The Enfolded Prelude: Book Twelfth
1805 text is in green 1850 text is in purple
Long time hath man's unhappiness have human ignorance and guilt 2guilt
Detained us: with us, on what dismal sights besetspectacles of woe
For the outward view, Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed
With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,
Confusion of the judgement, judgment, zeal decayed—
And lastly, utter loss of hope itself
And things to hope for. decayed,
And, lastly, utter loss of hope itself
And things to hope for! Not with these began
Our song, and not with these our song must end.
Ye motions of delight, that through haunt the fieldssides
Stir gently, Of the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs that breatheairs,
Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,
Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty race
How without Injury to take, to give
Without offence; ye who, as if to show
The breath wondrous influence of paradise, and find your waypower gently used,
To Bend the recesses complying heads of lordly pines,
And, with a touch, shift the soul; stupendous clouds
Through the whole compass of the sky; ye brooksbrooks,
Muttering along the stones, a busy noise
By day, a quiet one sound in silent night;
Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forth
In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore,
Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm;
And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is
To interpose the covert of your shades,
Even as a sleep, betwixt between the heart of man
And the uneasy world 'twixt outward troubles, between man himself,
Not seldom, and his own unquiet heart—
Oh, that I had a music and a voice
Harmonious as your own, that I might tell
What ye have done for me. uneasy heart:
Oh! that I had a music and a voice
Harmonious as your own, that I might tell
What ye have done for me. The morning shines,
Nor heedeth man's Man's perverseness; spring returns—
I saw the spring return, when I was dead
To deeper hope, yet had I joy for her
And welcomed her benevolence, rejoiced
In common with the children of her love,
Plants, insects, beasts in field, and birds in bower.Spring returns,
I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice,
In common with the children of her love,
Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields,
Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven
On wings that navigate cerulean skies.
So neither were complacency, nor peace,
Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good
Through those these distracted times: times; in Nature still
Glorying, I found a counterpoise to in her,
Which, when the spirit of evil was at reached its height,
Maintained for me a secret happiness.
Her I resorted to, This narrative, my Friend! hath chiefly told
Of intellectual power, fostering love,
Dispensing truth, and, over men and loved so muchthings,
Where reason yet might hesitate, diffusing
Prophetic sympathies of genial faith:
So was I seemed to love as much as heretofore—
And yet this passion, fervent as it was,
Had suffered change; how could there fail to be
Some change, if merely hence, that years of life
Were going on, and with them loss or gain
Inevitable, sure alternative?
This history, my friend, hath chiefly told
Of intellectual power from stage to stage
Advancing hand in hand with love and joy,
And of imagination teaching truth
Until that natural graciousness of mind
Gave way to over-pressure of the times
And their disastrous issues. favoured such my happy lot—
Until that natural graciousness of mind
Gave way to overpressure from the times
And their disastrous issues. What availed,
When spells forbade the voyager to land,
The fragrance which did ever and anon
Give That fragrant notice of the shore, a pleasant shore
Wafted, at intervals, from arbours breathedmany a bower
Of blessed sentiment blissful gratitude and fearless love?
What did such sweet remembrances avail—
Perfidious then, as seemed what served they then?
My business was upon the barren seas,
My errand was to sail to other coasts.
Shall Dare I avow that I had hope wish was mine to seesee,
(I mean And hope that future times would 'would' surely see)see,
The man to come parted come, parted, as by a gulphgulph,
From him who had been? been; that I could no more
Trust the elevation which had made me one
With the great family that here and therestill survives
Is scattered through To illuminate the abyss of ages past,
Sage, warrior, patriot, lover, hero; for it seemed
That their best virtues were not free from taint
Of something false and weak, which that could not stand
The open eye of reason. Reason. Then I said,
'Go "Go to the poets, Poets, they will speak to thee
More perfectly of purer creatures yet
If reason be nobility in man,
Can aught be more ignoble than the man
Whom they describe, would fasten if they may
Upon our love by sympathies of truth?'
Thus strangely did I war against myself;
A bigot to a new idolatry,
Did like a monk who hath forsworn the world;—yet
If reason be nobility in man,
Can aught be more ignoble than the man
Whom they delight in, blinded as he is
By prejudice, the miserable slave
Of low ambition or distempered love?"
In such strange passion, if I may once more
Review the past, I warred against myself
A bigot to a new idolatry—
Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world,
Zealously laboured to cut off my heart
From all the sources of her former strength;
And as, by simple waving of a wand,
The wizard instantaneously dissolves
Palace or grove, even so could I unsoul
As readily by syllogistic words
Those mysteries of being which have made,
And shall continue evermore to make,
Of the whole human race one brotherhood.
