The Enfolded Prelude: Book Eighth

Book Eighth

Retrospect—Love of Nature Leading to Love of Man

What sounds are those, Helvellyn, which that are heard

Up to thy summit, through the depth of air

Ascending Ascending, as if distance had the power

To make the sounds more audible? What crowd

Is yon, assembled in the gay green field?Covers, or sprinkles o'er, yon village green?

Crowd seems it, solitary hill, hill! to thee,

Though but a little family of men.men,

Twice twenty Shepherds and tillers of the ground betimes

Assembled with their children and their wives,

And here and there a stranger interspersed.

It is They hold a summer festival, rustic fair a fair,festival,

Such as 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.vales,

Helvellyn, in the silence of his rest,

Sees annually, if clouds towards either ocean

Blown from their favourite resting-place, or mists

Dissolved, have left him an unshrouded head.

Delightful day it is for all who dwell

In this secluded glen, and eagerly

They give it welcome. Long ere heat of noon,

Behold From byre or field the cattle are driven down; kine were brought; the sheep

That have for traffic been culled out are penned

In cotes that stand together on the plain

Ranged side by side; Are penned in cotes; the chaffering is begun;begun.

The heifer lows lows, uneasy at the voice

Of a new master; bleat the flocks aloud.

Booths are there none: none; a stall or two is here,here;

A lame man, man or a blind (the blind, the one to beg,

The other to make music); hither toomusic; hither, too,

From far, with basket basket, slung upon her armarm,

Of hawker's wares books, pictures, combs, and pins—

Some aged woman finds her way again,

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.pins.

Some aged woman finds her way again,

Year after year, a punctual visitant!

There also stands a speech-maker by rote,

Pulling the strings of his boxed raree-show;

And in the lapse of many years may come

Prouder itinerant, mountebank, or he

Whose wonders in a covered wain lie hid.

But one is here, there is, the loveliest of them all,

Some sweet lass of the valley, looking out

For gains 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),orchard are her wares,

She carries in her basket, and And with the ruddy produce she walks round

Among the crowd, half pleased with, half ashamed

Of Of, her new calling, office, blushing restlessly.

The children now are rich, for the old man nowto-day

Is generous, so gaiety prevailsAre generous as the young; and, if content

Which With looking on, some ancient wedded pair

Sit in the shade together; while they gaze,

"A cheerful smile unbends the wrinkled brow,

The days departed start again to life,

And all partake of, young the scenes of childhood reappear,

Faint, but more tranquil, like the changing sun

To him who slept at noon and old.wakes at eve."

Thus gaiety and cheerfulness prevail,

Spreading from young to old, from old to young,

And no one seems to want his share. Immense

Is the recess, the circumambient world

Magnificent, by which they are embraced.embraced:

They move about upon the soft green field;turf:

How little they, they and their doings, seem,

Their herds and flocks about them, they themselves,

And all which that they can further or obstruct—

Through utter weakness pitiably dear,

As tender infants are and yet how great,

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,

And old Helvellyn, conscious of the stir,

And the blue sky that roofs their calm abode.

With deep devotion, Nature, did I feelobstruct!

In that great city what I owed to thee:Through utter weakness pitiably dear,

High thoughts of God and man, As tender infants are: and love of man,yet how great!

Triumphant over For all those loathsome sights

Of wretchedness and vice, a watchful eye,

Which, with things serve them: them the outside of our human lifemorning light

Not satisfied, must read Loves, as it glistens on the inner mind.

For I already had been taught to love

My fellow-beings, to such habits trainedsilent rocks;

Among And them the woods and mountains, where I found

In thee a gracious guide to lead me forthsilent rocks, which now from high

Beyond Look down upon them; the bosom of my family,

My friends and youthful playmates. 'Twas thy powerreposing clouds;

That raised the first complacency in me,The wild brooks prattling from invisible haunts;

And noticeable kindliness old Helvellyn, conscious of heart,

Love human to the creature in himself

As he appeared, a stranger in my path,stir

Before my eyes a brother of Which animates this world

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

Upon the mountains, mists and steam-like fogs

Redounding everywhere, not vehement,

But their calm and mild, gentle and beautiful,abode.

