With Wordsworth in England Edited by Mrs. McMahan FLORENCE IN THE POETRY OF THE BROWNINGS WITH SHELLEY IN ITALY WITH BYRON IN ITALY WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Each with over 60 illustrations 12mo edition net $1.40 Large-paper edition net 3.75 A. C. McCLURG & CO., Publishers CHICAGO pOCKERMOUTH Castle and the River Derwent, near Wordsworth's Birthplace. "The fairest of all rivers, loved To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song. On his smooth breast the shadow of those towers That yet survive, a shattered monument Of feudal sway." — The Prelude, Book i, p. 19. With Wordsworth in England Being a Selection of the Poems and Letters of William Wordsworth Which have to do with English Scenery and English Life Selected and Arranged by Anna Benneson McMahan Editor of " Florence in the Poetry of the Brownings," etc. With over Sixty Illustrations from Photographs Chicago A. C. McClurg & Co. 1907 k RY of CONOR Two OoDle? Received y oct s 190? TTisxSZ CopyneW Entry Oct 2 /f*7 CLASS A XXC, No, . / / O Copyright A. C. McClurg & Co. 1907 All rights reserved Published September 28, 1907 For the beautiful illustrations of the country of Southwestern England, the editor makes grateful acknowledgment to Mr. Henry Ware, of Cambridge, Mass. Many of the photographs reproduced in this volume were made by Mr. G. P. Abraham, of Keswick. The University Press, Cambridge, TJ. S. A. To One of the "Best Knowers" of WORDSWORTH GEORGE RECORD PECK In Memory of Two Decades of Friendship What were mighty Nature's self? Her features, could they win us, Unhelped by the poetic voice That hourly speaks within us ? Yabbow Rbvmitid. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page General Introduction xvii the years 1770-1795 Introductory to Wordsworth's Life at Cockermouth, Hawkshead, Cambridge University 1 An Evening Walk 9 The Sparrow's Nest 14 To a Butterfly 15 In Sight of the Town of Cockermouth 15 Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth Castle ... 16 To the River Derwent 17 Prom "The Prelude," Book I The Poet Favoured in his Birthplace .... 17 Love of Nature Developed in School-Days ... 20 From " The Prelude," Book II Sports of Boyhood 31 Morning Walks 38 Poetic Visions 39 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 42 From " The Prelude," Book III Cambridge 42 University Life 44 Letter to Dorothy Wordsworth 47 From "The Prelude," Book IV First College Vacation 49 Becomes a " Dedicated Spirit " 54 Inside of King's College Chapel, Cambridge; Three Sonnets 56 Cathedrals, etc 58 [vii] TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Letter to William Mathews 59 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 59 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 60 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 63 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 63 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 64 Letter to William Mathews 67 Prom " The Prelude," Book V Tribute to Books 67 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 73 THE YEARS 1795-1800 Introductory to Life at Racedown and Alfoxden. . 75 To the Memory of Raisley Calvert 83 From " The Prelude," Book XI Tribute from the Poet to his Sister 83 Letter to Francis Wrangham 88 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 88 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 89 Lines Written in Early Spring 90 To my Sister 91 Expostulation and Reply 93 The Tables Turned 94 From "Peter Bell" 95 "There was a Boy" 98 A Poet's Epitaph 100 Lines near Tintern Abbey 103 From "The Old Cumberland Beggar" 108 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 110 Letter to James Losh 112 Letter to Thomas Cottle 114 Letter to Thomas Cottle 115 From " The Prelude," Book XIV Alfoxden Days with S. T. Coleridge ... .115 [ viii ] TABLE OF CONTENTS Page the years 1800-1813 Introductory to Life at Grasmere and Coleorton . 119 From " The Recluse." Life at Grasmere 125 Letter to S. T. Coleridge 136 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 142 Emma's Dell 145 " I "Wandered Lonely as a Cloud " 147 Poems Relating to Nab-Scar The Waterfall and the Eglantine 148 The Oak and the Broom 150 " Yes, it was the Mountain Echo " 155 The Idle Shepherd-Boys . . 156 A Farewell 160 "She was a Phantom of Delight" 162 Letter to Sir George Beaumont 163 Letter to Sir George Beaumont 165 Letter to Sir Walter Scott 166 Yarrow Unvisited 168 Letter to Sir George Beaumont 170 Letter to Sir George Beaumont 172 " When to the Attractions of the Busy World " ... 175 To the Daisy 178 Elegiac Verses 181 Elegiac Stanzas : Peele Castle in a Storm 184 "Brook! whose Society the Poet Seeks" 187 "Loud is the Vale" 188 ToRothaQ 189 To Lady Fitzgerald 189 Letter to Sir George Beaumont 190 Yew-Trees 192 Written in March : Brother's Water 193 Personal Talk 194 Admonition . 196 '"BelovedVale'.'Isaid" 197 [ix] iX TABLE OF CONTENTS Page " The World is too much with us" 198 To Sleep : Three Sounets 198 Sonnets of Patriotism In London, September, 1802 200 London, 1802 201 " Great Men have been among us " 201 " It is not to be thought of " 202 " When I have borne in Memory " 202 Composed upon Westminster Bridge 203 To the Cuckoo 204 To a Sky-Lark (1805) 205 To a Sky-Lark (1825) 206 " O Nightingale ! thou surely art " 207 "Pelion and Ossa Flourish Side by Side" 208 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 208 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 209 Letter to Sir George Beaumont 212 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 214 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 215 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 217 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 218 Letter to Lady Beaumont 219 Letter to Sir George Beaumont 222 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 223 Letter to Thomas Poole 225 Letter to Lord Lonsdale 226 Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle 228 Ode: Intimations of Immortality 234 THE YEARS 1813-1850 Introductory to Life at Rydal Mount 243 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 251 Sonnet to Wansfell 251 " The Massy Ways, Carried across these Heights " . . 252 " Adieu, Rydalian Laurels ! " 253 [x] TABLE OF CONTENTS Page From " The Excursion," Book I The Poet 253 From "The Excursion," Book II "The Solitary's" Home among the Mountains . 256 The Langdale Pikes 257 Mist Opening in the Hills 259 From " The Excursion," Book III The Vale of Little Langdale ....... 260 From " The Excursion," Book IV Man's Relation to God 264 Evolution Leads to Love and Adoration . . . 266 From " The Excursion," Book V The Vale of Grasmere 269 Hackett Cottage in Little Langdale 271 Life is Love and Immortality 273 From "The Excursion," Book VII Grasmere Churchyard 273 The Simple Life 275 Loneliness of the Deaf Man 277 Blindness 278 From "The Excursion," Book IX True Equality of Mankind 280 Duty of the State in Education 282 On Lake Windermere 283 A Vesper Service on Longhrigg Fell . . . . 285 Letter to Benjamin R. Haydon 288 Letter to Benjamin It. Haydon 289 Letter to James Losh 290 Letter to Walter Savage Landor 291 Letter to Walter Savage Landor 293 Letter to Walter Savage Landor 294 Letter to Sir George Beaumont 296 Sonnets on the Langdale Pikes 297 The Pass of Kirkstone 298 Sonnet to Oxford 301 [xi] TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Six Sonnets from Series to "The River Duddon" . . 302 The Wishing-Gate 305 The Primrose of the Rock 308 To Miss Blackett : on her First Ascent of Helvellyn . . 310 Sonnet at Fumess Abbey 312 Airey-Force Yalley 312 " Forth from a Jutting Ridge " .313 Inscription for Southey's Monument 314 Letter to G. Huntly Gordon 315 Letter from Dorothy Wordsworth 316 Letter to Sir W. Rowan Hamilton 319 Letter to Sir W. Rowan Hamilton 320 Letter to Sir W. Rowan Hamilton 321 Letter to Sir W. Rowan Hamilton 323 Letter to John Kenyon 323 Letter to Sir Walter Scott 325 Yarrow Revisited 326 Letter to Sir William Rowan Hamilton 330 Letter to Henry Nelson Coleridge 331 Letter to Henry Crabb Robinson 332 Letter to Mrs. Wordsworth 333 Letter to Benjamin R. Haydon 335 From Wordsworth's Conversation 336 Letter to Professor Henry Reed 337 Letter to Professor Henry Reed 338 Letter to Edward Moxon 340 Letter to Sir Robert Pee) 341 Letter to Professor Henry Reed 342 [xii] ILLUSTRATIONS Page Cockermouth Castle and Derwent River .... Frontispiece Wordsworth's Birthplace, Cockermouth 3 Falls of Lodore 8 Derwentwater and Friar's Crag 16 Esthwaite and Hawkshead 20 Wordsworth's Lodgings at Hawkshead 26 Hawkshead School-room 30 Furness Abbey 34 Islands of Windermere 38 Lake Windermere 42 St. John's College, Cambridge 48 Village of Hawkshead with Wetherlam in the distance ... 52 King's College Chapel, Cambridge 56 St. John's College Chapel 66 Coniston " Old Man " 72 River Lyn, at Lynmonth 76 Wordsworth's House, near Holford, Somerset 82 Portrait of Dorothy Wordsworth at the age of 62 ... . 86 Wordsworth's Glen at Alfoxden 90 Valley of Rocks, near Lynton . 94 Village Road, Lynton 98 Tintern Abbey 102 Nave of Tintern Abbey 106 [ xiii ] ILLUSTRATIONS Pagk Among the Quantock Hills 110 Tillage Road, Somersetshire 114 Dove Cottage, Grasmere 121 Grasmere from Dunmail Raise 128 Living Room, Dove Cottage 132 Bedroom, Dove Cottage 136 The Well, Dove Cottage 140 Emma's Dell, Grasmere 146 Nab Scar, from River Rothay 150 Rydal Lake and Nab Scar 154 Dungeon Ghyll Eorce 158 Poet's Seat, Dove Cottage Garden . . . . 162 Stybarrow Crag, Ullswater 168 Daffodils blooming on the Banks of Ullswater 172 "Wordsworth's Eir Grove 176 Grisedale Tarn and Pass, with Ullswater in distance; from Seat Sandal 182 River Rothay, Grasmere 186 River Rothay 190 Lower Room, Dove Cottage 194 The River Rothay in Winter 200 Borrowdale Yews, west of Keswick 204 Derwentwater and Mt. Skiddaw 208 Brougham Castle on River Emont 214 Brimmer Head Bridge 220 Easedale Tarn 228 Tilberthwaite Glen 236 Rydal Mount 245 Wansfell 250 Blea Tarn Cottage 256 Langdale Pikes 262 [xiv] ILLUSTRATIONS Paos BleaTarn 268 Hackett Cottage 274 Loughrigg Tarn and Fell 280 St. Oswald's Church, Grasmere 286 Interior of St. Oswald's Church 292 Langdale Pikes from Thrang Crag 298 Ulpha, in Duddon Valley 304 The Wishing Gate 310 Crosthwaite Church, Keswick 316 Helvellyn, Striding Edge, and Red Tarn; Ullswater in distance 322 Oxford 328 High Street, Oxford 334 Helm Crag and Grasmere Lake 338 Graves of Wordsworth Eamily, Grasmere 342 [xv] Introduction OF all poets, William Wordsworth is the one who has taken most pains that his readers shall know every influence and every experience that have shaped his life and his verse. " The Prelude/' a poem of fourteen books with over eight thousand lines, and " The Excursion/'' with nine books and nearly nine thousand lines, are witnesses. But their very voluminousness stands as a bar against that intimate acquaintance which it was the poet's hope to foster. The world, however mistakenly, is content to take these for the most part on trust, familiar perhaps with a few noble citations, often without even knowing their source. Eeduced to their simplest terms, these poems are the story of a man of exceptional natural endowments finding his chosen companions in the rivers, woods, hills, and mountains, in sky and sun and cloud and storm. These spoke to him " rememberable things/' — at first a simple message, later a revelation of the intimacy between this Nature of " sense and outward things " and his own soul, the Universe, and God. To interpret and pass on this message became Wordsworth's life-work. "Every great poet is a teacher. I wish to be considered as a teacher or nothing," he said. His desire has been realized; year by year the number increases of those who recog- nize Wordsworth as the Great Teacher of the nineteenth century. [ xvii ] INTRODUCTION It would be foolish to claim that there is any magic in the special landscape which had such power over Words- worth's life and poetry ; yet so full are his poems of local allusions that no lover of them can fail to wish to identify the actual spots mentioned. The attempt to do so from the top of a coach, with a copy of " The Excursion " in hand, is a familiar sight in the Lake District of England. The result is a failure both geographically and poetically. It is now twenty years since Wordsworth's principal editor and biographer, Professor Knight, suggested that "a vol- ume of Selections limited to those which allude to localities in the Lake Country, containing fifty to one hundred illus- trations, would be found to cast an unexpected flood of light upon the whole district, and the poet's work in con- nection with it." Until the present year, no such volume has been offered. The " Selections M by Mr. Stopford Brooke, prefaced by his charming introduction and illus- trated by pen-and-ink drawings, appears while this volume is passing through the press. "With Wordsworth in England " has for its aim to cover also that fertile and brilliant period of Wordsworth's life when he lived in Somersetshire, before settling in the Lake Country. Also, it is time that this generation should begin to take a truer view of the human side of Wordsworth. Somehow his name fails to evoke the warm