William Wordsworth — The Two-Part Prelude 1798-9 Book 2

Book 2 Thus far my Friend, have we retraced the way Through which I traveled when I first began To love the woods and fields: the passion yet Was in its birth, sustained as might befall By nourishment that came unsought, for still From week to week, from month to month, we lived A round of tumult: duly were our games Prolonged in summer till the day-light failed; No chair remained before the doors, the bench And the threshold steps were empty, fast asleep [2.10] The labourer and the old man who had sat A later lingerer, yet the revelry Continued and the loud uproar: at last When all the ground was dark, and the huge clouds Were edged with twinkling stars, to bed we went With weary joints and with a beating mind. Ah! is there one who ever has been young And needs a monitory voice to tame The pride of virtue and of intellect, And is there one, the wisest and the best [2.20] Of all mankind, who does not sometimes wish For things which cannot be, who would not give, If so he might, to duty and to truth The eagerness of infantine desire? A tranquillizing spirit presses now On my corporeal frame, so wide appears The vacancy between me and those days Which yet have such self-presence in my heart That sometimes when I think of them I seem Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself [2.30] And of some other being. A grey stone Of native rock, left midway in the square Of our small market-village, was the home And centre of these joys, and when, returned After long absence, thither I repaired, I found that it was split and gone to build A smart assembly-room that perked and flared With wash and rough-cast, elbowing the ground Which had been ours. But let the fiddle scream And be ye happy! yet I know, my friends, [2.40] That more than one of you will think with me Of those soft starry nights and that old dame From whom the stone was named, who there had sat And watched her table with its huckster's wares, Assiduous, for the length of sixty years. We ran a boisterous race, the year span round With giddy motion. But the time approached That brought with it a regular desire For calmer pleasures, when the beauteous scenes Of nature were collaterally attached [2.50] To every scheme of holiday delilght And every boyish sport, less grateful else And languidly pursued. When summer came It was the pastime of our afternoons To beat along the plain of Windermere With rival oars; and the selected bourn Was now an island musical with birds That sang for ever, now a sister isle Beneath the oak's umbrageous covert sown [2.60] With lilies of the valley like a field, And now a third small island where remained An old stone table and one mouldered cave, A hermit's history. In such a race, So ended, disappointment could be none, Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy; We rested in the shade all pleased alike, Conquered and conqueror. Thus our selfishness Was mellowed down, and thus the pride of strength And the vain-glory of superior skill [2.70] Were interfused with objects which subdued And tempered them, and gradually produced A quiet independence of the heart. And to my Friend who knows me I may add, Unapprehensive of reproof that hence Ensued a diffidence and modesty, And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much, The self-sufficing power of solitude. No delicate viands sapped our bodily strength; More than we wished we knew the blessing then [2.80] Of vigorous hunger, for our daily meals Were frugal, Sabine fare! and then exclude A little weekly stipend, and we lived Through three divisions of the quartered year In penniless poverty. But now to school Returned from the half-yearly holidays, We came with purses more profusely filled, Allowance which abundantly sufficed To gratify the palate with repasts More costly than the Dame of whom I spake, [2.90] That ancient woman, and her board supplied, Hence inroads into distant vales, and long Excursions far away among the hills; Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground Or in the woods or by a river-side Or fountain, festive banquets that provoked The languid action of a natural scene By pleasure of corporeal appetite. Nor is my aim neglected if I tell How twice in the long length of those half-years [2.100] We from our funds perhaps with bolder hand Drew largely, anxious for one day at least To feel the motion of the galloping steed; And with the good old Innkeeper in truth I needs must say that sometimes we have used Sly subterfuge, for the intended bound Of the day's journey was too distant far For any cautious man, a Structure famed Beyond its neighborhood, the antique walls Of a large Abbey with its fractured arch, [2.110] Belfry, and images, and living trees, A holy scene! Along the smooth green turf Our horses grazed: in more than inland peace Left by the winds that overpass the vale In that sequestered ruin trees and towers Both silent, and both motionless alike, Hear all day long the murmuring sea that beats Incessantly upon a craggy shore. Our steeds remounted, and the summons given, With whip and spur we by the Chantry flew [2.120] In uncouth race, and left the cross-legged Knight And the stone Abbot, and that single wren Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave Of the old church that, though from recent showers The earth was comfortless, and touched by faint Internal breezes from the roofless walls