(08) Book Eighth - Retrospect: Love of Nature Leading to Love of Mankind

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Created: 2011-09-07 13:08
Collection: Wordsworth's Prelude of 1805
Publisher: University of Cambridge
Copyright: Faculty of English
Language: eng (English)
Keywords: wordsworth; prelude; 1805; gorji;
Credits:
Performer:  Laurie Martin
Performer:  James Coghill
Performer:  Rhian Lewis
Performer:  Phoebe Kemp
Performer:  Robbie Stern
Performer:  Holly Maguire
Performer:  Joe Ashmore
Performer:  Harry Baker
Performer:  Mina Gorji
Transcript
Transcript:
Book Eighth Retrospect: Love of
Nature Leading to Love of Mankind

WHAT sounds are those, Helvellyn, which are heard
Up to thy summit, through the depth of air
Ascending as if distance had the power
To make the sounds more audible? What crowd
Is yon, assembled in the gay green field? 5
Crowd seems it, solitary hill, to thee,
Though but a little family of men—
Twice twenty—with their children and their wives,
And here and there a stranger interspersed.
It is a summer festival, a fair, 10
Such as—on this side now, and now on that,
Repeated through his tributary vales—
Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest
Sees annually, if storms be not abroad
And mists have left him an unshrouded head. 15
Delightful day it is for all who dwell
In this secluded glen, and eagerly
They give it welcome. Long ere heat of noon,
Behold the cattle are driven down; the sheep
That have for traffic been culled out are penned 20
In cotes that stand together on the plain
Ranged side by side; the chaffering is begun;
The heifer lows uneasy at the voice
Of a new master; bleat the flocks aloud.
Booths are there none: a stall or two is here, 25
A lame man, or a blind (the one to beg,

The other to make music); hither too
From far, with basket slung upon her arm
Of hawker's wares—books, pictures, combs, and pins—
Some aged woman finds her way again, 30
Year after year a punctual visitant;
The showman with his freight upon his back,
And once perchance in lapse of many years,
Prouder itinerant—mountebank, or he
Whose wonders in a covered wain lie hid. 35
But one is here, the loveliest of them all,
Some sweet lass of the valley, looking out
For gains—and who that sees her would not buy?
Fruits of her father's orchard, apples, pears
(On that day only to such office stooping), 40
She carries in her basket, and walks round
Among the crowd, half pleased with, half ashamed
Of her new calling, blushing restlessly.
The children now are rich, the old man now
Is generous, so gaiety prevails 45
Which all partake of, young and old.

Immense
Is the recess, the circumambient world
Magnificent, by which they are embraced.
They move about upon the soft green field; 50
How little they, they and their doings, seem,
Their herds and flocks about them, they themselves,
And all which they can further or obstruct—
Through utter weakness pitiably dear,
As tender infants are—and yet how great, 55
For all things serve them: them the morning light
Loves as it glistens on the silent rocks,
And them the silent rocks, which now from high
Look down upon them, the reposing clouds,
The lurking brooks from their invisible haunts, 60
And old Helvellyn, conscious of the stir,
And the blue sky that roofs their calm abode.

With deep devotion, Nature, did I feel
In that great city what I owed to thee:
High thoughts of God and man, and love of man, 65
Triumphant over all those loathsome sights
Of wretchedness and vice, a watchful eye,
Which, with the outside of our human life
Not satisfied, must read the inner mind.
For I already had been taught to love 70
My fellow-beings, to such habits trained
Among the woods and mountains, where I found
In thee a gracious guide to lead me forth
Beyond the bosom of my family,
My friends and youthful playmates.

'Twas thy power 75
That raised the first complacency in me,
And noticeable kindliness of heart,
Love human to the creature in himself
As he appeared, a stranger in my path,
Before my eyes a brother of this world— 80
Thou first didst with those motions of delight
Inspire me. I remember, far from home
Once having strayed while yet a very child,
I saw a sight—and with what joy and love!
It was a day of exhalations spread 85
Upon the mountains, mists and steam-like fogs
Redounding everywhere, not vehement,
But calm and mild, gentle and beautiful,
With gleams of sunshine on the eyelet spots
And loopholes of the hills, wherever seen, 90
Hidden by quiet process, and as soon
Unfolded, to be huddled up again—
Along a narrow valley and profound
I journeyed, when aloft above my head,
Emerging from the silvery vapours, lo, 95
A shepherd and his dog, in open day.
Girt round with mists they stood, and looked about
From that enclosure small, inhabitants
Of an ae¨rial island floating on,
As seemed, with that abode in which they were, 100
A little pendant area of grey rocks,