With gleams of sunshine on the eyelet spots

And loopholes of the hills, wherever seen,

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,

A shepherd and his dog, in open day.

Girt round with mists they stood, and looked aboutdeep devotion, Nature, did I feel,

From In that enclosure small, inhabitantsenormous City's turbulent world

Of an aerial island floating on,

As seemed, with that abode in which they were,

A little pendant area of grey rocks,

By the soft wind breathed forward. With delight

As bland almost, one evening men and things, what benefit I beheld—

And at as early age (the spectacle

Is common, but by me was then first seen)—

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

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 unbaffied, while the flock

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.owed

Beauteous the domainTo thee, and those domains of rural peace,

Where to the sense of beauty first my heart

Was opened opened; tract more exquisitely fair

Than in that famed paradise of ten thousand trees,

Or Gehol's famous matchless gardens, in a clime

from widest empire, for delight

Of the Tartarian dynasty composed

Beyond (Beyond that mighty wall, not fabulousfabulous,

(China's China's stupendous mound!) mound) by patient skilltoil

Of myriads, myriads and boon Nature's nature's lavish help:help;

Scene linked to scene, and ever-growing change,There, in a clime from widest empire chosen,

Soft, grand, or gay, Fulfilling (could enchantment have done more?)

A sumptuous dream of flowery lawns, with palaces and domes

Of pleasure spangled sprinkled over, shady dells

For eastern monasteries, sunny moundsmounts

With temples crested, bridges, gondolas,

Rocks, dens dens, and groves of foliage, foliage taught to melt

Into each other their obsequious hues—

Chosen

Going and gone again, in subtile chace,

Too fine to be pursued or standing forth

In no discordant opposition, strong

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.hues,

Vanished and vanishing in subtle chase,

Too fine to be pursued; or standing forth

In no discordant opposition, strong

And gorgeous as the colours side by side

Bedded among rich plumes of tropic birds;

And mountains over all, embracing all;

And all the landscape, endlessly enriched

With waters running, falling, or asleep.

But lovelier far than this this, the paradise

Where I was reared, reared; in Nature's primitive gifts

Favored Favoured no less, and more to every sense

Delicious, seeing that the sun and sky,

The elements, and seasons in their as they change,

Do find their dearest a worthy 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,

His comforts, native occupations, cares,

Conducted on Cheerfully led to individual ends

Or social, and still followed by a train,train

Unwooed, unthought-of even: even simplicity,

And beauty, and inevitable grace.

Yea, doubtless, at any age when but a glimpse

Of glimpse of those resplendent gardens, with their frame

Imperial, and elaborate ornaments,imperial bowers

Would to a child be transport over-great,

When but a half-hour's roam through such a place

Would leave behind a dance of imagesimages,

That shall break in upon his sleep for weeks,weeks;

Even then the common haunts of the green earthearth,

With the And ordinary human interestsinterests of man,

Which they embosom embosom, all without regard

As both may seem seem, are fastening on the heart

Insensibly, each with the other's help,help.

So that we love, not knowing that we love,For me, when my affections first were led

And feel, not knowing whence our feeling comes.From kindred, friends, and playmates, to partake

Such league have these two principles Love for the human creature's absolute self,

That noticeable kindliness of joyheart

In our affections. I have singled outSprang out of fountains, there abounding most,

Some moments, Where sovereign Nature dictated the earliest that I could, in whichtasks

Their several currents, blended into oneAnd occupations which her beauty adorned,

Weak yet, and gathering imperceptibly.—

Flowed in by gushes. My first human love,And Shepherds were the men that pleased me first;