personal attachment felt toward most of our poets. A certain aloofness (to borrow Coleridge's word) is commonly at- tributed to his personality. The popular conception is that he was a man entirely self-sufficient, silent, reserved, caring little for the affectionate side of life, loving nothing [ xviii ] INTRODUCTION so much as his own poetry, and living- a life of seclusion from the world entirely from his own choice. Yet not so felt his contemporaries. His sister Dorothy writes, ' ' William has a sort of violence of affection, if I may so term it, which demonstrates itself every moment of the day when the objects of his affection are present with him, in a thousand almost imperceptible attentions to their wishes, in a sort of restless watchfulness which I know not how to describe, a tenderness that never sleeps, and at the same time such a delicacy of manners as I have observed in few men." We know on the same authority that he was " adored " by his brothers John and Christopher, and Coleridge exclaimed, " God love him ! When I speak in terms of admiration due to his intellect, I fear lest these terms should keep out of sight the amiableness of his man- ners." So passionately jealous was his love for his only daughter that the thought of her marriage even to a man he liked caused him so many sleepless nights and such agonies of mind as were painful to behold. From the sorrow of her death, which occurred three years before his own, he never fully recovered. His love for children was so great that his fellow-traveller at Nimes reported him as less interested in the famous Eoman amphitheatre than in two children at play with flowers there. Wordsworth was heard to exclaim, " Oh, you little darlings, how I wish I could carry you home to Eydal Mount in my pocket ! ** For hospitality the Wordsworth household is something phenomenal in domestic annals. In the early days of life in Dove Cottage, a house of six small rooms, the joint in- come of brother and sister, barely one hundred pounds a [xix] INTRODUCTION year, guests seem to have been considered one of their absolute necessities. To them came and lingered, some- times for weeks at a time, such guests as John Words- worth, the poet's sailor brother, Coleridge and his wife, Southey, John Wilson, Walter Scott, Sir George and Lady Beaumont, Thomas Clarkson, Charles Lloyd, and the Coleridge children. In view of the fact that Wordsworth himself did many of the chores and split all the firewood for the sake of economy, it speaks volumes for his genial nature as host. And when we read of the smoking chim- neys, the leaking roofs, and other household tribulations, our respect for Dorothy as a housekeeper, who somehow contrived to make all these people happy in Dove Cottage, is almost equal to our admiration of her more shining gifts. Poor as the Wordsworths were in those days, one of their first outlays was for a second guest-chamber, lined by Dorothy with the newspapers of the day to save the expense of wall-paper. After Wordsworth's marriage, and under the more ample roof of Eydal Mount, the list of guests grew still longer. In fact, few men have ever attracted to themselves a larger circle of intimate friends, and even adorers. Some of the Hutchinsons (the family of Mrs. Wordsworth) were always inmates of the household ; Isabel Fen wick counted it the great happiness of her life to join the circle, and share with the other women-folk the duties of amanuensis. De Quincey, Wordsworth's successor in Dove Cottage, Arnold of Rugby at Fox How, John Wilson at Elleray, and Southey at Keswick, continually availed themselves of their privileges as neighbors. Wordsworth's infrequent [xx] INTRODUCTION visits to London were eagerly awaited by Charles and Mary Lamb, Henry Crabb Robinson, Benjamin Haydon, Gladstone, Rogers, and many others less known to fame. Walter Scott loved him devotedly, and even Byron, who had written hateful things about Wordsworth, changed his mind after meeting the man himself. Too little is known about the letters of Wordsworth. There is no complete compilation of them. Their neglect is perhaps due partially to Lowell's sweeping assertion, " In all his published correspondence you shall not find a letter, but only essays." This statement needs now to be modified, owing to many hundreds of letters which have come to light since this judgment was written, thirty years ago. Up to that time only a few dozen were known, and many of these were of the nature of " open letters," being written to express his views on public matters, and with an eye to possible publication. When it comes to personal letters, such as he wrote to Haydon, to Sir William Rowan Hamilton, to his Cambridge chums, Wrangham, Losh, and Mathews, and to Sir Walter Scott — most of these unknown to Lowell probably — we find them not at all dull. If Wordsworth be not exactly spontaneous in his epistolary style, the fact is partly due to certain physical disabilities, especially a great weakness of the eyes which forced him almost always to employ another hand than his own in putting his thoughts on paper. No apology can be needed for including also some of the letters of Dorothy Wordsworth. It is simply fol- lowing Wordsworth's own precedent in using her material [xxi] INTRODUCTION as his own, — " she gave me eyes, she gave me ears," — and he might have added that sometimes she gave him words as well. In his prose he often took passages bodily from her Journals, as if oblivious in which mind they first originated; and, in his poems, there is sometimes but the slight transformation needed for the verse form. Dor- othy's letters, like women's letters usually, tell us the little daily incidents of the home or of the walks and talks abroad, and furnish valuable flashes of insight into the manner in which Wordsworth turned facts into poetry. Another delusion that needs to be shattered is that Wordsworth's life was exceptionally sheltered from ob- stacles, that everything went his way, and that he had no unsatisfied longings. On the contrary, he had more than the usual difficulties in fixing upon a career by which he could make a living. The money due him from his father's estate was withheld by a dishonest debtor for nearly twenty years. His poetry did not " take " and (so he told Matthew Arnold) did not for many years bring him in enough to buy his shoestrings ; at the age of sixty he declared that the entire literary earnings of his long life had been about equal to those of a lawyer for two retainers or of the singer of two songs. He contrived somehow to live, marry, and travel on an income of one hundred pounds a year, but there were times when this meant a diet of "essence of carrots, cabbages, and other esculent vegetables, not ex- cluding parsley " — the produce of his own garden. He did not allow such facts to embitter him, but he did not enjoy poverty any more than most men do. Moreover, this stay-at-home man often declared that the [ xxii ] INTRODUCTION one passion of his life was for travelling. In his declining years the chief grudge he bore against Jeffrey for his harsh treatment in the Edinburgh was not for the literary wrong done him, but that " it prevented his going to Italy until he was sixty-three years old, by delaying the sale of his works." It was a wish to raise money enough to take a walking tour with his sister Dorothy and his neighbor Coleridge that gave the first impulse toward the publication of that epoch-making book " Lyrical Ballads." Five pounds being needed, and the combined purses of the three being unequal to such a strain, they planned to raise the amount by composing a poem en roxde, for magazine publication. The scheme grew from a single poem to a volume con- taining twenty-three poems, nineteen of which were fur- nished by Wordsworth. Comparing Southey with himself, Wordsworth says : " Books were his passion ; and wander- ing, I can with truth affirm, was mine." A Wanderer is the hero of his principal work, known to the world as " The Excursion," but during its composition always called by the family "The Pedlar Poem." Bearing in mind that Pedlars or Packmen were more esteemed in those days than now, it is significant that Wordsworth should confess, " Had I been born in a class which would have de- prived me of what is called a liberal education, it is not unlikely that being strong in body I should have taken to a way of life such as that in which my Pedlar passed the greater part of his days." He speaks with enthusiasm of the opportunities offered by such a life to an intimate knowledge of human concerns. Persons of nomadic habits, — beggars, waggoners, leech-gatherers, emigrants, destitute [ xxiii ] INTRODUCTION wayfaring folk such as a roving soldier's widow or a criminal, outcast sailor — these and such as these always attracted him. Wordsworth's self-appreciation has been made the sub- ject of many a merry jest. That Wordsworth was fully conscious of the supreme importance of what he had to say is doubtless true. How could it be otherwise without an entire default of the critical faculty ? But that it left him insensible to the work of others or jealous of their success is absolutely false. His abhorrence of envy was great. He recalled with regret two occasions in his life when he had suffered from this " horrid feeling/' but neither of them was connected with his literary composi- tion, — once when distanced in studying Italian by a fellow-student at Cambridge, and once when he tripped up his brother's heels in a foot-race when the brother was about to outstrip him. To competent criticism he was humbly deferential. When Sir Henry Taylor and Mr. Lockhart criticised the sonnets, he replied : " I have altered them as well as I could to meet your wishes, and trust you will find them improved, as I am sure they are where I have adopted your own words." He believed that his writings would live because "We have all of us one human heart"; but self-assurance like this is not arrogance, it is the self-confidence that accompanies all genius when it is of the highest order. Shakespeare in his " Sonnets," Spenser, and Milton are instances. As a matter of fact, Wordsworth underestimated rather than overestimated that effect of his verse on modern thought of which we are the living witnesses. [ xxiv ] INTRODUCTION Of Wordsworth's originality it is hardly possible to say too much. With most poets, especially in their early work, there are traces of the influences of other minds, — as Browning was indebted to Shelley, Shelley himself to Southey, Keats to Spenser, etc. But Wordsworth seems never to have come under the spell of any other poet ; his themes are those which he encountered in his daily walks, his similes are drawn from things which he had observed with his own eyes. Even the French Eevolution, which certainly did for a time dominate him, lost its hold as soon as he began to see to what it was leading. His justification for his change in political ideals is a grand protest against the bonds which the word consistency makes for men of smaller mind, — "I should think I had lived to little purpose if my notions on the subject of government had undergone no modification. My youth must, in that case, have been without enthusiasm and my manhood endured with small capability of profiting by reflection.'" The " Sonnets to Liberty " are the place to which we must turn to learn how true a patriot Wordsworth was at heart. To an American visitor he said that, although he was known to the world only as a poet, he had given twelve hours' thought to the condition and prospects of society for one to poetry. It was Nature — Nature in the largest meaning of that word — that was Wordsworth's great teacher and inspirer. True, it was Nature in her spiritual rather than in her material or pictorial aspects; therefore this is indeed the great matter for the reader of Wordsworth. Many and [ XXV ] INTRODUCTION able are the guides who have offered themselves for this upper region ; but if one be himself attuned to the message, no guide is needed, and without' such harmony no guide can avail. Other readers, perhaps of not less insight, but only of less patience, may welcome the humbler service here offered, — a guide to some of Wordsworth's well-beloved haunts, — hoping that at some happy moment, at some favored spot, perchance, to attain to the same vision which the poet recognized in his young friend on the top of Helvellyn: " Eor the power of hills is on thee, As was witnessed through thine eye, Then, when old Helvellyn won thee To confess their majesty." A. B. McM. Grasmere, England June, 1907. [ xxvi ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 COCKERMOUTH: HAWKSHEAD : CAMBRIDGE INTRODUCTORY 71 T OTWITHSTANDING all that has been said, jL V and truly, of the simplicity and lack of preten- sion in Wordsworth's life, it is notable that, with the exception of Dove Cottage, his successive homes were in houses of- considerable dignity and spaciousness. This is particularly true of his birth- place, a commodious, well-built house, standing in the midst of fine grounds, by far the best dwelling in the small Cumberland town of CocJcermouth. The deep garden at the bach ends in a high terrace