By the soft wind breathed forward. With delight
As bland almost, one evening I beheld—
And at as early age (the spectacle
Is common, but by me was then first seen)— 105
A shepherd in the bottom of a vale,
Towards the centre standing, who with voice,
And hand waved to and fro as need required,
Gave signal to his dog, thus teaching him
To chace along the mazes of steep crags 110
The flock he could not see. And so the brute—
Dear creature—with a man's intelligence,
Advancing, or retreating on his steps,
Through every pervious strait, to right or left,
Thridded a way unbaffled, while the flock 115
Fled upwards from the terror of his bark
Through rocks and seams of turf with liquid gold
Irradiate—that deep farewell light by which
The setting sun proclaims the love he bears
To mountain regions. 120

Beauteous the domain
Where to the sense of beauty first my heart
Was opened—tract more exquisitely fair
Than in that paradise of ten thousand trees,
Or Gehol's famous gardens, in a clime 125
Chosenfrom widest empire, for delight Of the
Tartarian dynasty composed
Beyond that mighty wall, not fabulous
(China's stupendous mound!) by patient skill
Of myriads, and boon Nature's lavish help: 130
Scene linked to scene, and ever-growing change,
Soft, grand, or gay, with palaces and domes
Of pleasure spangled over, shady dells
For eastern monasteries, sunny mounds
With temples crested, bridges, gondolas, 135
Rocks, dens and groves of foliage, taught to melt
Into each other their obsequious hues—

Going and gone again, in subtile chace,
Too fine to be pursued—or standing forth
In no discordant opposition, strong 140
And gorgeous as the colours side by side
Bedded among the plumes of tropic birds;
And mountains over all, embracing all,
And all the landscape endlessly enriched
With waters running, falling, or asleep. 145
But lovelier far than this the paradise
Where I was reared, in Nature's primitive gifts
Favored no less, and more to every sense
Delicious, seeing that the sun and sky,
The elements, and seasons in their change, 150
Do find their dearest fellow-labourer there
The heart of man—a district on all sides
The fragrance breathing of humanity,
Man free, man working for himself, with choice
Of time, and place, and object; by his wants, 155
His comforts, native occupations, cares,
Conducted on to individual ends
Or social, and still followed by a train,
Unwooed, unthought-of even: simplicity,
And beauty, and inevitable grace. 160

Yea, doubtless, at any age when but a glimpse
Of those resplendent gardens, with their frame
Imperial, and elaborate ornaments,
Would to a child be transport over-great,
When but a half-hour's roam through such a place 165
Would leave behind a dance of images
That shall break in upon his sleep for weeks,
Even then the common haunts of the green earth
With the ordinary human interests
Which they embosom—all without regard 170
As both may seem—are fastening on the heart
Insensibly, each with the other's help,
So that we love, not knowing that we love,
And feel, not knowing whence our feeling comes.

Such league have these two principles of joy 175
In our affections. I have singled out
Some moments, the earliest that I could, in which
Their several currents, blended into one—
Weak yet, and gathering imperceptibly—
Flowed in by gushes. My first human love, 180
As hath been mentioned, did incline to those
Whose occupations and concerns were most
Illustrated by Nature, and adorned,
And shepherds were the men who pleased me first:
Not such as, in Arcadian fastnesses 185
Sequestered, handed down among themselves,
So ancient poets sing, the golden age;
Nor such—a second race, allied to these—
As Shakespeare in the wood of Arden placed,
Where Phoebe sighed for the false Ganymede, 190
Or there where Florizel and Perdita
Together dance, Queen of the feast and King;
Nor such as Spenser fabled. True it is
That I had heard, what he perhaps had seen,
Of maids at sunrise bringing in from far 195
Their May-bush, and along the streets in flocks
Parading, with a song of taunting rhymes
Aimed at the laggards slumbering within doors—
Had also heard, from those who yet remembered,
Tales of the maypole dance, and flowers that decked 200
The posts and the kirk-pillars, and of youths,
That each one with his maid at break of day,
By annual custom, issued forth in troops
To drink the waters of some favorite well,
And hang it round with garlands. This, alas, 205
Was but a dream: the times had scattered all
These lighter graces, and the rural ways
And manners which it was my chance to see
In childhood were severe and unadorned,
The unluxuriant produce of a life 210
Intent on little but substantial needs,
Yet beautiful—and beauty that was felt.