As hath been mentioned, did incline to thoseNot such as Saturn ruled 'mid Latian wilds,

Whose occupations With arts and concerns were mostlaws so tempered, that their lives

Illustrated by Nature, and adorned,Left, even to us toiling in this late day,

And shepherds were A bright tradition of the men who pleased me first:golden age;

Not such as, in 'mid Arcadian fastnesses

Sequestered, handed down among themselves,themselves

So ancient poets sing, the golden age;Felicity, in Grecian song renowned;

Nor such a second race, allied to theseas when an adverse fate had driven,

As Shakespeare From house and home, the courtly band whose fortunes

Entered, with Shakspeare's genius, the wild woods

Of Arden amid sunshine or in shade

Culled the wood best fruits of Arden placed,Time's uncounted hours,

Where Ere Phoebe sighed for the false Ganymede,Ganymede;

Or there where Florizel Perdita and PerditaFlorizel

Together dance, danced, Queen of the feast feast, and King;

Nor such as Spenser fabled. True it isis,

That I had heard, what heard (what he perhaps had seen,seen)

Of maids at sunrise bringing in from far

Their May-bush, and along the streets in flocks

Parading, Parading with a song of taunting rhymesrhymes,

Aimed at the laggards slumbering within doors—

Had also heard, from those who yet remembered,

Tales of the maypole dance, and flowers that decked

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,doors;

Was but a dream: Had also heard, from those who yet remembered,

Tales of the times had scattered allMay-pole dance, and wreaths that decked

Porch, door-way, or kirk-pillar; and of youths,

Each with his maid, before the sun was up,

By annual custom, issuing forth in troops,

To drink the waters of some sainted well,

And hang it round with garlands. Love survives;

But, for such purpose, flowers no longer grow:

The times, too sage, perhaps too proud, have dropped

These lighter graces, graces; and the rural ways

And manners which it was my chance to see

In childhood were severe and unadorned,looked upon

The Were the unluxuriant produce of a life

Intent on little but substantial needs,

Yet beautiful and rich in beauty, beauty that was felt.

But images of danger and distress

And suffering, these took deepest hold of me,distress,

Man suffering among awful powers Powers and forms:Forms;

Of this I heard heard, and saw enough to make

The imagination restless Imagination restless; nor was free

Myself from frequent perils. Nor perils; nor were tales

Wanting, the tragedies of former times,

Or hazards Hazards and strange escapes, which in my walks

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 which the first falling of autumnal snowsrocks

A shepherd Immutable, and his son one day went forth',everflowing streams,

Thus did the matron's tale begin, 'to seekWhere'er I roamed, were speaking monuments.

A straggler of their flock. They both Smooth life had ranged

Upon this service the preceding day

All over their own pastures and beyond,

And now, at sunrise sallying out again,

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,

To Fairfield's highest summit. On the right

Leaving St Sunday's Pike, to Grisedale Tarn

They shot, flock and over that cloud-loving hill,

Seat Sandal a fond lover of the clouds—

Thence up Helvellyn, a superior mount

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

And make a stormy harbour for the winds.

Far went those shepherds shepherd 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,

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

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

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.

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' spaceold time,

Abated not, Long springs and all that time the boy

Was busy in his search, until at length

He spied the sheep upon a plot of grass,

An island in tepid winters, on the brook. It was a place

Remote and deep, piled round with rocks, where footbanks

Of man or beast was seldom used to tread;

But now, when everywhere the summer grass

Had failed, this one adventurer, hunger-pressed,

Had left his fellows, delicate Galesus; and made his way aloneno less

To the green plot of pasture in the brook.Those scattered along Adria's myrtle shores:

Before the boy knew well what he Smooth life had seen,

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, herdsman, and his heart

Fainted with fear. Thrice did he turn his facesnow-white herd

To either brink, nor could he summon up

The courage that was needful triumphs and to leap back

Cross the tempestuous torrent: so he stood,sacrificial rites

A prisoner Devoted, on the island, not without

More than one thought of death and his last hour.

