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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,

July 29, 1814.

THE EXCURSION.

ARGUMENT.

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.

BOOK FIRST.

THE WANDERER.

'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!

Thus inform'd

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

seen

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

he learn'd

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

thrown

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

pass'd,

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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