But images of danger and distress
And suffering, these took deepest hold of me,
Man suffering among awful powers and forms: 215
Of this I heard and saw enough to make
The imagination restless—nor was free
Myself from frequent perils. Nor were tales
Wanting, the tragedies of former times,
Or hazards and escapes, which in my walks 220
I carried with me among crags and woods
And mountains; and of these may here be told
One as recorded by my household dame.

'At the first falling of autumnal snows
A shepherd and his son one day went forth', 225
Thus did the matron's tale begin, 'to seek
A straggler of their flock. They both had ranged
Upon this service the preceding day
All over their own pastures and beyond,
And now, at sunrise sallying out again, 230
Renewed their search, begun where from
Dove Crag— Ill home for bird so gentle—they looked down
On Deepdale Head, and Brothers Water (named
From those two brothers that were drowned therein)
Thence, northward, having passed by Arthur's Seat, 235
To Fairfield's highest summit. On the right
Leaving St Sunday's Pike, to Grisedale Tarn
They shot, and over that cloud-loving hill,
Seat Sandal—a fond lover of the clouds—
Thence up Helvellyn, a superior mount 240
With prospect underneath of Striding Edge
And Grisedale's houseless vale, along the brink
Of Russet Cove, and those two other coves,
Huge skeletons of crags, which from the trunk
Of old Helvellyn spread their arms abroad 245
And make a stormy harbour for the winds.
Far went those shepherds in their devious quest,
From mountain ridges peeping as they passed
Down into every glen; at length the boy

Said, "Father, with your leave I will go back, 250
And range the ground which we have searched before."
So speaking, southward down the hill the lad
Sprang like a gust of wind, crying aloud,
"I know where I shall find him." 'For take note',
Said here my grey-haired dame, 'that though the storm 255
Drive one of these poor creatures miles and miles,
If he can crawl he will return again
To his own hills, the spots where when a lamb
He learnt to pasture at his mother's side.
After so long a labour suddenly 260
Bethinking him of this, the boy
Pursued his way towards a brook whose course
Was through that unfenced tract of mountain ground
Which to his father's little farm belonged,
The home and ancient birthright of their flock. 265
Down the deep channel of the stream he went,
Prying through every nook. Meanwhile the rain
Began to fall upon the mountain tops,
Thick storm and heavy which for three hours' space
Abated not, and all that time the boy 270
Was busy in his search, until at length
He spied the sheep upon a plot of grass,
An island in the brook. It was a place
Remote and deep, piled round with rocks, where foot
Of man or beast was seldom used to tread; 275
But now, when everywhere the summer grass
Had failed, this one adventurer, hunger-pressed,
Had left his fellows, and made his way alone
To the green plot of pasture in the brook.
Before the boy knew well what he had seen, 280
He leapt upon the island with proud heart
And with a prophet's joy. Immediately
The sheep sprang forward to the further shore
And was borne headlong by the roaring flood—
At this the boy looked round him, and his heart 285
Fainted with fear. Thrice did he turn his face
To either brink, nor could he summon up

The courage that was needful to leap back
Cross the tempestuous torrent: so he stood,
A prisoner on the island, not without 290
More than one thought of death and his last hour.
Meanwhile the father had returned alone
To his own house; and now at the approach
Of evening he went forth to meet his son,
Conjecturing vainly for what cause the boy 295
Had stayed so long. The shepherd took his way
Up his own mountain grounds, where, as he walked
Along the steep that overhung the brook
He seemed to hear a voice, which was again
Repeated, like the whistling of a kite. 300
At this, now knowing why, as oftentimes
Long afterwards he has been heard to say,
Down to the brook he went, and tracked its course
Upwards among the o'erhanging rocks—nor thus
Had he gone far, ere he espied the boy, 305
Where on that little plot of ground he stood
Right in the middle of the roaring stream,
Now stronger every moment and more fierce.
The sight was such as no one could have seen
Without distress and fear. The shepherd heard 310
The outcry of his son, he stretched his staff
Towards him, bade him leap—which word scarce said,
The boy was safe within his father's arms.'

Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,
Long springs and tepid winters on the banks 315
Of delicate Galesus—and no less
Those scattered along Adria's myrtle shores—
Smooth life the herdman and his snow-white herd,
To triumphs and to sacrificial rites
Devoted, on the inviolable stream 320
Of rich Clitumnus; and the goatherd lived
As sweetly underneath the pleasant brows
Of cool Lucretilis, where the pipe was heard
Of Pan, the invisible God, thrilling the rocks

With tutelary music, from all harm 325
The fold protecting. I myself, mature
In manhood then, have seen a pastoral tract
Like one of these, where fancy might run wild,
Though under skies less generous and serene;
Yet there, as for herself, had Nature framed 330
A pleasure-ground, diffused a fair expanse
Of level pasture, islanded with groves
And banked with woody risings—but the plain
Endless, here opening widely out, and there
Shut up in lesser lakes or beds of lawn 335
And intricate recesses, creek or bay
Sheltered within a shelter, where at large
The shepherd strays, a rolling hut his home:
Thither he comes with springtime, there abides
All summer, and at sunrise ye may hear 340
His flute or flagelet resounding far.
There's not a nook or hold of that vast space,
Nor strait where passage is, but it shall have
In turn its visitant, telling there his hours
In unlaborious pleasure, with no task 345
More toilsome than to carve a beechen bowl
For spring or fountain, which the traveller finds
When through the region he pursues at will
His devious course.

A glimpse of such sweet life 350
I saw when, from the melancholy walls
Of Goslar, once imperial, I renewed
My daily walk along that chearful plain,
Which, reaching to her gates, spreads east and west
And northwards, from beneath the mountainous verge 355
Of the Hercynian forest. Yet hail to you,
Your rocks and precipices, ye that seize
The heart with firmer grasp, your snows and streams
Ungovernable, and your terrifying winds,
That howled so dismally when I have been 360
Companionless among your solitudes!

There, 'tis the shepherd's task the winter long
To wait upon the storms: of their approach
Sagacious, from the height he drives his flock
Down into sheltering coves, and feeds them there 365
Through the hard time, long as the storm is 'locked'
(So do they phrase it), bearing from the stalls
A toilsome burthen up the craggy ways
To strew it on the snow. And when the spring
Looks out, and all the mountains dance with lambs, 370
He through the enclosures won from the steep waste,
And through the lower heights hath gone his rounds;
And when the flock with warmer weather climbs
Higher and higher, him his office leads
To range among them through the hills dispersed, 375
And watch their goings, whatsoever track
Each wanderer chuses for itself—a work
That lasts the summer through. He quits his home
At dayspring, and no sooner doth the sun
Begin to strike him with a fire-like heat, 380
Than he lies down upon some shining place,
And breakfasts with his dog. When he hath stayed—
As for the most he doth—beyond this time,
He springs up with a bound, and then away!
Ascending fast with his long pole in hand, 385
Or winding in and out among the crags.
What need to follow him through what he does
Or sees in his day's march? He feels himself
In those vast regions where his service is
A freeman, wedded to his life of hope 390
And hazard, and hard labour interchanged
With that majestic indolence so dear
To native man.

A rambling schoolboy, thus
Have I beheld him; without knowing why, 395
Have felt his presence in his own domain
As of a lord and master, or a power,
Or genius, under Nature, under God,
Presiding—and severest solitude
Seemed more commanding oft when he was there. 400
Seeking the raven's nest and suddenly
Surprized with vapours, or on rainy days
When I have angled up the lonely brooks,
Mine eyes have glanced upon him, few steps off,
In size a giant, stalking through the fog, 405
His sheep like Greenland bears. At other times,
When round some shady promontory turning,
His form hath flashed upon me glorified
By the deep radiance of the setting sun;
Or him have I descried in distant sky, 410
A solitary object and sublime,
Above all height, like an ae¨rial cross,
As it is stationed on some spiry rock
Of the Chartreuse, for worship. Thus was man
Ennobled outwardly before mine eyes, 415
And thus my heart at first was introduced
To an unconscious love and reverence
Of human nature; hence the human form
To me was like an index of delight,
Of grace and honour, power and worthiness. 420
Meanwhile, this creature—spiritual almost
As those of books, but more exalted far,
Far more of an imaginative form—
Was not a Corin of the groves, who lives
For his own fancies, or to dance by the hour 425
In coronal, with Phyllis in the midst,
But, for the purpose of kind, a man
With the most common—husband, father—learned,
Could teach, admonish, suffered with the rest
From vice and folly, wretchedness and fear. 430
Of this I little saw, cared less for it,
But something must have felt.