Meanwhile the father had returned alone

To his own house; and now at the approachinviolable stream

Of evening he went forth to meet his son,

Conjecturing vainly for what cause the boy

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.

At this, now knowing why, as oftentimes

Long afterwards he has been heard to say,

Down to the brook he went, rich Clitumnus; and tracked its course

Upwards among the o'erhanging rocks nor thusgoat-herd lived

Had he gone far, ere he espied As calmly, underneath the boy,

Where on that little plot of ground he stoodpleasant brows

Right in the middle of Of cool Lucretilis, where the roaring stream,

Now stronger every moment and more fierce.

The sight pipe was such as no one could have seen

Without distress and fear. The shepherd heard

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 Of Pan, Invisible God, thrilling the banksrocks

Of delicate Galesus and no lessWith tutelary music, from all harm

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

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

The fold protecting. The fold protecting, I myself, mature

In manhood then, have seen a pastoral tract

Like one of these, where fancy Fancy might run wild,

Though under skies less generous and serene;generous, less serene:

Yet there, as There, for herself, her own delight had Nature framed

A pleasure-ground, diffused a fair expanse

Of level pasture, islanded with groves

And banked with woody risings risings; but the plainPlain

Endless, here opening widely out, and there

Shut up in lesser lakes or beds of lawn

And intricate recesses, creek or bay

Sheltered within a shelter, where at large

The shepherd strays, a rolling hut his home:home.

Thither he comes with springtime, spring-time, there abides

All summer, and at sunrise ye may hear

His flute flageolet to liquid notes of love

Attuned, or flagelet sprightly fife resounding far.

There's not a nook or hold Nook is there none, nor tract of that vast space,space

Nor strait where Where passage is, opens, but it the same shall have

In turn its visitant, telling there his hours

In unlaborious pleasure, with no task

More toilsome than to carve a beechen bowl

For spring or fountain, which the traveller findsfinds,

When through the region he pursues at will

His devious course.

course. A glimpse of such sweet life

I saw when, from the melancholy walls

Of Goslar, once imperial, I renewed

My daily walk along that chearful plain,wide champaign,

Which, That, reaching to her gates, spreads east and westwest,

And northwards, from beneath the mountainous verge

Of the Hercynian forest. Yet Yet, hail to you,you

Your rocks Moors, mountains, headlands, and precipices, ye hollow vales,

Ye long deep channels for the Atlantic's voice,

Powers of my native region! Ye that seize

The heart with firmer grasp, your grasp! Your snows and streams

Ungovernable, and your terrifying winds,

That howled howl so dismally when I have beenfor him who treads

Companionless among your awful 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

Through the hard time, long as the storm is 'locked'coves he drives

(So do they phrase it), bearing His flock, and thither from the stallshomestead bears

A toilsome burthen burden up the craggy waysways,

To strew And deals it out, their regular nourishment

Strewn on the frozen snow. And when the spring

Looks out, and all the mountains pastures dance with lambs,

He through the enclosures won from the steep waste,

And through the lower heights hath gone his rounds;

And when the flock flock, with warmer weather weather, climbs

Higher and higher, him his office leads

To range among them through the hills dispersed,

And watch their goings, whatsoever track

Each wanderer chuses for itself a work

That lasts the summer through. He The wanderers choose. For this he quits his home

At dayspring, day-spring, and no sooner doth the sun

Begin to strike him with a fire-like heat,

Than he lies down upon some shining place,rock,

And breakfasts with his dog. When they have stolen,

As is their wont, a pittance from strict time,

For rest not needed or exchange of love,

Then from his couch 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,

Or winding in and out among the crags.starts; and now his feet

What need Crush out a livelier fragrance from the flowers

Of lowly thyme, by Nature's skill enwrought

In the wild turf: the lingering dews of morn

Smoke round him, as from hill to hill he hies,

His staff protending like a hunter's spear,

Or by its aid leaping from crag to crag,

And o'er the brawling beds of unbridged streams.