adorned with beautiful plants, shaded by noble trees, and overhang- ing the swiftly flowing Derwent. That Wordsworth always retained tender memories of this place where he and his sister Dorothy, younger by two years, spent their early childhood is told often in his later verse. The finding of the sparrow's nest in the hedge of privet and roses on the terrace-wall; the distant height of Skiddaw from the same view-point; the far-off hill road that appealed to his imagination of lands beyond, [ i ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND are unforgotten. The Derwent is not only to hvm always the " fairest of all rivers" the " glory of the vale" but it is also " a tempting 'playmate whom we dearly loved" a " voice that flowed along my dreams" Cockermouth Castle, a few hundred yards away, is not only a " shattered monument of feudal sway" but a playground in wliose courts he had chased the butter- fly or m whose dungeons he had made himself a volun- tary prisoner. " Fostered alike by beauty and by fear, much favoured in my birthplace," he says. On the death of his mother, when he was nine years old, he was sent to school at Hawkshead, in the adjoin- ing county of Lancaster. Although his name may still be seen rudely carved on the desk where he sat, it was not in the school-room that he got his real edu- cation, but rather when he rose early to walk five miles round the Lake of Esthwaite before any one else was astir, and " sat among the woods Alone upon some jutting eminence, At the first gleam of dawn-light when the vale, Yet slumbering lay in utter solitude" or when, in search of woodcocks, he was tempted to take the bird caught m another's trap and " heard among the solitary hills, Low breathings coming after me, and sounds Of undistinguishabh motion, steps Almost as silent as the turf they trod." That he was even then a boy of no common mould, not- withstanding that he was the best skater and the most [ ^ ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 adventurous of mountain, climbers, is shown by what he told years after, — that he sometimes used to have to stop and grasp a tree or a wall to assure himself of the reality of the visible things, so keenly sensitive was he to the unseen presences, that moved slowly through his mind by day and were a trouble to his dreams at night. Rarely have the poets recorded for us the actual birth-moments of their poetic consciousness. Words- worth describes two such, with a minuteness that air- most enables us to fix the exact spot and hour. The first was when he was scarcely fourteen years old, one evening when walking between Hawkshead and Amble- side. The sun was just setting behind the familiar hills; the multitude of changing shadows, the forests outlined m strong relief upon the background of bril- liant sky, filled him with a new and surprising pleasure. Had any poet ever noted the infinite varieties and im- pressions of Nature in her common aspects? None that he had ever read, and he made up his mind to be that kind of a poet. Four years later came another epoch-making hour in his poetical history. It was in his first college vaca>- Hon, and with joy he had returned to the old home and haunts at Hawkshead. As befitted one with some experience of life, he made a point of entering into the interests of his old comrades, of joining in their festivi- ties with even more zest than formerly. Far into the night these were sometimes prolonged, and on one [ 3 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND occasion the sun was rising as he turned his steps homeward. But to him it was no common sunrise: — " The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light ; . . . . I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me ; bond unknown to me Was given that 1 should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit" For their own sokes these scenes are worth visit- ing, — the quaint old market town of Hawk she ad, proud of its gingerbread and its " wiggs "; the picturesque church; the antique dwellings with their curious gables and pent-houses, and with a brook run- ning under one of the principal streets. In walking distance, in every direction are spots of romantic beauty, — Tarn Hows, the valleys of Yewdale and Langdale leadmg to glistening mountain tarns, the noble heights of Old Man Coniston and Wetherlam, and those " lusty twins," the Langdale Pikes. But for the Wordsworth lover there is added the charm of realizing that it was here, in comparative solitude, that the boy recognized those " gleams like the flashing of a shield," here that he began that constant and intimate communion with Nature that fitted him for his high office as her Great Interpreter. Even farther may one wander and still be on classic ground, — over the hill of Sawrey to the now well- peopled shores of Lake Windermere, or to the Vale of Deadly Nightshade where " Stands yet a mouldering pile with fractured arch, Belfry, and images and living trees," [4 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 the birds still building their nests and singing as sweetly as did that single wren m the nave one day, when " there I could have made My dwelling-place, and lived forever there To hear such music." While still a school-boy, the death of his father left Wordsworth both homeless and penniless. A payment due the estate, which should have been divided among the five children, was withheld from them not only now but for twenty years more. It was William, the second son, that seemed to give the guardians most anxiety. But the uncles on the Wordsworth side finally decided to give him a university training, hoping to fit him for some dignified career, and sent him to Cambridge. He was then seventeen and a half years old, — a country-bred lad unused to restraints of any kind, and thoroughly hating most of the studies he was required to take. " Frantic and dissolute " were the words he used of the student-life. Though he con- fessed that it had, at first, some attractions for him, it soon began to repel, and he returned to his old soli- tary and introspective ways. The chief shaping effect seems to have come from the thought that Milton and other poets had been his predecessors there, and he resolved that he, too, would become a poet. Naturally, this determination was not hailed with joy by the prac- tical uncles who were paying his bills. Several safe and eminently respectable careers were proposed; but [ 5 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND he felt himself too young for a curacy, disliked the law, abandoned thoughts of the army from fear of being sent to the West Indies and contracting yellow fever; meditated journalism, but found no one willing to join m the enterprise; and finally went to France, where he stayed fifteen months and had a rude and sad awaken- ing from the fond dreams he had cherished for the French Revolution. No wonder that the long-suffering guardians came to regard him as both lazy and obstinate, and that the Cooksons, his mother's relatives who had his be- loved sister Dorothy in charge, actually forbade him to visit her, for fear of his contaminating influence. It was m order to show that he had abilities of some sort that he now (1792) resolved to publish two poems which he had cm hand, — "An Evening Walk," ad- dressed to Dorothy, and " Descriptive Sketches," a poetic memorial of a walking tour through France, Switzerland, and the north of Italy, two years before. The critics were almost unanimous in their dispar- agement; the reading public paid them almost no attention. One young man, however, an undergrad- uate who had entered Cambridge the month after Wordsworth had taken his degree, had the insight to perceive that these were no common verses, and to recognize in them germs of a new order of poetry. This man was Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and later, when he himself commanded the public ear, he wrote " Seldom, if ever, was the emergence of an original [ 6 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 poetic genius above the literary horizon more evidently announced" The following Summer (1793) was also important for his poetry, for it was then that he first visited the south of England, spending one month of " calm and glassy days " in the delightful Isle of Wight, and making the acquaintance of the brothers William and Raisley Calvert. Later he left for a solitary expedi- tion,mostly on foot, to the north of Wales. He crossed the desolate expanse of Salisbury Plain, proceeded to Bath and Bristol, and thence up the Wye to Tintern. All of these places were afterwards used as settings or furnished incidents for poems. It was at Goodrich Castle that he met the little girl of " We are Seven "; and this was his first sight of the Abbey at Tmtern which later was to become the theme of the poem which we could perhaps least well spare of any, — the one of which it has been truly said, " The essential thought of ' Tintern Abbey ' was as new to the world as the thought of the Sermon on the Mount." [ i ] 'ALLS of Lodore. Where Dericent rests, and listens to the roar That stuns the tremulous cliffs of hhjh Lodore." — An Evening "Walk, p. 9. THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 AN EVENING WALK 1 ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY Far from my dearest Friend, 't is mine to rove Through bare grey dell, high wood, and pastoral cove ; Where Derwent rests, and listens to the roar That stuns the tremulous cliffs of high Lodore ; Where peace to Grasmere's lonely island leads, To willowy hedge-rows, and to emerald meads ; Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottaged grounds, Her rocky sheepwalks, and her woodland bounds ; Where, undisturbed by winds, Winander 2 sleeps 'Mid clustering isles, and holly-sprinkled steeps ; Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite's shore, And memory of departed pleasures, more. Fair scenes, erewhile, I taught, a happy child, The echoes of your rocks my carols wild : The spirit sought not then, in cherished sadness, A cloudy substitute for failing gladness. In youth's keen eye the livelong day was bright, The sun at morning, and the stars at night, Alike, when first the bittern's hollow bill Was heard, or woodcocks roamed the moonlight hill. In thoughtless gaiety I coursed the plain, And hope itself was all I knew of pain ; For then, the inexperienced heart would beat 1 This was Wordsworth's first published poem (1793). It had been written during his first two college vacations ; the "young lady " to whom it is addressed was his sister Dorothy. 2 Wynander-mere was the original form of Windermere. [ 9 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND At times, while young Content forsook her seat, And wild Impatience, pointing upward, showed, Through passes yet unreached, a brighter road. Alas ! the idle tale of man is found Depicted in the dial's moral round ; Hope with reflection blends her social rays To gild the total tablet of his clays ; Yet still, the sport of some malignant power, He knows but from its shade the present hour. But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain ? To show what pleasures yet to me remain, Say, will my Friend, with unreluctant ear, The history of a poet's evening hear ? .«■•■• Just where a cloud above the mountain rears An edge all flame, the broadening sun appears ; A long blue bar its segis orb divides, And breaks the spreading of its golden tides ; And now that orb has touched the purple steep Whose softened image penetrates the deep. 