Call ye these appearances
Which I beheld of shepherds in my youth,
This sanctity of Nature given to man, 435

A shadow, a delusion?—ye who are fed
By the dead letter, not the spirit of things,
Whose truth is not a motion or a shape
Instinct with vital functions, but a block
Or waxen image which yourselves have made, 440
And ye adore. But blesse`d be the God
Of Nature and of man that this was so,
That men did at the first present themselves
Before my untaught eyes thus purified,
Removed, and at a distance that was fit. 445
And so we all of us in some degree
Are led to knowledge, whencesoever led,
And howsoever—were it otherwise,
And we found evil fast as we find good
In our first years, or think that it is found, 450
How could the innocent heart bear up and live?
But doubly fortunate my lot: not here
Alone, that something of a better life
Perhaps was round me than it is the privilege
Of most to move in, but that first I looked 455
At man through objects that were great and fair,
First communed with him by their help. And thus
Was founded a sure safeguard and defence
Against the weight of meanness, selfish cares,
Coarse manners, vulgar passions, that beat in 460
On all sides from the ordinary world
In which we traffic. Starting from this point,
I had my face towards the truth, began
With an advantage, furnished with that kind
Of prepossession without which the soul 465
Receives no knowledge that can bring forth good—
No genuine insight ever comes to her—
Happy in this, that I with Nature walked,
Not having a too early intercourse
With the deformities of crowded life, 470
And those ensuing laughters and contempts
Self-pleasing, which if we would wish to think
With admiration and respect of man

Will not permit us, but pursue the mind
That to devotion willingly would be raised, 475
Into the temple of the temple's heart.

Yet do not deem, my friend, though thus I speak
Of man as having taken in my mind
A place thus early which might almost seem
Preeminent, that this was really so. 480
Nature herself was at this unripe time
But secondary to my own pursuits
And animal activities, and all
Their trivial pleasures. And long afterwards
When those had died away, and Nature did 485
For her own sake become my joy, even then,
And upwards through late youth until not less
Than three-and-twenty summers had been told,
Was man in my affections and regards
Subordinate to her, her awful forms 490
And viewless agencies—a passion, she,
A rapture often, and immediate joy
Ever at hand; he distant, but a grace
Occasional, and accidental thought,
His hour being not yet come. Far less had then 495
The inferior creatures, beast or bird, attuned
My spirit to that gentleness of love,
Won from me those minute obeisances
Of tenderness which I may number now
With my first blessings. Nevertheless, on these 500
The light of beauty did not fall in vain,
Or grandeur circumfuse them to no end.

Why should I speak of tillers of the soil?—
The ploughman and his team; or men and boys
In festive summer busy with the rake, 505
Old men and ruddy maids, and little ones
All out together, and in sun and shade
Dispersed among the hay-grounds alder-fringed;
The quarryman, far heard, that blasts the rock;

The fishermen in pairs, the one to row, 510
And one to drop the net, plying their trade
''Mid tossing lakes and tumbling boats' and winds
Whistling; the miner, melancholy man,
That works by taper-light, while all the hills
Are shining with the glory of the day. 515

But when that first poetic faculty
Of plain imagination and severe—
No longer a mute influence of the soul,
An element of the nature's inner self—
Began to have some promptings to put on 520
A visible shape, and to the works of art,
The notions and the images of books,
Did knowingly conform itself (by these
Enflamed, and proud of that her new delight),
There came among these shapes of human life 525
A wilfulness of fancy and conceit
Which gave them new importance to the mind—
And Nature and her objects beautified
These fictions, as, in some sort, in their turn
They banished her. From touch of this new power 530
Nothing was safe: the elder-tree that grew
Beside the well-known charnel-house had then
A dismal look, the yew-tree had its ghost
That took its station there for ornament.
Then common death was none, common mishap, 535
But matter for this humour everywhere,
The tragic super-tragic, else left short.
Then, if a widow staggering with the blow
Of her distress was known to have made her way
To the cold grave in which her husband slept, 540
One night, or haply more than one—through pain
Or half-insensate impotence of mind—
The fact was caught at greedily, and there
She was a visitant the whole year through,
Wetting the turf with never-ending tears, 545
And all the storms of heaven must beat on her.