Philosophy, methinks, at Fancy's call,

Might deign to follow him through what he does

Or sees in his day's march? He feels himselfmarch; himself he feels,

In those vast regions where his service islies,

A freeman, wedded to his life of hope

And hazard, and hard labour interchanged

With that majestic indolence so dear

To native man.

man. A rambling schoolboy, thusthus,

Have I beheld him; without knowing why,

Have felt his presence in his own domaindomain,

As of a lord and master, or a power,

Or genius, under Nature, under God,

Presiding Presiding; and severest solitude

Seemed Had more commanding oft looks when he was there.

Seeking When up the raven's nest and suddenly

Surprized with vapours, or lonely brooks on rainy days

When Angling I have angled up went, or trod the lonely brooks,trackless hills

Mine eyes have By mists bewildered, suddenly mine eyes

Have glanced upon him, him distant a few steps off,steps,

In size a giant, stalking through the thick fog,

His sheep like Greenland bears. At other times,bears; or, as he stepped

When round Beyond the boundary line of some shady promontory turning,hill-shadow,

His form hath flashed upon me me, glorified

By the deep radiance of the setting sun;sun:

Or him have I descried in distant sky,

A solitary object and sublime,

Above all height, height! like an aërial cross,aerial cross

As it is stationed on some Stationed alone upon a spiry rock

Of the Chartreuse, for worship. Thus was man

Ennobled outwardly before mine eyes,my sight,

And thus my heart at first was early introduced

To an unconscious love and reverence

Of human nature; hence the human form

To me was like became an index of delight,

Of grace and honour, power and worthiness.

Meanwhile, Meanwhile this creature spiritual almost

As those of books, but more exalted far,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

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.

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,

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,

And ye adore. But blessbd be Than the God

Of Nature and gay Corin 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.

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 goodgroves, who lives

In our first years, For his own fancies, or think that it is found,

How could to dance by the innocent heart bear up and live?

But doubly fortunate my lot: not here

Alone, that something of a better lifehour,

Perhaps was round me than it is In coronal, with Phyllis in the privilege

Of most to move in, but that first I looked

At man through objects that were great and fair,midst—

Was, for the purposes 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;

Of this I little saw, cared less for it,

But something must have felt.

First communed with him by their help. Call ye these appearances.—

Which I beheld of shepherds in my youth,

This sanctity of Nature given to man—

A shadow, a delusion, ye who pore

On the dead letter, miss 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,

And ye adore! But blessed be the God

Of Nature and of Man that this was so;

That men before my inexperienced eyes

Did first present themselves thus purified,

Removed, and to a distance that was fit:

And so we all of us in some degree

Are led to knowledge, wheresoever 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,

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

At Man through objects that were great or 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

On all sides from the ordinary world

In which we traffic. Starting from this point,point

I had my face towards turned toward the truth, began

With an advantage, advantage furnished with by that kind

Of prepossession prepossession, without which the soul

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,

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,

Into the temple of the temple's heart.good,

Yet do not deem, my friend, though thus No genuine insight ever comes to her.

From the restraint of over-watchful eyes

Preserved, I speakmoved about, year after year,

Of man as having taken in Happy, and now most thankful that my mindwalk

A place thus Was guarded from too early which might almost seemintercourse

Preeminent, With the deformities of crowded life,

And those ensuing laughters and contempts,

Self-pleasing, which, if we would wish to think

With a due reverence on earth's rightful lord,

Here placed to be the inheritor of heaven,

Will not permit us; but pursue the mind,

That to devotion willingly would rise,

Into the temple and the temple's heart.

