Of what was given me; and which now I range, A meditative, oft a suffering man
Do I declare-in accents which, from truth Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend Their modulation with these vocal streams - That, whatsoever falls my better mind, Revolving with the accidents of life, May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled, Never did I, in quest of right and wrong, Tamper with conscience from a private aim Nor was in any public hope the dupe Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits, But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy From every combination which might aid The tendency, too potent in itself,
Of use and custom to bow down the soul Under a growing weight of vulgar sense, And substitute a universe of death
For that which moves with light and life informed, Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love, To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends, Be this ascribed; to early intercourse, In presence of sublime or beautiful forms, With the adverse principles of pain and joy — Evil as one is rashly named by men
Who know not what they speak. By love subsists All lasting grandeur, by pervading love; That gone, we are as dust. Behold the fields In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb And the lamb's mother, and their tender ways Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this love, And not inaptly so, for love it is,
Far as it carries thee. In some green bower Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there The One who is thy choice of all the world: There linger, listening, gazing, with delight Impassioned, but delight how pitiable! Unless this love by a still higher love
Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe; Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer, By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul, Lifted, in union with the purest, best,
Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.
This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist Without Imagination, which, in truth, Is but another name for absolute power And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, And Reason in her most exalted mood. This faculty hath been the feeding source Of our long labour: we have traced the stream From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard Its natal murmur; followed it to light And open day; accompanied its course Among the ways of Nature, for a time Lost sight of it bewildered and ingulphed;
Then given it greeting as it rose once more In strength, reflecting from its placid breast The works of man and face of human life; And lastly, from its progress have we drawn Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought Of human Being, Eternity, and God.
Imagination having been our theme, So also hath that intellectual Love, For they are each in each, and cannot stand Dividually. Here must thou be, O Man! Power to thyself; no helper hast thou here; Here keepest thou in singleness thy state: No other can divide with thee this work: No secondary hand can intervene To fashion this ability; 'tis thine, The prime and vital principle is thine, In the recesses of thy nature, far From any reach of outward fellowship, Else is not thine at all. But joy to him, Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laid Here, the foundation of his future years! For all that friendship, all that love can do, All that a darling countenance can look Or dear voice utter, to complete the man, Perfect him, made imperfect in himself, All shall be his: and he whose soul hath risen Up to the height of feeling intellect Shall want no humbler tenderness; his heart Be tender as a nursing mother's heart; Of female softness shall his life be full, Of humble cares and delicate desires, Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.
Child of my parents! Sister of my soul! Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere Poured out for all the early tenderness Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true That later seasons owed to thee no less; For, spite of thy sweet influence and the touch Of kindred hands that opened out the springs Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite Of all that unassisted I had marked In life or nature of those charms minute That win their way into the heart by stealth (Still to the very going-out of youth),
I too exclusively esteemed that love, And sought that beauty, which, as Milton sings, Hath terror in it.* Thou didst soften down This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend! My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood In her original self too confident, Retained too long a countenance severe: A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds Familiar, and a favourite of the stars: But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers, Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze, And teach the little birds to build their nests
[* See Paradise Lost, Book IX., 490-1.-H. R.)
And warble in its chambers. At a time When Nature, destined to remain so long Foremost in my affections, had fallen back Into a second place, pleased to become A handmaid to a nobler than herself,
When every day brought with it some new sense Of exquisite regard for common things,
And all the earth was budding with these gifts Of more refined humanity, thy breath, Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring That went before my steps. Thereafter came One whom with thee friendship had early paired; She came, no more a phantom to adorn
A moment, but an inmate of the heart, And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined To penetrate the lofty and the low ;* Even as one essence of pervading light
Shines, in the brightest of ten thousand stars,
And, the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp Couched in the dewy grass.
With such a theme, Coleridge! with this my argument, of thee Shall I be silent? O capacious Soul! Placed on this earth to love and understand, And from thy presence shed the light of love, Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of? Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed Her overweening grasp; thus thoughts and things In the self-haunting spirit learned to take More rational proportions; mystery,
The incumbent mystery of sense and soul,
Of life and death, time and eternity,
Admitted more habitually a mild
Interposition a serene delight
In closelier gathering cares, such as become
A human creature, howsoe'er endowed,
Poet, or destined for a humbler name;
And so the deep enthusiastic joy,
The rapture of the hallelujah sent
Of building up a Work that shall endure. Yet much hath been omitted, as need was;
Of books how much! and even of the other wealth That is collected among woods and fields Far more: for Nature's secondary grace Hath hitherto been barely touched upon, The charm more superficial that attends Her works, as they present to Fancy's choice Apt illustrations of the moral world,
Caught at a glance, or traced with curious pains.