The shuddering ivy dripped large drops, yet still So sweetly 'mid the gloom the invisible bird Sang to itself that there I could have made My dwelling-place, and lived for ever there [2.130] To hear such music. Through the walls we flew And down the valley, and, a circuit made In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth We scampered homeward. O ye rocks and streams And that still spirit of the evening air, Even in this joyous time I sometimes felt Your presence, when with slackened step we breathed Along the sides of the steep hills, or when, Lightened by gleams of moonlight from the sea, We beat the thundering hoofs the level sand. [2.140] There was a row of ancient trees, since fallen, That on the margin of a jutting land Stood near the lake of Coniston and made With its long boughs above the water stretched A gloom through which a boat might sail along As in a cloister. An old Hall was near, Grotesque and beautiful, its gavel end And huge round chimneys to the top o'ergrown With fields of ivy. Thither we repaired, 'Twas even a custom with us, to the shore [2.150] And to that cool piazza. They who dwelt In the neglected mansion-house supplied Fresh butter, tea-kettle, and earthen-ware, And chafing-dish with smoking coals, and so Beneath the trees we sat in our small boat And in the covert eat our delicate meal Upon the calm smooth lake. It was a joy Worthy the heart of one who is full grown To rest beneath those horizontal boughs And mark the radiance of the setting sun, [2.160] Himself unseen, reposing on the top Of the high eastern hills. And there I said, That beauteous sight before me, there I said (Then first beginning in my thoughts to mark That sense of dim similitude which links Our moral feelings with external forms) That in whatever region I should close My mortal life I would remember you, Fair scenes! that dying I would think on you, My soul would send a longing look to you: [2.170] Even as that setting sun while all the vale Could nowhere catch one faint memorial gleam Yet with the last remains of his last light Still lingered, and a farewell luster threw On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose. 'Twas then my fourteenth summer, and these words Were uttered in casual access Of sentiment, a momentary trance That far outran the habit of my mind. Upon the east [2.180] Above the crescent of a pleasant bay, There was an Inn, no homely-featured shed, Brother of the surrounding cottages, But 'twas a splendid place, the door beset With chaises, grooms, and liveries, and within Decanters, glasses, and the blood-red wine. In ancient times, or ere the Hall was built On the large island, had the dwelling been More worthy of a poet's love, a hut Proud of its one bright fire and sycamore shade. [2.190] But though the rhymes were gone which once inscribed The threshold, and large golden characters On the blue-frosted sign-board had usurped The place of the old Lion in contempt And mockery of the rustic painter's hand, Yet to this hour the spot to me is dear With all its foolish pomp. The garden lay Upon a slope surmounted by the plain Of a small bowling-green; beneath us stood A grove, with gleams of water through the trees [2.200] And over the tree-tops; nor did we want Refreshment, strawberries and mellow cream, And there through half an afternoon we played On the smooth platform, and the shouts we sent Made all the mountains ring. But ere the fall Of night, when in our pinnace we returned Over the dusky lake, and to the beach Of some small island steered our course with one, The minstrel of our troop, and left him there And rowed off gently while he blew his flute [2.210] Alone upon the rock – oh then the calm And dead still water lay upon my mind Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky, Never before so beautiful, sank down Into my heart and held me like a dream. Thus day by day my sympathies increased And thus the common range of visible things Grew dear to me: already I began To love the sun, a Boy I loved the sun Not, as I since have loved him, as a pledge [2.220] And surety of my earthly life, a light Which while I view I feel I am alive, But for this cause, that I had seen him lay His beauty on the morning hills, had seen The western mountain touch his setting orb In many a thoughtless hour, when from excess Of happiness my blood appeared to flow With its own pleasure and I breathed with joy. And from like feelings, humble though intense, To patriotic and domestic love [2.230] Analogous, the moon to me was dear, For I would dream away my purposes Standing to look upon her while she hung Midway between the hills as if she knew No other region but belonged to thee, Yea, appertained by a peculiar right To thee and thy grey huts, my native vale. Those incidental which were first attached My heart to rural objects day by day Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell [2.240] How nature, intervenient till this time And secondary, now at length was sought For her own sake. But who shall parcel out His intellect by geometric rules, Split like a province into round and square; Who knows the individual hour in which His habits were first sown, even as a seed; Who that shall point as with a wand and say, This portion of the river of my mind Came from yon fountain? Thou, my Friend, art one [2.250] More deeply read in thy own thoughts, no slave Of that false secondary power by which In weakness we create