Yet deem not, Friend! that this was really so.human kind with me

Thus early took a place pre-eminent;

Nature herself was was, at this unripe timetime,

But secondary to my own pursuits

And animal activities, and all

Their trivial pleasures. And long afterwardspleasures; and when these had drooped

When those had died away, And gradually expired, and Nature didNature, prized

For her own sake become sake, became my joy, even then,

And upwards through late youth until not less

Than three-and-twenty summers had been told,then—

And upwards through late youth, until not less

Than two-and-twenty summers had been told.

Was man Man in my affections and regards

Subordinate to her, her awful visible forms

And viewless agencies agencies: a passion, she,

A rapture often, and immediate joylove

Ever at hand; he distant, but he, only a gracedelight

Occasional, and an accidental thought,grace,

His hour being not yet come. Far less had then

The inferior creatures, beast or bird, attuned

My spirit to that gentleness of love,

(Though they had long been carefully observed),

Won from me those minute obeisances

Of tenderness tenderness, which I may number now

With my first blessings. Nevertheless, on these

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,

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,

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.

But when that first poetic faculty

Of plain imagination Imagination and severesevere,

No longer a mute influence of the soul,

An element Ventured, at some rash Muse's earnest call,

To try her strength among harmonious words;

And to book-notions and the rules of art

Did knowingly conform itself; there came

Among the nature's inner self—

Began to have some promptings to put on

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

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. simple shapes of human life

A wilfulness of fancy and conceit;

And Nature and her objects beautified

These fictions, as in some sort, in their turn,

They burnished her. From touch of this new power

Nothing was safe: the elder-tree that grew

Beside the well-known charnel-house had then

A dismal look, look: the yew-tree had its ghostghost,

That took its his station there for ornament.ornament:

Then common death was none, common mishap,The dignities of plain occurrence then

But matter for this humour everywhere,Were tasteless, and truth's golden mean, a point

The tragic super-tragic, else left short.Where no sufficient pleasure could be found.

Then, if a widow widow, staggering with the blow

Of her distress distress, was known to have made turned her waysteps

To the cold grave in which her husband slept,

One night, or haply more than one 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,

And all the storms of heaven must beat on her.mind,

The fact was caught at greedily, and there

She must be visitant the whole year through,

Wetting the turf with never-ending tears.

Through wild quaint obliquities could I might pursue

Among all objects of the fields and groves

These cravings: cravings; when the foxglove, one by one,

Upwards through every stage of its the tall stemstem,

Had shed its bells, and stood by beside the waysidepublic way its bells,

Dismantled, with a single one perhapsAnd stood of all dismantled, save the last

Left at the tapering ladder's top, with which the plantthat seemed

Appeared to stoop, To bend as doth a slender blades blade of grass

Tipped with a bead of rain or dew, behold,

If such a sight were seen, would fancy bring

Some vagrant thither with her babes and seat herrain-drop, Fancy loved to seat,

Upon the turf beneath Beneath the stately flower,

Drooping in sympathy and making soplant despoiled, but crested still

A melancholy crest above the headWith this last relic, soon itself to fall,

Of the lorn creature, while her Some vagrant mother, whose arch little ones,

All unconcerned with by her unhappy dejected plight,

Were sporting Laughed as with rival eagerness their hands

Gathered the purple cups that layround them lay,

Scattered upon Strewing the ground. There was a copse,

An upright bank of wood and woody rock

That opposite our rural dwelling stood,turfs green slope.

In which a sparkling patch of A diamond light

Was in bright weather duly to be seen

On summer afternoons, within the wood

At (Whene'er the same place. 'Twas doubtless nothing moresummer sun, declining, smote

Than a black rock, which, A smooth rock wet with constant springs,springs) was seen

Glistered far seen Sparkling from out its lurking-place

As soon as ever the declining suna copse-clad bank that rose

Had smitten it. Beside Fronting our cottage cottage. Oft beside the hearth

Sitting Seated, with open door, a hundred timesoften and long

Upon this restless lustre have I gazed, that seemedgazed,

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;

An entrance now into some magic cave,

Or palace for a fairy of the rock.That made my fancy restless as itself.