Through wild obliquities could I pursue
Among all objects of the fields and groves
These cravings: when the foxglove, one by one,
Upwards through every stage of its tall stem 550
Had shed its bells, and stood by the wayside
Dismantled, with a single one perhaps
Left at the ladder's top, with which the plant
Appeared to stoop, as slender blades of grass
Tipped with a bead of rain or dew, behold, 555
If such a sight were seen, would fancy bring
Some vagrant thither with her babes and seat her
Upon the turf beneath the stately flower,
Drooping in sympathy and making so
A melancholy crest above the head 560
Of the lorn creature, while her little ones,
All unconcerned with her unhappy plight,
Were sporting with the purple cups that lay
Scattered upon the ground. There was a copse,
An upright bank of wood and woody rock 565
That opposite our rural dwelling stood,
In which a sparkling patch of diamond light
Was in bright weather duly to be seen
On summer afternoons, within the wood
At the same place. 'Twas doubtless nothing more 570
Than a black rock, which, wet with constant springs,
Glistered far seen from out its lurking-place
As soon as ever the declining sun
Had smitten it. Beside our cottage hearth
Sitting with open door, a hundred times 575
Upon this lustre have I gazed, that seemed
To have some meaning which I could not find—
And now it was a burnished shield, I fancied,
Suspended over a knight's tomb, who lay
Inglorious, buried in the dusky wood; 580
An entrance now into some magic cave,
Or palace for a fairy of the rock.
Nor would I, though not certain whence the cause
Of the effulgence, thither have repaired

Without a precious bribe, and day by day 585
And month by month I saw the spectacle,
Nor ever once have visited the spot
Unto this hour. Thus sometimes were the shapes
Of wilful fancy grafted upon feelings
Of the imagination, and they rose 590
In worth accordingly.

My present theme
Is to retrace the way that led me on
Through Nature to the love of human-kind;
Nor could I with such object overlook 595
The influence of this power which turned itself
Instinctively to human passions, things
Least understood—,of this adulterate power,
For so it may be called, and without wrong,
When with that first compared. Yet in the midst 600
Of these vagaries, with an eye so rich
As mine was—through the chance, on me not wasted,
Of having been brought up in such a grand
And lovely region—I had forms distinct
To steady me. These thoughts did oft revolve 605
About some centre palpable, which at once
Incited them to motion, and controlled,
And whatsoever shape the fit might take,
And whencesoever it might come, I still
At all times had a real solid world 610
Of images about me, did not pine
As one in cities bred might do—as thou,
Beloved friend, hast told me that thou didst,
Great spirit as thou art—in endless dreams
Of sickness, disjoining, joining things, 615
Without the light of knowledge. Where the harm
If when the woodman languished with disease
From sleeping night by night among the woods
Within his sod-built cabin, Indian-wise,
I called the pangs of disappointed love 620
And all the long etcetera of such thought

To help him to his grave?—meanwhile the man,
If not already from the woods retired
To die at home, was haply, as I knew,
Pining alone among the gentle airs, 625
Birds, running streams, and hills so beautiful
On golden evenings, while the charcoal-pile
Breathed up its smoke, an image of his ghost
Or spirit that was soon to take its flight.

There came a time of greater dignity, 630
Which had been gradually prepared, and now
Rushed in as if on wings—the time in which
The pulse of being everywhere was felt,
When all the several frames of things, like stars
Through every magnitude distinguishable, 635
Were half confounded in each other's blaze,
One galaxy of life and joy. Then rose
Man, inwardly contemplated, and present
In my own being, to a loftier height—
As of all visible natures crown, and first 640
In capability of feeling what
Was to be felt, in being rapt away
By the divine effect of power and love—
As, more than any thing we know, instinct
With godhead, and by reason and by will 645
Acknowledging dependency sublime.