distinctions, then Believe our puny boundaries are things Which we perceive and not which we have made. To thee, unblended by these outward shows, The unity of all has been revealed And thou wilt doubt with me, less aptly skilled Than many are to class the cabinet Of their sensations and in voluble phrase [2.260] Run through the history and birth of each As of a single independent thing. Hard task to analyse a soul in which Not only general habits and desires But each most obvious and particular thoughts, Not in a mystical and idle sense But in the words of reason deeply weighed, Hath no beginning, Blessed be the infant Babe (For with my best conjectures I would trace [2.270] The progress of our being) blest the Babe Nursed in his Mother's arms, the Babe who sleeps Upon his Mother's breast, who when his soul Claims manifest kindred with an earthly soul Doth gather passion from his Mother's eye! Such feelings pass into his torpid life Like an awakening breeze, and hence his mind Even in the first trial of its powers Is prompt and watchful, eager to combine In one appearance all the elements [2.280] And parts of the same object, else detached And loath to coalesce. Thus day by day Subjected to the discipline of love His organs and recipient faculties Are quickened, are more vigorous, his mind spreads Tenacious of the forms which it receives. In one beloved presence, nay and more, And those sensations which have been derived From this beloved presence, there exists A virtue which irradiates and exalts [2.290] All objects through all intercourse of sense. No outcast he, bewildered and depressed: Along his infant veins are interfused The gravitation and the filial bond Of nature that connect him with the world. Emphatically such a being lives An inmate of this active universe; From nature largely he receives, nor so Is satisfied but largely gives again, For feeling has to him imparted strength, [2.300] And powerful in all sentiments of grief, Of exultation, fear and joy, his mind, Even as an agent of the one great mind, Creates, creator and receiver both, Working but in alliance with the works Which it beholds. Such verily is the first Poetic spirit of our human life, By uniform control of after years In most abated and suppressed, in some Through every change of growth or of decay [2.310] Preeminent till death. From early days, Beginning not long after that first time In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch I held mute dialogues with my Mother's heart, I have endeavoured to display the means Whereby this infant sensibility, Great birth-right of our being, was in me Augmented and sustained. Yet is a path [2.320] More difficult before me, and I fear That in its broken windings we shall need The Chamois sinews and the Eagle's wing: For now a trouble came into my mind From obscure causes. I was left alone Seeking this visible world, nor knowing why: The props of my affections were removed And yet the buildings stood as if sustained By its own spirit. All that I beheld Was dear to me, and from this cause it came [2.330] That now to Nature's finer influxes My mind lay open, to that more exact And intimate communion which our hearts Maintain with the minuter properties Of objects which already are beloved, And of those only. Many are the joys Of youth, but oh! What happiness to live When every hour brings palpable access Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight, And sorrow is not there. The seasons come [2.340] And every season brought a countless store Of modes and temporary qualities Which but for this most watchful power of love Had been neglected, left a register Of permanent relations, else unknown: Hence life, and change, and beauty, solitude More active even than "best society," Society made sweet as solitude By silent inobtrusive sympathies And gentle agitations of the mind [2.350] From manifold distinctions, difference Perceived in things where to the common eye No difference is: and hence from the same source Sublimer joy; for I would walk alone In storm and tempest or in starlight nights Beneath the quiet heavens, and at that time Would feel whate'er there is of power in sound To breathe an elevated mood by form Or image unprofaned: and I would stand Beneath some rock listening to sounds that are [2.360] The ghostly language of the ancient earth Or make their dim abode in distant winds. Thence did I drink the visionary power. I deem not profitless these fleeting moods Of shadowy exaltation, not for this, That they are kindred to our purer mind And intellectual life, but that the soul Remembering how she felt, but what she felt Remembering not, retains an obscure sense Of possible sublimity to which [2.370] With growing faculties she doth aspire, With faculties still growing, feeling still That whatsoever point they gain, they still Have something to pursue And not alone In grandeur and in tumult, but no less In tranquil scenes, that universal power And fitness in the latent qualities And essences of things, by which the mind Is moved with feelings of delight, to me [2.380] Came strengthened with the superadded soul, A virtue not its own. My morning walks Were early; oft before the hours of school I traveled round our little lake, five miles Of pleasant wandering, happy time more dear For this, that one was by my side, a Friend Then passionately loved; with heart how full Will he peruse these lines, this page, perhaps A blank to other men, for many years Have since flowed in between us, and, our minds [2.390] Both silent to each other, at this time We live as if those hours had never been. Nor seldom did I lift our cottage latch Far earlier, and before the vernal thrust Was audible, among the hills I sat Alone upon some jutting eminence At the first hour of morning when the vale Lay quiet in an utter solitude. How shall I trace the history, where seek The origin of what I then have felt? [2.400] Oft in those moments such a holy calm Did overspread my soul that I forgot The agency of sight, and what I saw Appeared like something in myself—a dream, A prospect in my mind. 