Nor would I, though not certain whence the cause'Twas now for me a burnished silver shield

Of Suspended over a knight's tomb, who lay

Inglorious, buried in the effulgence, thither have repaireddusky wood:

Without a precious bribe, and day by dayAn entrance now into some magic cave

And month Or palace built by month I saw fairies of the spectacle,rock;

Nor ever once could I have visited the spotbeen bribed to disenchant

Unto this hour. Thus sometimes were The spectacle, by visiting the shapesspot.

Of Thus wilful fancy grafted upon feelings

Of the imagination, and they rose

In worth accordingly.

My present themeFancy, in no hurtful mood,

Is to retrace the way that led me onEngrafted far-fetched shapes on feelings bred

Through Nature to the love of human-kind;By pure Imagination: busy Power

Nor could I She was, and with such object overlook

The influence of this power which turned itselfher ready pupil turned

Instinctively to human passions, thingsthen

Least understood ,of this adulterate power,

For so it may be called, and without wrong,

When with that first compared. Yet in understood. Yet, 'mid the midstfervent swarm

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 bounty of a grand

And lovely region region, I had forms distinct

To steady me. These thoughts did oft revolveme: each airy thought revolved

About some centre palpable, Round a substantial centre, which at once

Incited them it to motion, and controlled,

And whatsoever shape the fit might take,controlled.

And whencesoever it might come, I still

At all times had a real solid world

Of images about me, did not pine

As pine like one in cities bred might do as thou,bred,

Beloved friend, hast told me that thou didst,As was thy melancholy lot, dear Friend!

Great spirit Spirit as thou art art, in endless dreams

Of sickness, sickliness, disjoining, joining things,joining, things

Without the light of knowledge. Where the harmharm,

If If, when the woodman languished with disease

From sleeping night Induced by night among sleeping nightly on the woodsground

Within his sod-built cabin, Indian-wise,

I called the pangs of disappointed lovelove,

And all the long sad etcetera of such thoughtthe wrong,

To help him to his grave? meanwhile Meanwhile the man,

If not already from the woods retired

To die at home, was haply, as I knew,

Pining alone among the Withering by slow degrees, 'mid gentle airs,

Birds, running streams, and hills so beautiful

On golden evenings, while the charcoal-pilecharcoal pile

Breathed up its smoke, an image of his ghost

Or spirit that was full soon to must take its her flight.

There came Nor shall we not be tending towards that point

Of sound humanity to which our Tale

Leads, though by sinuous ways, if here I show

How Fancy, in a time season when she wove

Those slender cords, to guide the unconscious Boy

For the Man's sake, could feed at Nature's call

Some pensive musings which might well beseem

Maturer years.

A grove there is whose boughs

Stretch from the western marge of greater dignity,Thurstonmere

Which had been gradually prepared, and nowWith length of shade so thick, that whoso glides

Rushed Along the line of low-roofed water, moves

As in a cloister. Once while, in that shade

Loitering, I watched the golden beams of light

Flung from the setting sun, as if they reposed

In silent beauty on wings the time in whichnaked ridge

The pulse Of a high eastern hill thus flowed my thoughts

In a pure stream of being words fresh from the heart:

Dear native Regions, wheresoe'er shall close

My mortal course, there will I think on you;

Dying, will cast on you a backward look;

Even as this setting sun (albeit the Vale

Is no where touched by one memorial gleam)

Doth with the fond remains of his last power

Still linger, and a farewell lustre sheds,

On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose.