Zealously labour What wonder, then, if, to cut off my heart
From all the sources of her former strength;
And, as by simple waving of a wand,
The wizard instantaneously dissolves
Palace or grove, even mind so did I unsoul
As readily by syllogistic words
(Some charm of logic, ever within reach)
Those mysteries of passion which have made,
And shall continue evermore to make
In spite of all that reason hath performed,
And shall perform, to exalt and to refine—
One brotherhood of all the human race,
Through all the habitations of past years,
And those to come: and hence an emptiness
Fell on the historian's page, and even on that
Of poets, pregnant with more absolute truth.
The works of both withered in my esteem,
Their sentence was, I thought, pronounced their rights
Seemed mortal, and their empire passed away.
What then remained in such eclipse, what light
To guide or chear? The laws of things which lie
Beyond the reach of human will or power,
The life of Nature, by the God of love
Inspired celestial presence ever pure—
These left, the soul of youth must needs be rich
Whatever else be lost; and these were mine,
Not a deaf echo merely of the thought
(Bewildered recollections, solitary),
But living sounds. Yet in despite of this.
This feeling, which howe'er impaired or damped,
Yet having been once born can never die
'Tis true that earth with all her appanage
Of elements and organs, storm and sunshine,
With its pure forms and colours, pomp of clouds,
Rivers, and mountains, objects among which
It might be thought that no dislike or blame,
No sense of weakness or infirmity
Or aught amiss, could possibly have come,far
Yea, Perverted, even the visible universe was scanned
With something of a kindred spirit, fellUniverse
Beneath Fell under the domination dominion of a taste
Less elevated, which did in my mind
With its more noble influence interfere,
Its animation and its deeper sway.
There comes (if need be now to speak of this
After such long detail of our mistakes),
There comes a time when reason not the grand
And simple reason, but that humbler power
Which carries on its no inglorious work
By logic and minute analysis.
Is of all idols that which pleases most
The growing mind. A trifler would he be
Who on the obvious benefits should dwell
That rise out of this process; but to speak
Of all the narrow estimates of things
Which hence originate were a worthy theme
For philosophic verse. Suffice it here
To hint that danger cannot but attend
Upon a function rather proud to bespiritual, with microscopic view
The enemy of falsehood, than Was scanned, as I had scanned the friend
Of truth to sit in judgement than to feel.moral world?
Oh soul O Soul of Nature, Nature! excellent and fair,fair!
That didst rejoice with me, with whom I tooI, too,
Rejoiced, Rejoiced through early youth, before the winds
And powerful roaring waters, and in lights and shades
That marched and countermarched about the hills
In glorious apparition, now all eyePowers on whom
And I daily waited, now all ear, eye and now
All ear; but ever with never long without the heart
Employed, and the majestic intellect!man's unfolding intellect:
O soul Soul of Nature, that Nature! that, by laws divine
Sustained and governed, still dost overflow
With passion and with an impassioned life, what feeble menones
Walk on this earth, earth! how feeble have I been
When thou wert in thy strength! Nor this through stroke
Of human suffering, such as justifies
Remissness and inaptitude of mind,
But through presumption, presumption; even in pleasure pleased
Unworthily, disliking here, and there
Liking, Liking; by rules of mimic art transferred
To things above all art. But more art; but more, for this,
Although a strong infection of the age,
Was never much my habit giving way
To a comparison of scene with scene,
Bent overmuch on superficial things,
Pampering myself with meagre novelties
Of colour and proportion, proportion; to the moods
Of nature, time and season, to the moral power,
The affections and the spirit of the place,
Less sensible. Insensible. Nor only did the love
Of sitting thus in judgment interrupt
My deeper feelings, but another cause,
More subtle and less easily explained,
That almost seems inherent in the creature,
Sensuous and intellectual as he is,
A twofold frame of body and of mind:mind.
The state to which I now allude was one
In which the eye was master speak in recollection of the heart,a time
When that which is the bodily eye, in every stage of life
The most despotic of our senses senses, gained
Such strength in me 'me' as often held my mind
In absolute dominion. Gladly here,
Entering upon abstruser argument,
Would Could I endeavour to unfold the means
Which Nature studiously employs to thwart
This tyranny, summons all the senses each
To counteract the other other, and themselves,
And makes them all, and the objects with which all
Are conversant, subservient in their turn
To the great ends of liberty Liberty and power.Power.
But this is matter for another song;
Here only let me add leave we this: enough that my delights,delights
Such (Such as they were, were) were sought insatiably.