'Twere long to tell What spring and autumn, what the winter-snows And what the summer-shade, what day and night, The evening and the morning, what my dreams And what my waking thoughts supplied, to nurse That spirit of religious love in which [2.410] I walked with nature. But let this at least Be not forgotten, that I still retained My first creative sensibility, That by the regular action of the world My soul was unsubdued. A plastic power Abode with me, a forming hand, at times Rebellious, acting in a devious mood, A local spirit of its own, at war With general tendency, but for the most Subservient strictly to the external things [2.420] With which it communed. An auxiliary light Came from my mind which on the setting sun Bestowed new splendor, the melodious birds, The gentle breezes, fountains that ran on Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed A like dominion, and the midnight storm Grew darker in the presence of my eye. Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence, And hence my transport. Nor should this perchance [2.430] Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved The exercise and produce of a toil Than analytic industry to me More pleasing, and whose character, I deem, Is more poetic, as resembling more Creative agency: I mean to speak Of that interminable building reared By observation of affinities In objects where no brotherhood exists To common minds. My seventeenth year was come, [2.440] And whether from this habit rooted now So deeply in my mind, or from excess Of the great social principle of life Coercing all things into sympathy, To unorganic natures I transferred My own enjoyments, or, the power of truth Coming in revelation, I conversed With things that really are. I at this time Saw Blessings Spread around me like a sea. Thus did my days pass on, and now at length [2.450] From Nature and her overflowing soul I had received so much that all my thoughts Were steeped in feelings; I was only then Contented when with bliss ineffable I felt the sentiment of being spread O'er all that moves, and all that seemeth still, O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought And human knowledge, to the human eye Invisible, yet liveth to the heart, [2.460] O'er all that leaps, and runs, and shouts and sings Or beats the gladsome air, o'er all that glides Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself And might depth of waters: wonder not If such my transports were, for in all things I saw one life and felt that it was joy. One song they sang, and it was audible, Most audible ten when the fleshy ear, O'ercome by grosser prelude of that strain, Forgot its functions, and slept undisturbed. [2.470] If this be error, and another faith Find easier access to the pious mind, Yet were I grossly destitute of all Those human sentiments which make this earth So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice To speak of you, ye mountains! and ye lakes And sounding cataracts! ye mists and winds That dwell among the hills where I was born. If, in my youth, I have been pure in heart, If, mingling with the world, I am content [2.480] With my own modest pleasures, and have lied With God and Nature communing, removed From little enmities and low desires, The gift is yours: if in these times of fear, This melancholy waste of hopes o'erthrown, If, 'mid indifference and apathy And wicked exultation, when good men On every side fall off we know not how To selfishness disguised in gentle names Of peace, and quiet, and domestic love, Yet mingled, not unwillingly, with sneers [2.490] On visionary minds, if in this time Of dereliction and dismay I yet Despair not of our nature, but retain A more than Roman confidence, a faith That fails not, in all sorrow my support, The blessing of my life, the gift is yours Ye Mountains! thine, O Nature! Thou hast fed My lofty speculations, and in thee For this uneasy heart of ours I find A never-failing principle of joy [2.500] And purest passion. Thou, my Friend, wast reared In the great city mid far other scenes, But we, by different roads, at length have gained The self-same bourne. And from this cause to thee I speak unapprehensive of contempt, The insinuated scoff of coward tongues, And all that silent language which so oft In conversation betwixt man and man Blots from the human countenance all trace [2.510] Of beauty and of love. For thou hast sought The truth in solitude, and thou art one, The most intense of Nature's worshippers, In many things my brother, chiefly here In this my deep devotion. Fare thee well! Health and the quiet of a healthful mind Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men But yet more often living with thyself And for thyself, so haply shall thy days [2.520] Be many and a blessing to mankind.