Erelong, transported hence as in a dream, I
found myself begirt with temporal shapes
Of vice and folly thrust upon my view,
Objects of sport and ridicule and scorn, 650
Manners and characters discriminate,
And little busy passions that eclipsed,
As well they might, the impersonated thought,
The idea or abstraction of the kind.
An idler among academic bowers, 655
Such was my new condition—as at large
Hath been set forth—yet here the vulgar light

Of present, actual, superficial life,
Gleaming through colouring of other times,
Old usages and local privilege, 660
Thereby was softened, almost solemnized,
And rendered apt and pleasing to the view.
This notwithstanding, being brought more near
As I was now to guilt and wretchedness,
I trembled, thought of human life at times 665
With an indefinite terror and dismay,
Such as the storms and angry elements
Had bred in me; but gloomier far, a dim
Analogy to uproar and misrule,
Disquiet, danger, and obscurity. 670

It might be told (but wherefore speak of things
Common to all?) that, seeing, I essayed
To give relief, began to deem myself
A moral agent, judging between good
And evil not as for the mind's delight 675
But for her safety, one who was to act—
As sometimes to the best of my weak means
I did, by human sympathy impelled,
And through dislike and most offensive pain
Was to the truth conducted—of this faith 680
Never forsaken, that by acting well,
And understanding, I should learn to love
The end of life and every thing we know.

Preceptress stern, that didst instruct me next,
London, to thee I willingly return. 685
Erewhile my verse played only with the flowers
Enwrought upon the mantle, satisfied
With this amusement, and a simple look
Of childlike inquisition now and then
Cast upwards on thine eye to puzzle out 690
Some inner meanings which might harbour there.
Yet did I not give way to this light mood
Wholly beguiled, as one incapable

Of higher things, and ignorant that high things
Were round me. Never shall I forget the hour, 695
The moment rather say, when, having thridded
The labyrinth of suburban villages,
At length I did unto myself first seem
To enter the great city. On the roof
Of an itinerant vehicle I sate, 700
With vulgar men about me, vulgar forms
Of houses, pavement, streets, of men and things,
Mean shapes on every side; but, at the time,
When to myself it fairly might be said
(The very moment that I seemed to know) 705
'The threshold now is overpast', great God!
That aught external to the living mind
Should have such mighty sway, yet so it was:
A weight of ages did at once descend
Upon my heart—no thought embodied, no 710
Distinct remembrances, but weight and power,
Power growing with the weight. Alas,
I feel That I am trifling. 'Twas a moment's pause:
All that took place within me came and went
As in a moment, and I only now 715
Remember that it was a thing divine.

As when a traveller hath from open day
With torches passed into some vault of earth,
The grotto of Antiparos, or the den
Of Yordas among Craven's mountain tracts, 720
He looks and sees the cavern spread and grow,
Widening itself on all sides, sees, or thinks
He sees, erelong, the roof above his head,
Which instantly unsettles and recedes—
Substance and shadow, light and darkness, all 725
Commingled, making up a canopy
Of shapes, and forms, and tendencies to shape,
That shift and vanish, change and interchange
Like spectres—ferment quiet and sublime,
Which, after a short space, works less and less 730

Till, every effort, every motion gone,
The scene before him lies in perfect view
Exposed, and lifeless as a written book.
But let him pause awhile and look again,
And a new quickening shall succeed, at first 735
Beginning timidly, then creeping fast
Through all which he beholds: the senseless mass,
In its projections, wrinkles, cavities,
Through all its surface, with all colours streaming,
Like a magician's airy pageant, parts, 740
Unites, embodying everywhere some pressure
Or image, recognised or new, some type
Or picture of the world—forests and lakes,
Ships, rivers, towers, the warrior clad in mail,
The prancing steed, the pilgrim with his staff, 745
A mitred bishop and the throne`d king—
A spectacle to which there is no end.