Though 'twas a transport Vivid the transport, vivid though not profound;
I roamed from hill to hill, from rock to rock,
Still craving combinations of new forms,
New pleasure, wider empire for the outward sense,sight,
Not Proud of her own endowments, and rejoiced
To lay the mind vivid but not profound—
Yet was I often greedy in the chace,
And roamed from hill to hill, from rock to rock,
Still craving combinations of new forms,
New pleasure, wider empire for the sight,
Proud of its own endowments, and rejoiced
To lay the inner faculties asleep.inner faculties asleep.
Amid the turns and counter-turns, counterturns, the strife
And various trials of our complex beingbeing,
As we grow up, such thraldom of that sense
Seems hard to shun; and shun. And yet I knew a maid,
Who, A young as I was then, conversed with things
In higher style. From appetites like theseenthusiast, who escaped these bonds;
She, gentle visitant, as well she might,Her eye was not the mistress of her heart;
Was wholly free. Far less did critic rulesrules prescribed by passive taste,
Or barren intermeddling subtletiessubtleties,
Perplex her mind, mind; but, wise as women are
When genial circumstance hath favored favoured them,
She welcomed what was given, and craved no more.more;
Whatever Whate'er the scene was present presented to her eyes,view
That was the best, to that she was attuned
Through By her humility and lowliness,benign simplicity of life,
And through a perfect happiness of soulsoul,
Whose variegated feelings were in this
Sisters, that they were each some new delight.
For she was Nature's inmate: her Birds in the birdsbower, and lambs in the green field,
And every flower she met with, could Could they but
Have have known her, would have loved. Methought such charmloved; methought
Of sweetness did her Her very presence breathe aroundsuch a sweetness breathed,
That all the flowers, and trees, and all even the silent hills,
And every thing everything she looked on, should have had
An intimation how she bore herself
Towards them and to all creatures. God delights
In such a being, for being; for, her common thoughts
Are piety, her life is blessedness.gratitude.
Even like this maid, before I was called forth
From the retirement of my native hillshills,
I loved whate'er I saw, saw: nor lightly loved,
But fervently did most intensely; never dream dreamt of aught
More grand, more fair, more exquisitely framed,framed
Than those few nooks to which my happy feet
Were limited. I had not at that time
Lived long enough, nor in the least survived
The first diviner influence of this worldworld,
As it appears to unaccustomed eyes.
I worshipped then Worshipping them among the depths depth of thingsthings,
As my soul bade me; piety ordained, could I then take partsubmit
In aught but To measured admiration, or be pleasedto aught
With any thing but humbleness That should preclude humility and love?
I felt, observed, and nothing else; I pondered; did not judge,
I Yea, never thought of judging, judging; with the gift
Of all this glory filled and satisfiedsatisfied.
And afterwards, when through the gorgeous Alps
Roaming, I carried with me the same heart.heart:
In truth, this the degradation howsoe'er
Induced, effect effect, in whatsoe'er degreedegree,
Of custom that prepares such wantonnessa partial scale
As makes In which the greatest things give way to least,little oft outweighs the great;
Or any other cause that hath been named,named;
Or, Or lastly, aggravated by the times,times
Which with And their passionate sounds impassioned sounds, which well might often make
The milder minstrelsies of rural scenes
Inaudible was transient. transient; I had feltknown
Too forcibly, too early in my life,
Visitings of imaginative power
For this to last: I shook the habit off
Entirely and for ever, and again
In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand now,stand,
A sensitive, and sensitive being, a creative 'creative' soul.
There are in our existence spots of time,
Which That with distinct preeminence pre-eminence retain
A renovating virtue, whence, whence depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or aught of heavier or more deadly weightweight,
In trivial occupations occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse, intercourse our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repairedrepaired;
A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,
That penetrates, enables us to mountmount,
When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.
This efficacious spirit chiefly lurks
Among those passages of life in whichthat give
We have had deepest feeling that the mindProfoundest knowledge to what point, and how,
Is The mind is lord and master, and that master outward sense
Is but the The obedient servant of her will.
will. Such moments, worthy of all gratitude,moments
Are scattered everywhere, taking their date
From our first childhood in our childhood even
Perhaps are most conspicuous. Life with me,
As far as memory can look back, is full
Of this beneficent influence.childhood. I remember well,
At a timeThat once, while yet my inexperienced hand
When Could scarcely (I was then not six years old)
My hand could hold a bridle, with proud hopes
I mounted, and we rode journeyed towards the hills:
We were a pair An ancient servant of horsemen honest Jamesmy father's house
Was with me, my encourager and guide.guide:
We had not travelled long long, ere some mischance
Disjoined me from my comrade, comrade; and, through fear
Dismounting, down the rough and stony moor
I led my horse, and and, stumbling on, at length
Came to a bottom bottom, where in former times
A murderer had been hung in iron chains.