'Cross the calm lake's blue shades the cliffs aspire, "With towers and woods, a ( prospect all on fire ' ; While coves and secret hollows, through a ray Of fainter gold, a purple gleam betray. Each slip of lawn the broken rocks between Shines in the light with more than earthly green : Deep yellow beams the scattered stems illume, Par in the level forest's central gloom : Waving his hat, the shepherd, from the vale, Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale, — [ 10 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 The dog, loud barking, 'mid the glittering rocks, Hunts, where his master points, the intercepted flocks. Where oaks overhang the road the radiance shoots On tawny earth, wild weeds, and twisted roots ; The druid-stones a brightened ring unfold ; And all the babbling brooks are liquid gold ; Sunk to a curve, the day-star lessens still, Gives one bright glance, and drops behind the hill. In these secluded vales, if village fame, Confirmed by hoary hairs, belief may claim ; When up the hills, as now, retired the light, Strange- apparitions mocked the shepherd's sight. The form appears of one that spurs his steed Midway along the hill with desperate speed ; Unhurt pursues his lengthened flight, while all Attend, at every stretch, his headlong fall. Anon, appears a brave, a gorgeous show Of horsemen-shadows moving to and fro ; At intervals imperial banners stream, And now the van reflects the solar beam ; The rear through iron brown betrays a sullen gleam. While silent stands the admiring crowd below, Silent the visionary warriors go, Winding in ordered pomp their upward way Till the last banner of the long array Has disappeared, and every trace is fled Of splendour — save the beacon's spiry head Tipt with Eve's latest gleam of burning red. Now, while the solemn evening shadows sail, On slowly waving pinions, down the vale ; [ 11 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND And, fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines Its darkening boughs and leaves, in stronger lines ; 1 ; T is pleasant near the tranquil lake to stray Where, winding on along some secret bay, The swan uplifts his chest, and backward flings His neck, a varying arch, between his towering wings : The eye that marks the gliding creature sees How graceful pride can be, and how majestic, ease. While tender cares and mild domestic loves With furtive watch pursue her as she moves, The female with a meeker charm succeeds, And her brown little ones around her leads, Nibbling the water lilies as they pass, Or playing wanton with the floating grass. She, in a mother's care, her beauty's pride Forgetting, calls the wearied to her side ; Alternately they mount her back, and rest Close by her mantling wings' embraces prest. • «•••• Now, with religious awe, the farewell light Blends with the solemn colouring of night ; 'Mid groves of clouds that crest the mountain's brow, And round the west's proud lodge their shadows throw, 1 This is feebly and imperfectly expressed, but I recollect distinctly the very spot where this first struck me. It was in the way between Hawks- head and Ambleside and gave me extreme pleasure. The moment was im- portant in my poetical history ; for I date from it my consciousness of the infinite variety of natural experiences which had been unnoticed by the poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them : and I made a resolution to supply in some degree the deficiency. I could not have been at that time above fourteen years of age. (Wordsworth's Note.) [ 12 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Like Una shining on her gloomy way, The half-seen form of Twilight roams astray ; Shedding, through paly loop-holes mild and small, Gleams that upon the lake's still bosom fall ; Soft o'er the surface creep those lustres pale Tracking the motions of the fitful gale. With restless interchange at once the bright Winds on the shade, the shade upon the light. No favoured eye was e'er allowed to gaze On lovelier spectacle in faery days ; When gentle Spirits urged a sportive chase, Brushing with lucid wands the water's face : While music, stealing rouud the glimmering deeps, Charmed the tall circle of the enchanted steeps. — The lights are vanished from the watery plains : No wreck of all the pageantry remains. Unheeded night has overcome the vales : On the dark earth the wearied vision fails ; The latest lingerer of the forest train, The lone black fir, forsakes the faded plain ; Last evening sight, the cottage smoke, no more, Lost in the thickened darkness, glimmers hoar ; And, towering from the sullen dark-brown mere, Like a black wall, the mountain-steeps appear. — Now o'er the soothed accordant heart we feel A sympathetic twilight slowly steal, And ever, as we fondly muse, we find The soft gloom deepening on the tranquil mind. [ W ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND POEMS RELATING TO WORDSWORTH'S CHILD- HOOD DAYS WITH HIS SISTER DOROTHY THE SPARROW'S NEST Behold, within the leafy shade, Those bright blue eggs together laid ! On me the chance-discovered sight Gleamed like a vision of delight. I started — seeming to espy The home and sheltered bed, The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by My Father's house, in wet or dry My sister Emmeline 1 and I Together visited. She looked at it and seemed to fear it ; Dreading, tho' wishing, to be near it : Such heart was in her, being then A little Prattler among men. The Blessing of my later years Was with me when a boy : She gave me eyes, she gave me ears ; And humble cares, and delicate fears ; A heart, the fountain of sweet tears ; And love, and thought, and joy. 1 " Emmeline " i3 often substituted for the real Dorothy, in the poet's verses. The high terrace of the end of the Cockermouth garden was a favorite playground of the two children, and the terrace wall of closely dipt privet and roses gave an almost impervious shelter to birds building their nests there. [ i* ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 TO A BUTTERFLY Stay near me — do not take thy flight ! A little longer stay in sight ! Much converse do I find in thee, Historian of my infancy ! Float near me ; do not yet depart ! Dead times revive in thee : Thou bring' st, gay creature as thou art ! A solemn image to my heart, My father's family ! 1 Oh ! pleasant, pleasant were the days, The time, when, in our childish plays, My sister Emmeline and I Together chased the butterfly ! A very hunter did I rush Upon the prey : — with leaps and springs I followed on from brake to bush ; But she, God love her, feared to brush The dust from off its wings. SONNETS EELATING TO WORDSWORTH'S CHILDHOOD AT COCKERMOUTH IN SIGHT OE THE TOWN OE COCKERMOUTH 2 A point of life between my Parent's dust, And yours, my buried Little ones ! ami; And to those graves looking habitually 1 My sister and I were parted immediately after the death of our mother, who died in 1778, both being very young. (Wordsworth's Note.) 2 "Where the author was born, and his father's remains are laid. [ 15 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND In kindred quiet I repose my trust. Death to the innocent is more than just, And, to the sinner, mercifully bent; So may I hope, if truly I repent And meekly bear the ills which bear I must : And You, my Offspring ! that do still remain, Yet may outstrip me in the appointed race, If e'er, through fault of mine, in mutual pain We breathed together for a moment's space, The wrong, by love provoked, let love arraign, And only love keep in your hearts a place. ADDRESS FROM THE SPIRIT OF COCKERMOUTH CASTLE 1 " Thou look'st upon me, and dost fondly think, Poet ! that, stricken as both are by years, We, differing once so much, are now Compeers, Prepared, when each has stood his time, to sink Into the dust. Erewhile a sterner link United us ; when thou, in boyish play, Entering my dungeon, didst become a prey To soul-appalling darkness. Not a blink Of light was there ; — and thus did I, thy Tutor, Make thy young thoughts acquainted with the grave ; While thou wert chasing the winged butterfly Through my green courts ; Or climbing, a bold suitor, Up to the flowers whose golden progeny Still round my shattered brow in beauty wave." 1 Written when Wordsworth was sixty-three years old. [ 16 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 TO THE RIVER DERWENT Among the mountains were we nursed, loved Stream, Thou near the eagle's nest — within brief sail, ly of his bold wing floating on the gale, Where thy deep voice could lull me ! Faint the beam Of human life when first allowed to gleam On mortal notice. — Glory of the vale, Such thy meek outset, with a crown, though frail, Kept in perpetual verdure by the steam Of thy soft breath ! — Less vivid wreath entwined Nemsean victor's brow ; less bright was worn, Meed of some Roman chief — in triumph borne With captives chained ; and shedding from his car The sunset splendours of a finished war Upon the proud enslavers of mankind ! FROM "THE PRELUDE," BOOK I COCKERMOUTH AND THE RIVER DERWENT [the poet favoured in his birthplace] The Poet, gentle creature as he is, Hath, like the Lover, his unruly times ; His fits when he is neither sick nor well, Though no distress be near him but his own Unmanageable thoughts : his mind, best pleased While she as duteous as the mother dove Sits brooding, lives not always to that end, But like the innocent bird, hath goadings on 2 [ 17 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND .; drive her as in trouble through the groves ; With mo is now such passion, to be blamed No otherwise than as it lasts too Long. . . . Thus my days aro past In contraction : with no skill to part Vague longing, haply bred by want of powor, I" rem paramount impulse not to bo withstood, A timorous capacity, from prudence, i oironmspeotion. infinite delay. Humility and modes! awo, themselves Betray me. serving often for a eloak Do a more subtle selfishness : that now l.oeks everv function up in blank reserve. Non dupes me. trusting to an anxious eve That with intrusive restlessness beats off Simplicity and self-presented truth. Ah ! better far than this, to stray about Voluptuously through fields and rural walks, tad ask no reeord of the hours, resigned To vacant musing, unreproved neglect Of all things, and deliberate holiday. Far better never to have heard the name Of Kal and just ambition, than to live iffled and plagued by a mind that every hour .nt to her task ; takes heart again. Then feels immediately some hollow thought Hang like an interdict upon her hopes. is is my lot ; for either still I find Some imperfection in the chosen theme. L W I THE YEA ItS 1770 TO tfTflfi Or see of absolute accomplishment Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself, That I recoil and droop, and seek repose In listlessness from vain perplexity, Un profitably travelling toward the grave, Like a false steward who hath much rece: And renders nothing back. "Was it for this That one, the fairest of all rivers, lo To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song, And, from his alder shades and rocky falls, And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice That flowed along my dreams ? For this, didst thou, Derwent ! winding among grassy holms Where I was looking on, a babe in arms, Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts To more than infant softness, giving me Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm That Nature breathes among the hills and gro When he had left the mountains and received On his smooth breast the shadow of those towers That yet survive, a shattered monument Of feudal sway, the bright blue river passed Along the margin of our terrace walk; A tempting playmate whom we dearly loved. Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child, In a small mill-race severed from his stream, Made one long bathing of a summer's day; [ 19 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves Of yellow ragwort ; or, when rock and hill, The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height, Were bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone Beneath the sky, as if I had been born On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport A naked savage, in the thunder shower. FEOM "THE PRELUDE," BOOK I HAWKSHEAD AND ESTHWAITE LAKE [love of nature developed in school-days] Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear, Much favoured in my birthplace and no less In that beloved Vale to which erelong We were transplanted ; — there were we let loose For sports of wider range. Ere I had told Ten birthdays, when among the mountain slopes Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped The last autumnal crocus, 't was my joy With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung To range the open heights where woodcocks run Along the smooth green turf. Through half the night, Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied That anxious visitation ; — moon and stars [ 20 ] J - •3 R t3 s. S TO s^ Rj to" THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Were shining o'er my head. I was alone, And seemed to be a trouble to the peace That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befell In these night wanderings, that a strong desire Overpowered my better reason, and the bird Which was the captive of another's toil Became my prey ; and when the deed was done I heard among the solitary hills Low breathings coming after me, and sounds Of undistinguishable motion, steps Almost as silent as the turf they trod. Nor less, when spring had warmed the cultured Vale, Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird Had in high places built her lodge ; though mean Our object and inglorious, yet the end Was not ignoble. Oh ! when I have hung Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed) Suspended by the blast that blew amain, Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time While on the perilous ridge I hung alone, With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind Blow through my ear ! the sky seemed not a sky Of earth — and with what motion moved the clouds ! Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music ; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles [ 21 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society. How strange, that all The terrors, pains, and early miseries, Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part, And that a needful part, in making up The calm existence that is mine when I Am worthy of myself ! Praise to the end ! Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ ; Whether her fearless visitings, or those That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light Opening the peaceful clouds ; or she would use Severer interventions, ministry More palpable, as best might suit her aim. One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow tree Within a rocky cave, its usual home. Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on ; Leaving behind her still, on either side, Small circles glittering idly in the moon, Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows, Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point With an unswerving line, I fixed my view Upon the summit of a craggy ridge, The horizon's utmost boundary; far above [ 22 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. She was an elfin pinnace ; lustily I dipped my oars into the silent lake, And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat Went heaving through the water like a swan ; When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct, Upreared its head. I struck and struck again, And growing still in stature the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned, And through the silent water stole my way Back to the covert of the willow tree ; There in her mooring- place I left my bark, — And through the meadows homeward went, in grave And serious mood ; but after I had seen That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense Of unknown modes of being ; o'er my thoughts There hung a darkness, call it solitude Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes Remained, no pleasant images of trees, Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields ; But huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams. [ 23 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Wisdom and Spirit of the universe ! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul ; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects, with enduring things — With life and nature — purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both pain and fear, until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapours rolling down the valley made A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods, At noon and "'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine ; Mine was it in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long. And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, I heeded not their summons : happy time It was indeed for all of us — for me [ 24 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 It was a time of rapture ! Clear and loud The village clock tolled six, — I wheeled about, Proud aud exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures, — the resounding horn, The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle ; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud ; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron ; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain ; and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short ; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me — even as if the earth had rolled [ 25 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND With visible motion her diurnal round ! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep. Ye Presences of Nature in the sky And on the earth ! Ye Visions of the hills ! And Souls of lonely places ! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed Such ministry, when ye, through many a year Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, Impressed, upon all forms, the characters Of danger or desire ; and thus did make The surface of the universal earth, With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, Work like a sea ? Not uselessly employed, Might I pursue this theme through every change Of exercise and play, to which the year Did summon us in his delightful round. We were a noisy crew ; the sun in heaven Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours ; Nor saw a band in happiness and joy Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod. I could record with no reluctant voice The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers With milk-white clusters hung ; the rod and line, True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong [ 26 ] so CO « 2 £ c THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 And unreproved enchantment led us on By rocks and pools shut out from every star, All the green summer, to forlorn cascades Among the windings hid of mountain brooks. — Unfading recollections ! at this hour The heart is almost mine with which I felt, From some hill-top on sunny afternoons, The paper kite high among fleecy clouds Pull at her rein like an impetuous courser ; Or, from the meadows sent on gusty days, Beheld her breast the wind, then suddenly Dashed headlong, and rejected by the storm. Ye lowly cottages wherein we dwelt, A ministration of your own was yours ; Can I forget you, being as you were So beautiful among the pleasant fields In which ye stood ? or can I here forget The plain and seemly countenance with which Ye dealt out your plain comforts ? Yet had ye Delights and exultations of your own. Eager and never weary we pursued Our home-amusements by the warm peat-fire At evening, when with pencil, and smooth slate In square divisions parcelled out and all With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o'er, We schemed and puzzled, head opposed to head In strife too humble to be named in verse : L 27 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace How Nature by extrinsic passion first Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair, And made me love them, may I here omit How other pleasures have been mine, and joys Of subtler origin ; how I have felt, Not seldom even in that tempestuous time, Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense "Which seem, in their simplicity, to own An intellectual charm ; that calm delight "Which, if I err not, surely must belong To those first-born affinities that fit Our new existence to existing things, And, in our dawn of being, constitute The bond of union between life and joy. Yes, I remember when the changeful earth, And twice five summers on my mind had stamped The faces of the moving year, even then I held unconscious intercourse with beauty Old as creation, drinking in a pure Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths Of curling mist, or from the level plain Of waters coloured by impending clouds. The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays Of Cumbria's rocky limits, they can tell How, when the Sea threw off his evening shade, And to the shepherd's hut on distant hills Sent welcome notice of the rising moon, How I have stood, to fancies such as these [ 28 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 A stranger, linking with the spectacle No conscious memory of a kindred sight, And bringing with me no peculiar sense Of quietness or peace ; yet have I stood, Even while mine eye hath moved o'er many a league Of shining water, gathering as it seemed, Through every hair-breadth in that field of light, New pleasure like a bee among the flowers. Thus oft amid those fits of vulgar joy Which, through all seasons, on a child's pursuits Are prompt attendants, 'mid that giddy bliss Which, like a tempest, works along the blood And is forgotten ; even then I felt Gleams like the flashing of a shield ; — the earth And common face of Nature spake to me Eememberable things ; sometimes, 't is true, By chance collisions and quaint accidents (Like those ill-sorted unions, work supposed Of evil-minded fairies), yet not vain Nor profitless, if haply they impressed Collateral objects and appearances, Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep Until maturer seasons called them forth To impregnate and to elevate the mind. — And if the vulgar joy by its own weight Wearied itself out of the memory, The scenes which were a witness of that joy Remained in their substantial lineaments Depicted on the brain, and to the eye [ 29 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Were visible, a daily sight ; and thus By the impressive discipline of fear, By pleasure and repeated happiness, So frequently repeated, and by force Of obscure feelings representative Of things forgotten, these same scenes so bright, So beautiful, so majestic in themselves, Though yet the day was distant, did become Habitually dear, and all their forms And changeful colours by invisible links Were fastened to the affections. I began My story early — not misled, I trust, By an infirmity of love for days Disowned by memory — ere the breath of spring Planting my snowdrops among winter snows : Nor will it seem to thee, Friend 2 ! so prompt In sympathy, that I have lengthened out With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale. Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch Invigorating thoughts from former years ; Might fix the wavering balance of my mind, And haply meet reproaches too, whose power May spur me on, in manhood now mature To honourable toil. Yet should these hopes Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught To understand myself, nor thou to know With better knowledge how the heart was framed Of him thou lovest ; need I dread from thee 1 Coleridge, to whom the Prelude was dedicated. [ 30 ] s r ?* s a- k2 THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Harsh judgments, if the song be loth to quit Those recollected hours that have the charm Of visionary things, those lovely forms And sweet sensations that throw back our life, And almost make remotest infancy A visible scene, on which the sun is shining? One end at least hath been attained ; my mind Hath been revived, and if this genial mood Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down Through later years the story of my life. The road lies plain before me; — ^t is a theme Single and of determined bounds ; and hence I choose it rather at this time, than work Of ampler or more varied argument, Where I might be discomfited and lost : And certain hopes are with me, that to thee This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend ! FROM "THE PRELUDE/' BOOK II HAWKSHEAD AND LAKE WINDEKMERE [sports of boyhood] Thus far, Friend ! have we, though leaving much Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace The simple ways in which my childhood walked j; Those chiefly that first led me to the love Of rivers, woods, and fields. The passion yet Was in its birth, sustained as might befall [ 31 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND By nourishment that came unsought ; for still From week to week, from month to month, we lived A round of tumult. Duly were our games Prolonged in summer till the daylight failed ; No chair remained before the doors ; the bench And threshold steps were empty ; fast asleep The labourer, and the old man who had sate A later lingerer ; yet the revelry Continued and the loud uproar : at last, When all the ground was dark, and twinkling stars Edged the black clouds, home and to bed we went, Feverish with weary joints and beating minds. Ah ! is there one who ever has been young, Nor needs a warning voice to tame the pride Of intellect and virtue's self-esteem ? One is there, though the wisest and the best Of all mankind, who covets not at times Union that cannot be ; — who would not give If so he might, to duty and to truth The eagerness of infantine desire ? A tranquillising spirit presses now On my corporeal frame, so wide appears The vacancy between me and those days Which yet have such self-presence in my mind, That, musing on them, often do I seem Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself And of some other Being. A rude mass Of native rock, left midway in the square Of our small market village, was the goal Or centre of these sports ; and when, returned [ 32 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 After long absence, thither I repaired, Gone was the old grey stone, and in its place A smart Assembly-room usurped the ground That had been ours. There let the fiddle scream, And be ye happy ! Yet, my Friends ! I know That more than one of you will think with me Of those soft starry nights, and that old Dame From whom the stone was named, who there had sate, And watched her table with its huckster's wares Assiduous, through the length of sixty years. We ran a boisterous course ; the year span round With giddy motion. But the time approached That brought with it a regular desire For calmer pleasures, when the winning forms Of Nature were collaterally attached To every scheme of holiday delight And every boyish sport, less grateful else And languidly pursued. When summer came, Our pastime was, on bright half-holidays, To sweep along the plain of Windermere With rival oars ; and the selected bourne Was now an Island musical with birds ^ That sang and ceased not ; now a Sister Isle Beneath the oaks' umbrageous covert, sown With lilies of the valley like a field ; And now a third small Island, where survived In solitude the ruins of a shrine Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served 3 [ 33 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Daily with chaunted rites. In such a race So ended, disappointment could be none, Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy : We rested in -the shade, all pleased alike, Conquered and conqueror. Thus the pride of strength, And the vain-glory of superior skill, Were tempered ; thus was gradually produced A quiet independence of the heart : And to my Friend who knows me I may add, Fearless of blame, that hence for future days Ensued a diffidence and modesty, And I was taught to feel, .perhaps too much, The self-sufficing power of Solitude. Our daily meals were frugal, Sabine fare ! More than we wished we knew the blessing then Of vigorous hunger — hence corporeal strength Unsapped by delicate viands ; for, exclude A little weekly stipend, and we lived Through three divisions of the quartered year In penniless poverty. But now to school From the half-yearly holidays returned, We came with weightier purses, that sufficed To furnish treats more costly than the Dame Of the old grey stone, from her scant board, supplied. Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground, Or in the woods, or by a river side Or shady fountains, while among the leaves Soft airs were stirring, and the mid-day sun Unfelt shone brightly round us in our joy. [ 34 ] £2 f^ 4 !> £~ = 1 ~ <*5 s: Si- «Q 5! *« ~>- tr». S; -$ ~ : c2 ^i •p 4S > 1 IS 1 1 Ti: THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Nor is my aim neglected if I tell How sometimes, in the length of those half-years, We from our funds drew largely ; — proud to curb, And eager to spur on, the galloping steed ; And with the courteous inn-keeper, whose stud Supplied our want, we haply might employ Sly subterfuge, if the adventure's bound Were distant : some famed temple where of yore The Druids worshipped, or the antique walls Of that large abbey, where within the Vale Of Nightshade, to St. Mary's honour built, Stands yet a mouldering pile with fractured arch, Belfry, and images, and living trees ; A holy scene ! — Along the smooth green turf Our horses grazed. To more than inland peace, Left by the west wind sweeping overhead From a tumultuous ocean, trees and towers In that sequestered valley may be seen, Both silent and both motionless alike ; Such the deep shelter that is there, and such The safeguard for repose and quietness. Our steeds remounted and the summons given, With whip and spur we through the chauntry new In uncouth race, and left the cross-legged knight, And the stone-abbot, and that single wren Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave Of the old church, that — though from recent showers The earth was comfortless, and, touched by faint Internal breezes, sobbings of the place [86 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND And respirations, from the roofless walls The shuddering ivy dripped large drops — yet still So sweetly ''mid the gloom the invisible bird Sang to herself, that there I could have made My dwelling-place, and lived for ever there To hear such music. Through the walls we flew And down the valley, and, a circuit made In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth We scampered homewards. Oh, ye rocks and streams. And that still spirit shed from evening air ! Even in this joyous time I sometimes felt Your presence, when with slackened step we breathed Along the sides of the steep hills, or when Lighted by gleams of moonlight from the sea We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand. Midway on long Winander's eastern shore, Within the crescent of a pleasant bay, A tavern stood ; no homely featured house, Primeval like its neighbouring cottages, But 't was a splendid place, the door beset With chaises, grooms, and liveries, and within Decanters, glasses, and the blood-red wine. In ancient times, and ere the Hall was built On the large island, had this dwelling been More worthy of a poet's love, a hut, Proud of its own bright fire and sycamore shade. But — though the rhymes were gone that once inscribed The threshold, and large golden characters, Spread o'er the spangled sign-board, had dislodged [ 36 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 The old Lion and usurped his place, in slight And mockery of the rustic painter's hand — Yet, to this hour, the spot to me is dear With all its foolish pomp. The garden lay Upon a slope surmounted by a plain Of a small bowling-green ; beneath us stood A grove, with gleams of water through the trees And over the tree-tops ; nor did we want Eefreshment, strawberries and mellow cream. There, while through half an afternoon we played On the smooth platform, whether skill prevailed Or happy blunder triumphed, bursts of glee Made all the mountains ring. But, ere night-fall, When in our pinnace we returned at leisure Over the shadowy lake, and to the beach Of some small island steered our course with one, The Minstrel of the Troop, and left him there, And rode off gently, while lie blew his flute Alone upon the rock — oh, then, the calm And dead still water lay upon my mind Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky, Never before so beautiful, sank down Into my heart, and held me like a dream ! Thus were my sympathies enlarged, and thus Daily the common range of visible things Grew dear to me : already I began To love the sun ; a boy I loved the sun, Not as I since have loved him, as a pledge And surety of our earthly life, a light Which we behold and feel we are alive ; [ 37 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Nor for his bounty to so many worlds — But for this cause, that I had seen him lay His beauty on the morning hills, had seen The western mountain touch his setting orb, In many a thoughtless hour, when, from excess Of happiness, my blood appeared to flow For its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy. And, from like feelings, humble though intense, To patriotic and domestic love Analogous, the moon to me was dear ; For I could dream away my purposes, Standing to gaze upon her while she hung Midway between the hills as if she knew No other region, but belonged to thee, Yea, appertained by a peculiar right To thee and thy grey huts, thou one dear Vale ! Those incidental charms which first attached My heart to rural objects, day by day Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell How Nature, intervenient till this time And secondary, now at length was sought For her own sake. [morning walks] My morning walks Were early ; — oft before the hours of school I travelled round our little lake, five miles Of pleasant wandering. [ 38 ] ^ ^ £ s 3 * S ?• <^ ?^ «■ g* °°- 8 J | A BVI -- -2 15 i s= s «5 ^ Be ^ , o v.. p bo S & a c § § s a §s S Cc e< 8 5" 1 p- m. r = r 2=1 i— i 3 P THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Nor seldom did I lift our cottage latch Far earlier, ere one smoke-wreath had risen Prom human dwelling, or the vernal thrush Was audible ; and sate among the woods Alone upon some jutting eminence, At the first gleam of dawn-light, when the Yale, Yet slumbering, lay in utter solitude. How shall I seek the origin ? where find Faith in the marvellous things which then I felt ? Oft in these moments such a holy calm Would overspread my soul, that bodily eyes Were utterly forgotten, and what I saw Appeared like something in myself, a dream, A prospect in the mind. • ••••• [poetic visions] My seventeenth year was come, And whether from this habit rooted now So deeply in my mind, or from excess In the great social principle of life Coercing all things into sympathy, To unorganic natures were transferred My own enjoyments ; or the power of truth Coming in revelation, did converse With things that really are ; I, at this time, Saw blessings spread around me like a sea. Thus while the days flew by, and years passed on, From Nature and her overflowing soul, [ 39 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND I had received so much that all my thoughts Were steeped iu feeling ; I was only then Contented, when with bliss ineffable I felt the sentiment of Being spread O'er all that moves and all that seemeth still ; O'er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought And human knowledge, to the human eye Invisible, yet liveth to the heart ; O'er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings, Or beats the gladsome air ; o'er all that glides Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself, And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not If high the transport, great the joy I felt, Communing in this sort through earth and heaven With every form of creature, as it looked Towards the Uncreated with a countenance Of adoration, with an eye of love. One song they sang, and it was audible, Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear, Overcome by humblest prelude of that strain, Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed. If this be error, and another faith Find easier access to the pious mind, Yet were I grossly destitute of all Those human sentiments that make this earth So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice To speak of you, ye mountains, and ye lakes And sounding cataracts, ye mists and winds That dwell among the hills where I was born. [ 40 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 If in my youth I have been pure in heart, If, mingling with. the world, I am content With my own modest pleasures, and have lived With God and Nature communing, removed From little enmities and low desires — The gift is yours ; if in these times of fear, This melancholy waste of hopes overthrown, If, 'mid indifference and apathy, And wicked exultation when good men On every side fall off, we know not how, To selfishness, disguised in gentle names Of peace and quiet and domestic love Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers On visionary minds ; if, in this time Of dereliction and dismay, I yet Despair not of our nature, but retain A more than Eoman confidence, a faith That fails not, in all sorrow my support, The blessing of my life — the gift is yours, Ye winds and sounding cataracts ! 't is yours, Ye mountains ! thine, Nature ! Thou hast fed My lofty speculations ; and in thee, For this uneasy heart of ours, I find A never-failing principle of joy And purest passion. [ 41 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND FBOM DOBOTHY WOBDSWOBTH TO MISS JANE POLLABD Penrith [1787]. ... I can bear the ill-nature of all my relations, for the affection of my brothers consoles me in all my griefs ; but how soon shall I be deprived of this consolation. They are so affectionate. . . . William and Christopher are very clever. . . . John, who is to be the sailor, has a most af- fectionate heart. He is not so bright as either William or Christopher, but he has very good common sense. . . . Bichard, the eldest, is equally affectionate and good, but he is far from being as clever as William. . . . Many a time have W., J., C, and myself shed tears together, tears of bitterest sorrow. We all of us feel each day the loss we sustained when we were deprived of our parents ; and each day do we receive fresh insults of the most mortifying kind, the insults of servants. . . . Uncle Kit (who is our guardian) cares little for us. . . . We have been told a thousand of times that we were liars. . . . W. has a wish to be a lawyer if his health will permit. . . . Dorothy Wordsworth. PEOM "THE PBELUDE," BOOK III [Cambridge] It was a dreary morning when the wheels Boiled over a wide plain overhung with clouds, And noil ting cheered our way till first we saw [ 42 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 The long-roofed chapel of King's College lift Turrets and pinnacles in answering files, Extended high above a dusky grove. Advancing, we espied upon the road A student clothed in gown and tasselled cap, Striding along as if overtasked by Time, Or covetous of exercise and air ; He passed — nor was I master of my eyes Till he was left an arrow's flight behind. As near and nearer to the spot we drew, It seemed to suck us in with an eddy's force. Onward we drove beneath the Castle ; caught, While crossing Magdalene Bridge, a glimpse of Cam ; And at the Hoop alighted, famous Inn. The Evangelist St. John my patron was : Three Gothic courts are his, and in the first Was my abiding-place, a nook obscure ; Eight underneath, the College kitchens made A humming sound, less tuneable than bees, But hardly less industrious ; with shrill notes Of sharp command and scolding intermixed. Near me hung Trinity's loquacious clock, Who never let the quarters, night or day, Slip by him uuproclaimed, and told the hours Twice over with a male and female voice. Her pealing organ was my neighbour too ; And from my pillow, looking forth by light Of moon or favouring stars, I could behold [ 43 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND The antechapel where the statue stood Of Newton with his prism and silent face, The marble index of a mind for ever Voyaging through strange seas of Thought, alone. [university life] • • • • • • Easily I passed From the remembrances of better things, And slipped into the ordinary works Of careless youth, unburthened, unalarmed. Caverns there were within my mind which sun Could never penetrate, yet did there not Want store of leafy arbours where the light Might enter in at will. Companionships, Friendships, acquaintances, were welcome all. We sauntered, played, or rioted ; we talked Unprofitable talk at morning hours ; Drifted about