No otherwise had I at first been moved—
With such a swell of feeling, followed soon
By a blank sense of greatness passed away— 750
And afterwards continued to be moved,
In presence of that vast metropolis,
The fountain of my country's destiny
And of the destiny of earth itself,
That great emporium, chronicle at once 755
And burial-place of passions, and their home
Imperial, and chief living residence.
With strong sensations teeming as it did
Of past and present, such a place must needs
Have pleased me in those times. I sought not then 760
Knowledge, but craved for power—and power I found
In all things. Nothing had a circumscribed
And narrow influence; but all objects, being
Themselves capacious, also found in me
Capaciousness and amplitude of mind— 765
Such is the strength and glory of our youth.
The human nature unto which I felt

That I belonged, and which I loved and reverenced,
Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit
Living in time and space, and far diffused. 770
In this my joy, in this my dignity
Consisted: the external universe,
By striking upon what is found within,
Had given me this conception, with the help
Of books and what they picture and record. 775

'Tis true the history of my native land,
With those of Greece compared and popular Rome—
Events not lovely nor magnanimous,
But harsh and unaffecting in themselves;
And in our high-wrought modern narratives 780
Stript of their humanizing soul, the life
Of manners and familiar incidents—
Had never much delighted me. And less
Than other minds I had been used to owe
The pleasure which I found in place or thing 785
To extrinsic transitory accidents,
To records or traditions; but a sense
Of what had been here done, and suffered here
Through ages, and was doing, suffering, still,
Weighed with me, could support the test of thought— 790
Was like the enduring majesty and power
Of independent nature. And not seldom
Even individual remembrances,
By working on the shapes before my eyes,
Became like vital functions of the soul; 795
And out of what had been, what was, the place
Was thronged with impregnations, like those wilds
In which my early feelings had been nursed,
And naked valleys full of caverns, rocks,
And audible seclusions, dashing lakes, 800
Echoes and waterfalls, and pointed crags
That into music touch the passing wind.
Thus here imagination also found
An element that pleased her, tried her strength
Among new objects, simplified, arranged, 805
Impregnated my knowledge, made it live—
And the result was elevating thoughts
Of human nature. Neither guilt nor vice,
Debasement of the body or the mind,
Nor all the misery forced upon my sight, 810
Which was not lightly passed, but often scanned
Most feelingly, could overthrow my trust
In what we may become, induce belief
that I was ignorant, had been falsely taught,
A solitary, who with vain conceits 815
Had been inspired, and walked about in dreams.
When from that rueful prospect, overcast
And in eclipse, my meditations turned,
Lo, every thing that was indeed divine
Retained its purity inviolate 820
And unencroached upon, nay, seemed brighter far
For this deep shade in counterview, the gloom
Of opposition, such as shewed itself
To the eyes of Adam, yet in Paradise
Though fallen from bliss, when in the East he saw 825
Darkness ere day's mid course, and morning light
More orient in the western cloud, that drew
'O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,
Descending slow with something heavenly fraught.'

Add also, that among the multitudes 830
Of that great city oftentimes was seen
Affectingly set forth, more than elsewhere
Is possible, the unity of man,
One spirit over ignorance and vice
Predominant, in good and evil hearts 835
One sense for moral judgments, as one eye
For the sun's light. When strongly breathed upon
By this sensation—whencesoe'er it comes,
Of union or communion—doth the soul
Rejoice as in her highest joy; for there, 840
There chiefly, hath she feeling whence she is,
And passing through all Nature rests with God.

And is not, too, that vast abiding-place
Of human creatures, turn where'er we may,
Profusely sown with individual sights 845
Of courage, and integrity, and truth,
And tenderness, which, here set off by foil,
Appears more touching? In the tender scenes
Chiefly was my delight, and one of these
Never will be forgotten. 'Twas a man, 850
Whom I saw sitting in an open square
Close to the iron paling that fenced in
The spacious grass-plot: on the corner-stone
Of the low wall in which the pales were fixed
Sate this one man, and with a sickly babe 855
Upon his knee, whom he had thither brought
For sunshine, and to breathe the fresher air.
Of those who passed, and me who looked at him,
He took no note; but in his brawny arms
(The artificer was to the elbow bare, 860
And from his work this moment had been stolen)
He held the child, and, bending over it
As if he were afraid both of the sun
And of the air which he had come to seek,
He eyed it with unutterable love. 865

Thus from a very early age, O friend,
My thoughts had been attracted more and more
By slow gradations towards human-kind,
And to the good and ill of human life.
Nature had led me on, and now I seemed 870
To travel independent of her help,
As if I had forgotten her—but no,
My fellow-beings still were unto me
Far less than she was: though the scale of love
Were filling fast, 'twas light as yet compared 875
With that in which her mighty objects lay.
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