BOOK TWELFTH

Long time have human ignorance and guilt

Detained us, on what spectacles of woe

Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed

With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,

Confusion of the judgment, zeal decayed,

And, lastly, utter loss of hope itself

And things to hope for! Not with these began

Our song, and not with these our song must end.—

Ye motions of delight, that haunt the sides

Of the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs,

Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,

Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty race

How without injury to take, to give

Without offence ; ye who, as if to show

The wondrous influence of power gently used,

Bend the complying heads of lordly pines,

And, with a touch, shift the stupendous clouds

Through the whole compass of the sky; ye brooks,

Muttering along the stones, a busy noise

By day, a quiet sound in silent night;

Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forth

In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore,

Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm;

And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is

To interpose the covert of your shades,

Even as a sleep, between the heart of man

And outward troubles, between man himself,

Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart:

Oh! that I had a music and a voice

Harmonious as your own, that I might tell

What ye have done for me. The morning shines,

Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,—

I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice,

In common with the children of her love,

Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields,

Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven

On wings that navigate cerulean skies.

So neither were complacency, nor peace,

Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good

Through these distracted times; in Nature still

Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her,

Which, when the spirit of evil reached its height.

Maintained for me a secret happiness.

This narrative, my Friend! hath chiefly told

Of intellectual power, fostering love,

Dispensing truth, and, over men and things,

Where reason yet might hesitate, diffusing

Prophetic sympathies of genial faith:

So was I favoured — such my happy lot —

Until that natural graciousness of mind

Gave way to overpressure from the times

And their disastrous issues. What availed,

When spells forbade the voyager to land,

That fragrant notice of a pleasant shore

Wafted, at intervals, from many a bower

Of blissful gratitude and fearless love?

Dare I avow that wish was mine to see,

And hope that future times would surely see,

The man to come, parted, as by a gulph,

From him who had been; that I could no more

Trust the elevation which had made me one

With the great family that still survives

To illuminate the abyss of ages past,

Sage, warrior, patriot, hero; for it seemed

That their best virtues were not free from taint

Of something false and weak, that could not stand

The open eye of Reason. Then I said,

“Go to the Poets, they will speak to thee

More perfectly of purer creatures;— yet

If reason be nobility in man,

Can aught be more ignoble than the man

Whom they delight in, blinded as he is

By prejudice, the miserable slave

Of low ambition or distempered love?”

In such strange passion, if I may once more

Review the past, I warred against myself —

A bigot to a new idolatry —

Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world,

Zealously laboured to cut off my heart

From all the sources of her former strength;

And as, by simple waving of a wand,

The wizard instantaneously dissolves

Palace or grove, even so could I unsoul

As readily by syllogistic words

Those mysteries of being which have made,

And shall continue evermore to make,

Of the whole human race one brotherhood.

What wonder, then, if, to a mind so far

Perverted, even the visible Universe

Fell under the dominion of a taste

Less spiritual, with microscopic view

Was scanned, as I had scanned the moral world?

O Soul of Nature! excellent and fair!

That didst rejoice with me, with whom I, too,

Rejoiced through early youth, before the winds

And roaring waters, and in lights and shades

That marched and countermarched about the hills

In glorious apparition, Powers on whom

I daily waited, now all eye and now

All ear; but never long without the heart

Employed, and man's unfolding intellect:

O Soul of Nature! that, by laws divine

Sustained and governed, still dost overflow

With an impassioned life, what feeble ones

Walk on this earth! how feeble have I been

When thou wert in thy strength! Nor this through stroke

Of human suffering, such as justifies

Remissness and inaptitude of mind,

But through presumption; even in pleasure pleased

Unworthily, disliking here, and there

Liking; by rules of mimic art transferred

To things above all art; but more,— for this,

Although a strong infection of the age,

Was never much my habit — giving way

To a comparison of scene with scene,

Bent overmuch on superficial things,

Pampering myself with meagre novelties

Of colour and proportion; to the moods

Of time and season, to the moral power,

The affections and the spirit of the place,

Insensible. Nor only did the love

Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt

My deeper feelings, but another cause,

More subtle and less easily explained,

That almost seems inherent in the creature,

A twofold frame of body and of mind.

I speak in recollection of a time

When the bodily eye, in every stage of life

The most despotic of our senses, gained

Such strength in me as often held my mind

In absolute dominion. Gladly here,

Entering upon abstruser argument,

Could I endeavour to unfold the means

Which Nature studiously employs to thwart

This tyranny, summons all the senses each

To counteract the other, and themselves,

And makes them all, and the objects with which all

Are conversant, subservient in their turn

To the great ends of Liberty and Power.

But leave we this: enough that my delights

( Such as they were ) were sought insatiably.

Vivid the transport, vivid though not profound;

I roamed from hill to hill, from rock to rock,

Still craving combinations of new forms,

New pleasure, wider empire for the sight,

Proud of her own endowments, and rejoiced

To lay the inner faculties asleep.

Amid the turns and counterturns, the strife

And various trials of our complex being,

As we grow up, such thraldom of that sense

Seems hard to shun. And yet I knew a maid,

A young enthusiast, who escaped these bonds;

Her eye was not the mistress of her heart;

Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste,

Or barren intermeddling subtleties,

Perplex her mind; but, wise as women are

When genial circumstance hath favoured them,

She welcomed what was given, and craved no more;

Whate'er the scene presented to her view,

That was the best, to that she was attuned

By her benign simplicity of life,

And through a perfect happiness of soul,

Whose variegated feelings were in this

Sisters, that they were each some new delight.

Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field,

Could they have known her, would have loved; methought

Her very presence such a sweetness breathed,

That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,

And every thing she looked on, should have had

An intimation how she bore herself

Towards them and to all creatures. God delights

In such a being; for her common thoughts

Are piety, her life is gratitude.