along the streets and walks, Bead lazily in trivial books, went forth To gallop through the country in blind zeal Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast Of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars Come forth, perhaps without one quiet thought. Such was the tenor of the second act In this new life. Imagination slept, And yet not utterly. I could not print [ 44 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps Of generations of illustrious men, Unmoved. I could not always lightly pass Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept, Wake where they waked, range that inclosure old, That garden of great intellects, undisturbed. Place also by the side of this dark sense Of noble feeling, that those spiritual men, Even the great Newton's own ethereal self, Seemed humbled in these precincts, thence to be The more endeared. Their several memories here (Even like their persons in their portraits clothed With the accustomed garb of daily life) Put on a lowly and a touching grace Of more distinct humanity, that left All genuine admiration unimpaired. Beside the pleasant Mill of Trompington I laughed with Chaucer in the hawthorn shade ; Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales Of amorous passion. And that gentle Bard, Chosen by the Muses for their Page of State — Sweet Spenser, moving through his clouded heaven With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace, I called him Brother, Englishman, and Friend ! Yea, our blind Poet, who in his later day, Stood almost single ; uttering odious truth — Darkness before, and danger's voice behind, Soul awful — if the earth has ever lodged An awful soul — I seemed to see him here [ 45 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth — A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks Angelical, keen eye, courageous look, And conscious step of purity and pride. Among the band of my compeers was one "Whom chance had stationed in the very room Honoured by Milton's name. temperate Bard ! Be it confest that, for the first time, seated Within thy innocent lodge and oratory, One of a festive circle, I poured out Libations, to thy memory drank, till pride And gratitude grew dizzy in a brain Never excited by the fumes of wine Before that hour, or since. Then, forth I ran v From the assembly ; through a length of streets, Ban, ostrich-like, to reach our chapel door In not a desperate or opprobrious time, Albeit long after the importunate bell Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice No longer haunting the dark winter night. Call back, O Friend ! a moment to thy mind, The place itself and fashion of the rites. With careless ostentation shouldering up My surplice, through the inferior throng I clove Of the plain Burghers, who in audience stood On the last skirts of their permitted ground, Under the pealing organ. Empty thoughts ! I am ashamed of them : and that great Bard, And thou, Friend ! who in thy ample mind [ 46] " THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Hast placed me high above my best deserts, 1 Ye will forgive the weakness of that hour, In some of its unworthy vanities, Brother to many more. TO DOROTHY WOBDSWOBTH Sept. 6, 1790, Keswill. [A small village on the Lake of Constance.] • ••••• I have thought of you perpetually ; and never have my eyes burst upon a scene of particular loveliness but I have almost instantly wished that you could for a moment be transported to the place where I stood to enjoy it. . . . We are now upon the point of quitting these most sublime and beautiful parts; and you cannot imagine the melan- choly regret which I feel at the idea. I am a perfect enthusiast in my admiration of nature in all her various forms ; and I have looked upon, and, as it were, conversed with, the objects which this country has presented to my view so long, and with such increasing pleasure, that the idea of parting from them oppresses me with a sadness similar to that I have always felt in quitting a beloved friend. . . . But it is time to talk about England. When you write to my brothers, I must beg of you to give my love, and tell them I am sorry it has not been in my power to write to them. Kit will be surprised he has not heard 1 Of the publication of Wordsworth's first volume of poems, Coleridge had said, " Seldom if ever was the emergence of an original poetic genius above the literary horizon more evideutly aunounced." [ 47 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND from me, as we were almost upon terms of regular corre- spondence. I had not heard from Richard for some time before I set out. I did not call upon him when I was in London ; not so much because we were determined to hurry through London, but because he, as many of our friends at Cambridge did, would look upon our scheme as mad and impracticable. I expect great pleasure, on my re- turn to Cambridge, in exulting over those of my friends who threatened us with such an accumulation of difficulties as must undoubtedly render it impossible for us to perform the tour. Everything, however, has succeeded with us far beyond my most sanguine expectations. We have, it is true, met with little disasters occasionally, but far from distressing, and they rather give us additional resolution and spirits. We have both enjoyed most excellent health ; and we have been so inured to walking, that we are be- come almost insensible to fatigue. We have several times performed a journey of thirteen leagues over the most mountainous parts of Switzerland without any more weari- ness thai; if we had been walking an hour in the groves of Cambridge. Our appearance is singular; and we have often observed that, in passing through a village, we have excited a general smile. Our coats, which we had made light on purpose for the journey, are of the same piece ; and our manner of carrying our bundles, which is upon our heads, with each an oak stick in our hands, contributes not a little to that general curiosity which we seem to excite. . . . You will remember me affectionately to my uncle and aunt ; as he was acquainted with my giving up thoughts of a fellowship, he may, perhaps, not be so much [ 48 ] Iff > ^ ^ THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 displeased at this journey. I should be sorry if I have offended him by it. I hope my little cousin is well. I must now bid you adieu, with assuring you that you are perpetually in my thoughts, and that I remain, Most affectionately yours, W. Wordsworth. FKOM "THE PRELUDE," BOOK IY [first college vacation and visit to hawkshead] Bright was the summer's noon when quickening steps Followed each other till a dreary moor Was crossed, a bare ridge clomb, upon whose top Standing alone, as from a rampart's edge, I overlooked the bed of Windermere, Like a vast river, stretching in the sun. With exultation, at my feet I saw Lake, islands, promontories, gleaming bays, A universe of Nature's fairest forms Proudly revealed with instantaneous burst, Magnificent, and beautiful, and gay. I bounded down the hill shouting amain For the old Ferryman ; to the shout the rocks Eeplied, and when the Charon of the flood Had staid his oars, and touched the jutting pier, I did not step into the well-known boat Without a cordial greeting. Thence with speed Up the familiar hill I took my way 4 [ 49 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Towards that sweet Yalley where I had been reared ; 'T was but a short hour's walk, ere veering round I saw the snow-white church upon her hill Sit like a throned Lady, sending out A gracious look all over her domain. Yon azure smoke betrays the lurking town ; With eager footsteps I advance and reach The cottage threshold where my journey closed. Glad welcome had I, with some tears, perhaps, From my old Dame, so kind and motherly, While she perused me with a parent's pride. The thoughts of gratitude shall fall like dew Upon thy grave, good creature ! While my heart Can beat never will I forget thy name. Heaven's blessing be upon thee where thou liest After thy innocent and busy stir • In narrow cares, thy little daily growth Of calm enjoyments, after eighty years, And more than eighty, of untroubled life ; Childless, yet by the strangers to thy blood Honoured with little less than filial love. What joy was mine to see thee once again, Thee and thy dwelling, and a crowd of things About its narrow precincts all beloved, And many of them seeming yet my own ! Why should I speak of what a thousand hearts Have felt, and every man alive can guess ? The rooms, the court, the garden were not left Long unsaluted, nor the sunny seat Bound the stone table under the dark pine, [ 50 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Friendly to studious or to festive hours ; Nor that unruly child of mountain birth, The famous brook, who, soon as he was boxed Within our garden, found himself at once, As if by trick insidious and unkind, Stripped of his voice and left to dimple down (Without an effort and without a will) A channel paved by man's officious care. I looked at him and smiled, and smiled again, And in the press of twenty thousand thoughts, " Ha," quoth I, " pretty prisoner, are you there ? " Well might sarcastic Fancy then have whispered, " An emblem here behold of thy own life ; In its late course of even days with all Their smooth enthralment " ; but the heart was full, Too full for that reproach. My aged Dame Walked proudly at my side : she guided me ; I willing, nay — nay, wishing to be led. — The face of every neighbour whom I met Was like a volume to me ; some were hailed Upon the road, some busy at their work, Unceremonious greetings interchanged With half the length of a long field between. Among my schoolfellows I scattered round Like recognitions, but with some constraint Attended, doubtless, with a little pride, But with more shame, for my habiliments, The transformation wrought by gay attire. Not less delighted did I take my place At our domestic table : and, dear Friend ! [ 51 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND In this endeavour simply to relate A Poet's history, may I leave untold The thankfulness with which I laid me down In my accustomed bed, more welcome now Perhaps than if it had been more desired Or been more often thought of with regret ; That lowly bed whence I had heard the wind Boar, and the rain beat hard ; where I so oft Had lain awake on summer nights to watch The moon in splendour couched among the leaves Of a tall ash, that near our cottage stood ; Had watched her with fixed eyes while to and fro In the dark summit of the waving tree She rocked with every impulse of the breeze. Among the favourites whom it pleased me well To see again, was one by ancient right Our inmate, a rough terrier of the hills ; By birth and call of nature pre-ordained To hunt the badger and unearth the fox Among the impervious crags, but having been From youth our own adopted, he had passed Into a gentler service. And when first The boyish spirit flagged, and day by day Along my veins I kindled with the stir, The fermentation, and the vernal heat Of poesy, affecting private shades Like a sick Lover, then this dog was used To watch me, an attendant and a friend, Obsequious to my steps early and late, [ 52 ] < THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Though often of such dilatory walk Tired, and uneasy at the halts I made. A hundred times when, roving high and low, I have been harassed with the toil of verse, Much pains and little progress, and at once Some lovely Image in the song rose up Full-formed, like Venus rising from the sea ; Then have I darted forwards to let loose My hand upon his back with stormy joy, Caressing him again and yet again. And when at evening on the public way I sauntered, like a river murmuring And talking to itself when all things else Are still, the creature trotted on before ; Such was his custom ; but whene'er he met A passenger approaching, he would turn To give me timely notice, and straightway, Grateful for that admonishment, I hushed My voice, composed my gait, and, with the air And mien of one whose thoughts are free, advanced To give and take a greeting that might save My name from piteous rumours, such as wait On men suspected to be crazed in brain. Those walks well worthy to be prized and loved - Regretted ! — that word, too, was on my tongue. But they were richly laden with all good, And cannot be remembered but with thanks And gratitude, and perfect joy of heart — Those walks in all their freshness now came back [ 53 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Like a returning Spring. When first I made Once more the circuit of our little lake. If ever happiness hath lodged with man, That day consummate happiness was mine, Wide-spreading, steady, calm, contemplative. The sun was set, or setting, when I left Our cottage door, and evening soon brought on A sober hour, not winning or serene, For cold and raw the air was, and untuned : But as a face we love is sweetest then When sorrow damps it, or, whatever look It chance to wear, is sweetest if the heart Have fulness in herself ; even so with me It fared that evening. Gently did my soul Put off her veil, and, self-transmuted, stood Naked, as in the presence of her God. [A ' ' DEDICATED SPIEIT " ; THE BAPTISMAL MOMENT] — I LOVED, Loved deeply all that had been loved before, More deeply even than ever : but a swarm Of heady schemes jostling each other, gawds, And feast and dance, and public revelry, And sports and games (too grateful in themselves, Yet in themselves less grateful, I believe, Than as they were a badge glossy and fresh Of manliness and freedom) all conspired To lure my mind from firm habitual quest [ 54 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Of feeding pleasures, to depress the zeal And damp those yearnings which had once been mine A wild, unworldly minded youth, given up To his own eager thoughts. It would demand Some skill, and longer time than may be spared To paint these vanities, and how they wrought In haunts where they, till now, had been unknown. It seemed the very garments that I wore Preyed on my strength, and stopped the quiet stream Of self-forgetfulness. Yes, that heartless chase Of trivial pleasures was a poor exchange For books and nature at that early age. 