To his stepfather's school, that stood alone,
Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge,
Far from the sight 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,
Had he 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
(Vigorous in native genius as he was)
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 recognize
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!
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.
From early childhood, even as hath been said,
From his sixth year, he had been sent abroad
In summer to tend herds: such was his task
Thenceforward till the later day of youth.
O then what soul was his, when, on the tops
Of the high mountains, 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
The 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.
Oh! then how beautiful, how bright, appear'd
The written Promise; He had early learn'd
To reverence the Volume which displays
The mystery-the life which cannot die :
But in the mountains did he feel his faith;
There did he see the writing all things 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 many a calmer hour 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 which 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 stepfather 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
With blind endeavours, in that lonesome life,
Thus thirsting daily? Yet still uppermost
Nature was at his heart as if he felt-
Though yet he knew not how-a wasting power
In all things which from her sweet influence
Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hucs
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 th' altitude of some tall 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 an 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 I have heard him say
That often, failing at this time to gain
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, which in the sunshine frames
A lasting tablet-for the observer's eye
Varying 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, even from childhood upward, was he rear'd:
For intellectual progress wanting much,
Doubtless, of needful help-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 so unworthy maintenance.
The mother strove to make her son perceive
With what advantage he might teach a school
In the adjoining village; but the youth,
Who of this service made a short essay,
Found that the wanderings of his thoughts were then A misery to him; that he must resign
A task he was unable to perform.
That stern yet kindly spirit who constrains The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks,
The free-born 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 dusty ways, in storm, from door to door,
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,
When squire, and priest, and they who round 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; to him it bore
Attractions manifold-and this he chose.
He ask'd his mother's blessing; and with tears
Thanking his second father, ask'd from him
Paternal blessings. The good pair bestow'd
Their farewell benediction, but with hearts
Foreboding evil. From his native hills
He wander'd far: much did he see of men,
Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits,
Their passions, and their feelings; chiefly those
Essential and eternal in the heart,
Which '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
Upon the bounties of the year, and felt
The 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
That made him turn aside from wretchedness
With coward fears. He could afford to sufier
With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came
That in our best experience he was rich,
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