Even like this maid, before I was called forth

From the retirement of my native hills,

I loved whate'er I saw: nor lightly loved,

But most intensely; never dreamt of aught

More grand, more fair, more exquisitely framed

Than those few nooks to which my happy feet

Were limited. I had not at that time

Lived long enough, nor in the least survived

The first diviner influence of this world,

As it appears to unaccustomed eyes.

Worshipping then among the depth of things,

As piety ordained; could I submit

To measured admiration, or to aught

That should preclude humility and love?

I felt, observed, and pondered; did not judge,

Yea, never thought of judging; with the gift

Of all this glory filled and satisfied.

And afterwards, when through the gorgeous Alps

Roaming, I carried with me the same heart:

In truth, the degradation — howsoe'er

Induced, effect, in whatsoe'er degree,

Of custom that prepares a partial scale

In which the little oft outweighs the great;

Or any other cause that hath been named;

Or lastly, aggravated by the times

And their impassioned sounds, which well might make

The milder minstrelsies of rural scenes

Inaudible — was transient; I had known

Too forcibly, too early in my life,

Visitings of imaginative power

For this to last: I shook the habit off

Entirely and for ever, and again

In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand,

A sensitive being, a creative soul.

There are in our existence spots of time,

That with distinct pre-eminence retain

A renovating virtue, whence, depressed

By false opinion and contentious thought,

Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,

In trivial occupations, and the round

Of ordinary intercourse, our minds

Are nourished and invisibly repaired;

A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,

That penetrates, enables us to mount,

When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.

This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks

Among those passages of life that give

Profoundest knowledge to what point, and how,

The mind is lord and master — outward sense

The obedient servant of her will. Such moments

Are scattered everywhere, taking their date

From our first childhood. I remember well,

That once, while yet my inexperienced hand

Could scarcely hold a bridle, with proud hopes

I mounted, and we journeyed towards the hills:

An ancient servant of my father's house

Was with me, my encourager and guide:

We had not travelled long, ere some mischance

Disjoined me from my comrade; and, through fear

Dismounting, down the rough and stony moor

I led my horse, and, stumbling on, at length

Came to a bottom, where in former times

A murderer had been hung in iron chains.

The gibbet-mast had mouldered down, the bones

And iron case were gone; but on the turf,

Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,

Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name.

The monumental letters were inscribed

In times long past; but still, from year to year,

By superstition of the neighbourhood,

The grass is cleared away, and to this hour

The characters are fresh and visible:

A casual glance had shown them, and I fled,

Faltering and faint, and ignorant of the road:

Then, reascending the bare common, saw

A naked pool that lay beneath the hills,

The beacon on the summit, and, more near,

A girl, who bore a pitcher on her head,

And seemed with difficult steps to force her way

Against the blowing wind. It was, in truth,

An ordinary sight; but I should need

Colours and words that are unknown to man,

To paint the visionary dreariness

Which, while I looked all round for my lost guide,

Invested moorland waste, and naked pool,

The beacon crowning the lone eminence,

The female and her garments vexed and tossed

By the strong wind. When, in the blessed hours

Of early love, the loved one at my side,

I roamed, in daily presence of this scene,

Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,

And on the melancholy beacon, fell

A spirit of pleasure and youth's golden gleam;

And think ye not with radiance more sublime

For these remembrances, and for the power

They had left behind? So feeling comes in aid

Of feeling, and diversity of strength

Attends us, if but once we have been strong.

Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth

Proceed thy honours. I am lost, but see

In simple childhood something of the base

On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,

That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,

Else never canst receive. The days gone by

Return upon me almost from the dawn

Of life: the hiding-places of man's power

Open; I would approach them, but they close.

I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,

May scarcely see at all; and I would give,

While yet we may, as far as words can give,

Substance and life to what I feel, enshrining,

Such is my hope, the spirit of the Past

For future restoration.— Yet another

Of these memorials;—

One Christmas-time,

On the glad eve of its dear holidays,

Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth

Into the fields, impatient for the sight

Of those led palfreys that should bear us home;

My brothers and myself. There rose a crag,

That, from the meeting-point of two highways

Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched;

Thither, uncertain on which road to fix

My expectation, thither I repaired,

Scout-like, and gained the summit;‘ twas a day

Tempestuous, dark, and wild, and on the grass

I sate half-sheltered by a naked wall;

Upon my right hand couched a single sheep,

Upon my left a blasted hawthorn stood;

With those companions at my side, I watched,

Straining my eyes intensely, as the mist

Gave intermitting prospect of the copse

And plain beneath. Ere we to school returned,—

That dreary time,— ere we had been ten days

Sojourners in my father's house, he died,

And I and my three brothers, orphans then,

Followed his body to the grave. The event,

With all the sorrow that it brought, appeared

A chastisement; and when I called to mind

That day so lately past, when from the crag

I looked in such anxiety of hope;

With trite reflections of morality,

Yet in the deepest passion, I bowed low

To God, Who thus corrected my desires;

And, afterwards, the wind and sleety rain,

And all the business of the elements,

The single sheep, and the one blasted tree,

And the bleak music from that old stone wall,

The noise of wood and water, and the mist

That on the line of each of those two roads

Advanced in such indisputable shapes;

All these were kindred spectacles and sounds

To which I oft repaired, and thence would drink,

As at a fountain; and on winter nights,

Down to this very time, when storm and rain

Beat on my roof, or, haply, at noon-day,

While in a grove I walk, whose lofty trees,

Laden with summer's thickest foliage, rock

In a strong wind, some working of the spirit,

Some inward agitations thence are brought,

Whate'er their office, whether to beguile

Thoughts over busy in the course they took,

Or animate an hour of vacant ease.