acuteness of judgment. Having constant occasion to recommend themselves and their goods, they acquire habits of the most obliging attention and the most insinuating address. As in their peregrinations they have opportunity of contemplating the manners of various men and various cities, they become eminently skilled in the knowledge of the world. As they wander, each alone, through thinly-inhabited districts, they form habits of reflection and of sublime contemplation. With all these qualifications, no wonder, that they should often be, in remote parts of the country, the best mirrors of fashion, and censors of manners: and should contribute much to polish the roughness, and soften the rusticity of our pea. santry. It is not more than twenty or thirty years, since a young man going from any part of Scotland to England, of purpose to carry the pack, was considered, as going to lead the life, and acquire the fortune of a gentleman. When, after twenty years' absence, in that honourable line of employment, he returned with his acquisitions to his native country, he was regarded as a gentleman to all intents and purposes."-Heron's Journey in Scotland, vol. i. p. 89.
For hence, minutely, in his various rounds, He had observed the progress and decay Of many minds, of minds and bodies too The history of many families,
Upon that cottage bench reposed his limbs, Screen'd from the sun. Supine the wanderer lay, His eyes as if in drowsiness half shut, The shadows of the breezy elms above
How they had prosper'd; how they were o'er- Dappling his face. He had not heard the sound
By passion or mischance; or such misrule Among the unthinking masters of the earth
As makes the nations groan.-This active course He follow'd till provision for his wants Had been obtain'd;-the wanderer then resolved To pass the remnant of his days-untask'd With needless services-from hardship free. His calling laid aside, he lived at ease. But still he loved to pace the public roads And the wild paths; and by the summer's warmth Invited, often would he leave his home And journey far, revisiting the scenes That to his memory were most endear'd.- Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, undamp'd By worldly-mindedness or anxious care; Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refresh'd By knowledge gather'd up from day to day ;- Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.
The Scottish church, both on himself and those With whom from childhood he grew up, had held The strong hand of her purity; and still Had watch'd him with an unrelenting eye. This he remember'd in his riper age With gratitude, and reverential thoughts. But by the native vigour of his mind, By his habitual wanderings out of doors, By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works, Whate'er, in docile childhood or in youth, He had imbibed of fear or darker thought Was melted all away: so true was this, That sometimes his religion seem'd to me Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods; Who to the model of his own pure heart Shaped his belief as grace divine inspired, Or human reason dictated with awe. And surely never did there live on earth A man of kindlier nature. The rough sports And teasing ways of children vex'd not him ; Indulgent listener was he to the tongue Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale, To his fraternal sympathy address'd, Obtain reluctant hearing.
Plain his garb; Such as might suit a rustic sire, prepared For Sabbath duties; yet he was a man Whom no one could have pass'd without remark. Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs And his whole figure breathed intelligence. Time had compress'd the freshness of his cheek Into a narrower circle of deep red,
But had not tamed his eye; that, under brows Shaggy and gray, had meanings which it brought From years of youth; which, like a being made Of many beings, he had wondrous skill To blend with knowledge of the years to come, Human, or such as lie beyond the grave.
So was he framed; and such his course of life Who now, with no appendage but a staff, The prized memorial of relinquish'd toils,
Of my approaching steps, and in the shade Unnoticed did I stand, some minutes' space. At length I hail'd him, seeing that his hat Was moist with water-drops, as if the brim Had newly scoop'd a running stream. He rose, And ere our lively greeting into peace Had settled," "Tis," said I," a burning day: My lips are parch'd with thirst, but you, it seems, Have somewhere found relief." He, at the word, Pointing towards a sweet-brier, bade me climb The fence where that aspiring shrub look'd out Upon the public way. It was a plot
Of garden ground run wild, its matted weeds Mark'd with the steps of those, whom, as they
The gooseberry trees that shot in long lank slips, Or currants, hanging from their leafless stems In scanty strings, had tempted to o'erleap The broken wall. I look'd around, and there, Where too tall hedge-rows of thick alder boughs Join'd in a cold, damp nook, espied a well Shrouded with willow flowers and plumy fern. My thirst I slaked, and from the cheerless spot Withdrawing, straightway to the shade return'd Where sate the old man on the cottage bench; And, while beside him, with uncover'd head,
I yet was standing, freely to respire, And cool my temples in the fanning air, Thus did he speak. "I see around me here Things which you cannot see: we die, my friend, Nor we alone, but that which each man loved And prized in his peculiar nook of earth Dies with him, or is changed; and very soon Even of the good is no memorial left.— The poets, in their elegies and songs Lamenting the departed, call the groves, They call upon the hills and streams to mourn, And senseless rocks; nor idly; for they speak, In these their invocations, with a voice Obedient to the strong creative power Of human passion. Sympathies there are More tranquil, yet perhaps of kindred birth, That steal upon the meditative mind,
And grow with thought. Beside yon spring I stood, And eyed its waters till we seem'd to feel
One sadness, they and I. For them a bond
Of brotherhood is broken: time has been When, every day, the touch of human hand Dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up In mortal stillness; and they minister'd To human comfort. Stooping down to drink, Upon the slimy footstone I espied The useless fragment of a wooden bowl, Green with the moss of years, and subject only To the soft handling of the elements: There let the relic lie-fond thought-vain words : Forgive them ;-never-never did my steps Approach this door but she who dwelt within A daughter's welcome gave me, and I loved her As my own child. O, sir! the good die first, And they whose hearts are dry as summer dust
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