Enough of humble arguments; recall,

My Song! those high emotions which thy voice

Has heretofore made known; that bursting forth

Of sympathy, inspiring and inspired,

When everywhere a vital pulse was felt,

When And all the several frames of things, like starsstars,

Through every magnitude distinguishable,

Were Shone mutually indebted, or half confounded lost

Each in each the other's blaze,blaze, a galaxy

One galaxy of Of life and joy. Then roseglory. In the midst stood Man,

Man, Outwardly, inwardly contemplated, and presentcontemplated,

In my own being, As, of all visible natures, crown, though born

Of dust, and kindred to the worm; a loftier height—

As of all visible natures crown, and first

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

Acknowledging dependency sublime.Being,

Erelong, transported hence as Both in a dream,perception and discernment, first

In every capability of rapture,

Through the divine effect of power and love;

As, more than anything we know, instinct

With godhead, and, by reason and by will,

Acknowledging dependency sublime.

Ere long, the lonely mountains left, I found myself begirt moved,

Begirt, from day to day, with temporal shapes

Of vice and folly thrust upon my view,

Objects of sport sport, and ridicule ridicule, and scorn,

Manners and characters discriminate,

And little busy bustling passions that eclipsed,eclipse,

As well they might, the impersonated thought,

The idea idea, or abstraction of the kind.

An idler among academic bowers,

Such was my new condition condition, as at large

Hath Has been set forth forth; yet here the vulgar light

Of present, actual, superficial life,

Gleaming through colouring of other times,

Old usages and local privilege,

Thereby was Was welcomed, softened, almost solemnized,

And rendered apt and pleasing to the view.if not solemnised.

This notwithstanding, being brought more near

As I was now to guilt To vice and guilt, forerunning wretchedness,

I trembled, thought thought, at times, of human life at timeslife

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.

It might be told (but wherefore speak of things

Common to all?) that, seeing, I essayedwas led

To give relief, began Gravely to deem myself

A moral agent, ponder judging between good

And evil evil, not as for the mind's delight

But for her safety, guidance 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

Never forsaken, that by acting well,

And understanding, I should learn to love

The end of life and every thing we know.'act',

Preceptmss stern, that didst instruct me next,As sometimes to the best of feeble means

I did, by human sympathy impelled:

And, through dislike and most offensive pain,

Was to the truth conducted; of this faith

Never forsaken, that, by acting well,

And understanding, I should learn to love

The end of life, and everything we know.

Grave Teacher, stern Preceptress! for at times

Thou canst put on an aspect most severe;

London, to thee I willingly return.

Erewhile my verse played only idly with the flowers

Enwrought upon the mantle, thy mantle; satisfied

With this that amusement, and a simple look

Of childlike child-like inquisition now and then

Cast upwards on thine eye thy countenance, to puzzle outdetect

Some inner meanings which might harbour there.

Yet did But how could I not give way to this in mood so light mood

Wholly beguiled, as one incapable

Of higher things, and ignorant that high thingsindulge,

Were round me. Never shall I forget Keeping such fresh remembrance of the hour,day,

The moment rather say, when, When, having thriddedthridded the long labyrinth

The labyrinth of Of the suburban villages,

At length villages, I did unto myself first seemfirst

To enter the great city. Entered thy vast dominion? On the roof

Of an itinerant vehicle I sate,

With vulgar men about me, vulgar trivial 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)

'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
—

Mean shapes on every side: but, at the instant,

When to myself it fairly might be said,

The threshold now is overpast, (how strange

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

Power growing with the weight. Alas, under weight: alas! I feel

That I am trifling. 'Twas trifling: 'twas a moment's pause:

All that took place within me came and went

As in a moment, and I only now

Remember that it was a thing divine.pause,—

All that took place within me came and went

As in a moment; yet with Time it dwells,

And grateful memory, as a thing divine.

As when a traveller hath The curious traveller, who, from open dayday,

With torches Hath passed with torches into some vault of earth,huge cave,

The grotto Grotto of Antiparos, or the denDen

Of Yordas among Craven's mountain tracts,In old time haunted by that Danish Witch,

He Yordas; he looks around and sees the cavern spread and grow,vault
Widening on all sees, or