Finally, and above all, O Friend! (I speak With due regret) how much is overlooked In human nature and her subtle ways, As studied first in our own hearts, and then In life among the passions of mankind, Varying their composition and their hue, Where'er we move, under the diverse shapes That individual character presents
To an attentive eye. For progress meet, Along this intricate and difficult path, Whate'er was wanting, something had I gained, As one of many schoolfellows compelled, In hardy independence, to stand up Amid conflicting interests, and the shock Of various tempers; to endure and note What was not understood, though known to be; Among the mysteries of love and hate, Honour and shame, looking to right and left, Unchecked by innocence too delicate, And moral notions too intolerant,
Sympathies too contracted. Hence, when called To take a station among men, the step Was easier, the transition more secure, More profitable also; for, the mind Learns from such timely exercise to keep In wholesome separation the two natures, The one that feels, the other that observes.
Yet one word more of personal concern
From all that breathes and is, was chastened, stemmed, Since I withdrew unwillingly from France,
And balanced by pathetic truth, by trust
In hopeful reason, leaning on the stay
Of Providence; and in reverence for duty, Here, if need be, struggling with storms, and there Strewing in peace life's humblest ground with herbs, At every season green, sweet at all hours.
And now, O Friend! this history is brought
To its appointed close: the discipline And consummation of a Poet's mind, In every thing that stood most prominent, Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached The time (our guiding object from the first) When we may, not presumptuously, I hope, Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such My knowledge, as to make me capable
[* See ante, p. 166.-H. R.]
I led an undomestic wanderer's life,
In London chiefly harboured, whence I roamed, Tarrying at will in many a pleasant spot
Of rural England's cultivated vales
Or Cambrian solitudes. A youth - (he bore The name of Calvert- it shall live, if words Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief That by endowments not from me withheld Good might be furthered in his last decay By a bequest sufficient for my needs Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet Far less a common follower of the world, He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even A necessary maintenance insures, Without some hazard to the finer sense;
He cleared a passage for me, and the stream Flowed in the bent of Nature.*
Told what best merits mention, further pains Our present purpose seems not to require, And I have other tasks. Recall to mind The mood in which this labour was begun, O Friend! The termination of my course Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then, In that distraction and intense desire,
I said unto the life which I had lived,
Where art thou? Hear I not a voice from thee Which 'tis reproach to hear? Anon I rose As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched Vast prospect of the world which I had been And was; and hence this Song, which like a lark I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens Singing, and often with more plaintive voice To earth attempered and her deep-drawn sighs, Yet centring all in love, and in the end All gratulant, if rightly understood.
Whether to me shall be allotted life,
And, with life, power to accomplish aught of worth, That will be deemed no insufficient plea For having given the story of myself, Is all uncertain: but, beloved Friend! When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view Than any liveliest sight of yesterday, That summer, under whose indulgent skies, Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs, Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart, Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man, The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes Didst utter of the Lady Christabel;
And I, associate with such labour, steeped In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours, Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found, After the perils of his moonlight ride, Near the loud waterfall; or her who sat In misery near the miserable Thorn;
When thou dost to that summer turn thy thoughts, And hast before thee all which then we were, To thee, in memory of that happiness,
It will be known, by thee at least, my Friend!
[* See Sonnet "To the memory of Raisley Calvert,"
Felt that the history of a Poet's mind Is labour not unworthy of regard: To thee the work shall justify itself.
The last and later portions of this gift Have been prepared, not with the buoyant spirits That were our daily portion when we first Together wantoned in wild Poesy, But, under pressure of a private grief,† Keen and enduring, which the mind and heart, That in this meditative history
Have been laid open, needs must make me feel More deeply, yet enable me to bear More firmly; and a comfort now hath risen From hope that thou art near, and wilt be soon Restored to us in renovated health; When, after the first mingling of our tears, 'Mong other consolations, we may draw Some pleasure from this offering of my love.
Oh! yet a few short years of useful life, And all will be complete, thy race be run, Thy monument of glory will be raised; Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth) This age fall back to old idolatry, Though men return to servitude as fast As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame By nations sink together, we shall still Find solace - knowing what we have learnt to know, Rich in true happiness if allowed to be Faithful alike in forwarding a day Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work (Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe) Of their deliverance, surely yet to come. Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak A lasting inspiration, sanctified
By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved, Others will love, and we will teach them how; Instruct them how the mind of man becomes A thousand times more beautiful than the earth On which he dwells, above this frame of things (Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged) In beauty exalted, as it is itself
Of quality and fabric more divine.
[† See "Elegiac Verses in Memory of my Brother John Wordsworth," who perished by shipwreck, February 6.
1805; ante, p. 462.-H. R.]
WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K. G. &c. &c.
« AnkstesnisTęsti » |