The gibbet-mast was had mouldered down, the bones
And iron case was gone, were gone; but on the turfturf,
Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,
Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name.
The monumental writing was engravenletters were inscribed
In times long past, and still past; but still, from year to year
By superstition of the neighbourhoodneighbourhood,
The grass is cleared away; away, and to this hour
The letters characters are all fresh and visible.visible:
Faltering, A casual glance had shown them, and ignorant where I was, at length
I chanced to espy those characters inscribedfled,
On the green sod: forthwith I left Faltering and faint, and ignorant of the spot,road:
And, Then, reascending the bare common, saw
A naked pool that lay beneath the hills,
The beacon on the summit, and and, more near,
A girl girl, who bore a pitcher on her headhead,
And seemed with difficult steps to force her way
Against the blowing wind. It was, in truth,
An ordinary sight, sight; but I should need
Colours and words that are unknown to manman,
To paint the visionary dreariness
Which, while I looked all round for my lost guide,
Did at that time invest the Invested moorland waste and naked pool,
The beacon on crowning the lonely lone eminence,
The woman, female and her garments vexed and tossed
By the strong wind. When, in the blessed season,hours
With those two dear ones to Of early love, the loved one at my heart so dear—
When, in the blessed time of early love,
Long afterwards I roamed about
In daily presence of this very scene,
Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,
And on the melancholy beacon, fell
The spirit of pleasure and youth's golden gleam.side,
I roamed, in daily presence of this scene,
Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,
And on the melancholy beacon, fell
A spirit of pleasure and youth's golden gleam;
And think ye not with radiance more divinesublime
From For these remembrances, and from for the power
They had left behind? So feeling comes in aid
Of feeling, and diversity of strength
Attends us, if but once we have been strong.
Oh Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
Proceed thy honours! honours. I am lost, but see
In simple childhood something of the base
On which thy greatness stands stands; but this I feel,
That from thyself it is comes, that thou must give,
Else never canst receive. The days gone by
Come back Return upon me almost from the dawn almostdawn
Of life; life: the hiding-places of my man's power
Seem open, Open; I approach, and then would approach them, but they close;close.
I see by glimpses now, now; when age comes onon,
May scarcely see at all; and I would givegive,
While yet we may, as far as words can give,
A substance Substance and a life to what I feel:feel, enshrining,
I would enshrine Such is my hope, the spirit of the pastPast
For future restoration. Yet another
Of these to me affecting incidents,
With which we will conclude.
One Christmas-time,
The day before the holidays began,
Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth
Into the fields, impatient for the sight
Of those two horses which should bear us home,
My brothers and myself. memorials:—
One Christmas-time,
On the glad eve of its dear holidays,
Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth
Into the fields, impatient for the sight
Of those led palfreys that should bear us home;
My brothers and myself. There was rose a crag,
An eminence, which That, from the meeting-point
Of meeting-point of two highways ascending overlookedhighways
At least a long half-mile of those two roads,Ascending, overlooked them both, far stretched;
By each of Thither, uncertain on which the expected steeds might come—
The choice uncertain. Thither road to fix
My expectation, thither I repairedrepaired,
Up to Scout-like, and gained the highest summit. 'Twas summit; 'twas a day
Stormy, and rough, Tempestuous, dark, and wild, and on the grass
I sate half sheltered half-sheltered by a naked wall.wall;
Upon my right hand was couched a single sheep,
A whistling hawthorn on Upon my left, and there,left a blasted hawthorn stood;
With those companions at my side, I watched,watched
Straining my eyes intensely intensely, as the mist
Gave intermitting prospect of the woodcopse
And plain beneath. Ere I we to school returned
That dreary time, ere I had been ten days
A dweller in my father's house, he died,
And I and my two brothers, orphans then,
Followed his body to the grave. returned,—
That dreary time, ere we had been ten days
Sojourners in my father's house, he died;
And I and my three brothers, orphans then,
Followed his body to the grave. The event,
With all the sorrow which that it brought, appeared
A chastisement; and when I called to mind
That day so lately past, when from the crag
I looked in such anxiety of hope,hope;
With trite reflections of morality,
Yet in the deepest passion, I bowed low
To God who God, Who thus corrected my desires.desires;