'T is true, some casual knowledge might be gained Of character or life ; but at that time, Of manners put to school I took small note, And all my deeper passions lay elsewhere. Ear better had it been to exalt the mind By solitary study, to uphold Intense desire through meditative peace ; And yet, for chastisement of these regrets, The memory of one particular hour Doth here rise up against me. 'Mid a throng Of maids and youths, old men, and matrons staid, A medley of all tempers, I had passed The night in dancing, gaiety, and mirth, "With din of instruments and shuffling feet, And glancing forms, and tapers glittering, And unaimed prattle flying up and down ; Spirits upon the stretch, and here and there [ 55 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Slight shocks of young love-liking interspersed Whose transient pleasure mounted to the head, And tingled through the veins. Ere we retired, The cock had crowed, and now the eastern sky Was kindling, not unseen, from humble copse And open field, through which the pathway wound, And homeward led my steps. Magnificent The morning rose, in memorable pomp, Glorious as e'er I had beheld — in front, The sea lay laughing at a distance ; near, The solid mountains shone, bright as the clouds, Grain -tinctured, drenched in empyrean light ; And in the meadows and the lower grounds Was all the sweetness of a common dawn — Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds, And labourers going forth to till the fields. Ah ! need I say, dear Friend ! that to the brim My heart was full : I made no vows, but vows Were then made for me ; bond unknown to me Was given, that I should be, else sinning greatly, A dedicated Spirit. On I walked In thankful blessedness, which yet survives. SONNETS INSIDE OF KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE I Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned — Albeit labouring for a scanty band [ 56 ] "O00F of King's College Chapel, Cambridge. " Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more ; So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells." — Inside of King's College Chapel, p. 57. THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Of white-robed Scholars only — this immense And glorious Work of fine intelligence ! Give all thou canst ; high Heaven rejects the lore Of nicely calculated less or more ; So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells, Where light and shade repose, where music dwells Lingering — and wandering on as loth to die ; Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof That they were born for immortality. II What awful perspective ! while from our sight With gradual stealth the lateral windows hide Their Portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed In the soft chequerings of a sleepy light. Martyr, or King," or sainted Eremite, Whoe'er ye be, that thus, yourselves unseen, Imbue your prison-bars with solemn sheen, Shine on, until ye fade with coming Night ! — But, from the arms of silence — list ! O list ! The music bursteth into second life ; The notes luxuriate, every stone is kissed By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife ; Heart-thrilling strains, that cast, before the eye Of the devout, a veil of ecstasy ! Ill They dreamt not of a perishable home Who thus could build. Be mine, in hours of fear [ 57 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Or grovelling thought, to seek a refuge here ; Or through the aisles of Westminster to roam : Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam Melts, if it cross the threshold ; where the wreath Of awe-struck wisdom droops : or let my path Lead to that younger Pile, whose sky-like dome Hath typified by reach of daring art Infinity's embrace ; whose guardian crest, The silent Cross, among the stars shall spread As now, when She hath also seen her breast Filled with mementos, satiate with its part Of grateful England's overflowing Dead. CATHEDRALS, ETC. Open your gates, ye everlasting Piles ! Types of the spiritual Church which God hath reared ; Not loth we quit the newly hallowed sward And humble altar, 'mid your sumptuous aisles To kneel, or thrid your intricate defiles, Or down the nave to pace in motion slow ; Watching, with upward eye, the tall tower grow And mount, at every step, with living wiles Instinct — to rouse the heart and lead the will By a bright ladder to the world above. Open your gates, ye Monuments of love Divine ! thou Lincoln, on thy sovereign hill ! Thou, stately York ! and Ye, whose splendours cheer Isis and Cam, to patient Science dear ! [ 58 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 TO WILLIAM MATHEWS 1 Plas-yn-llan, near Ruthin, Denbighshire, June 17, 1791. You will see by the date of this letter that I am in Wales, and whether you remember the place of Jones' residence or no, you will immediately conclude that I am with him. I quitted London about three weeks ago, where my time passed in a strange manner, sometimes whirled about by the vortex of its strenua inertia, and sometimes thrown by the eddy into a corner of the stream. Think not, however, that I had not many pleasant hours. . . . My time has been spent since I reached Wales in a very agreeable manner, and Jones and I intend to make a tour through its northern counties, — on foot, as you will easily suppose. FROM DOROTHY WORDSWORTH TO MISS POLLARD Forncett, Sunday Morning, June 26, 1791. • •»«.. I often hear from my brother William, who is now in Wales, where I think he seems so happy, that it is proba- ble he will remain there all summer, or a great part of it. . . . William, you may have heard, lost the chance (in- deed the certainty) of a fellowship, by not combating his inclinations. He gave way to his natural dislike to study so dry as many parts of mathematics, consequently could 1 Mathews, Robert Jones, and Wordsworth were fellow -students at Cambridge. [ 59 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND not succeed at Cambridge. He reads Italian, Spanish, Greek, Latin, and English, but never opens a mathematical book. We promise ourselves much pleasure from reading Italian together at some time. He wishes that I was ac- quainted with the Italian poets. William has a great attachment to poetry; so indeed has Kit, but William particularly, which is not the most likely thing to produce his advancement in the world. His pleasures are chiefly of the imagination. He is never so happy as when in a beautiful country. Do not think in what I have said that he reads not at all, for he does read a great deal ; and not only poetry, and other languages he is acquainted with, but history, &c, &c. Kit has made a very good profi- ciency in learning. He is just seventeen. At October, '92, we shall lose him at Cambridge. . . . FROM DOROTHY WORDSWORTH TO MISS POLLARD Forncett, February 16th, 1793. Your letter found me happy in the society of one of my dear brothers. Christopher and I have been separated for nearly five years last Christmas. Judge then of my trans- ports at meeting him again. ... He is like William. He has the same traits in his character, but less highly touched. He is not so ardent in any of his pursuits, but is yet more par- ticularly attached to the same pursuits which have so irre- sistible an influence over William, which deprive him of the power of chaining his attention to others discordant to his feelings. Christopher is no despicable poet, but he can [ 60 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 become a mathematician also. He is not insensible to the beauty of the Greek and Latin classics, or any of the charms of elegant literature ; but he can draw his mind from these fascinating studies, to others less alluring. He is steady and sincere in his attachments. William has both these virtues in an eminent degree; and a sort of violence of affection, if I may so term it, which demonstrates itself every moment of the day, when the objects of his affection are present with him, in a thousand almost imperceptible attentions to their wishes, in a sort of restless watchfulness which I know not how to describe, a tenderness that never sleeps, and at the same time such a delicacy of manners as I have observed in few men. ... I hope you will spend at least a year with me. I have laid the particular scheme of happiness for each season. When I think of winter, I hasten to furnish our little parlour. I close the shutters, set out the tea-table, brighten the fire. When our refreshment is ended, I produce our work, and William brings his book to our table, and contributes at once to our instruction and amusement ; and at intervals we lay aside the book, and each hazard our observations upon what has been read, without the fear of ridicule or censure. We talk over past days. We do not sigh for any pleas- ures beyond our humble habitation. With such romantic dreams as these I amuse my fancy. . . . My brother and I have been endeared to each other by early misfortune. We in the same moment lost a father, a mother, a home. We have been equally deprived of our patrimony. . . . These afflictions have all contributed to unite us closer by the bonds of affection, notwithstanding we have been com- [ 61 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND pelled to spend our youth far asunder. " We drag at each remove a lengthening chain." This idea often strikes me very forcibly. Neither absence, nor distance, nor time, can ever break the chain that links me to my brothers. ... By this time you have doubtless seen my brother William's poems. 1 . . . The scenes which he describes have been viewed with a poet's eye, and are pourtrayed with a poet's pencil, and the poems contain many passages ex- quisitely beautiful ; but they also contain many faults, the chief of which is obscurity, and a too frequent use of some particular expressions and uncommon words, for instance moveless, which he applies in a sense if not new, at least different from its ordinary one. By moveless, when ap- plied to the swan, he means that sort of motion which is smooth, without agitation ; it is a very beautiful epithet, but ought to have been cautiously used. He ought at any rate, only to have hazarded it once, instead of which it occurs three or four times. The word viewless also is in- troduced far too often. This, though not so uncommon a word as the former, ought not to have been made use of more than once or twice. I regret exceedingly that he did not submit these works to the inspection of some friend before their publication, and he also joins with me in this regret. Their faults are such as a young poet was most likely to fall into, and least likely to discover, and what the suggestions of a friend would easily have made him see, and at once correct. It is, however, an error he will never fall into again. . . . There are some very glaring faults, but I hope that you 1 Wordsworth's first volume, called " An Evening Walk." [ 62 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 will discover many beauties, which could only have been created by the imagination of a poet. EROM DOROTHY WORDSWORTH TO MISS POLLARD Forncett [1793]. The evening is a lovely one, and I have strolled into a neighbouring meadow, where I am enjoying the melody of birds, and the busy sounds of a fine summer's evening, while my eye is gratified by a smiling prospect of cultivated fields richly wooded, our own church, and the parsonage house. . . . William is now going upon a tour to the West of England, along with a gentleman who was formerly a schoolfellow, 1 a man of fortune, who is to bear all the expense of the journey, and only requests the favour of William's company. . . . My brother's tour will not be completed till October. . . . This favourite brother of mine happens to be no favourite with any of his near relations, except his brothers, by whom he is adored, I mean by John and Christopher. . . . PROM DOROTHY WORDSWORTH TO MISS POLLARD Forncett, June 16, Sunday Morning, 1793. I often hear from my dear brother William. I am very anxious about him just now, as he has not yet got an employment. He is looking out, and wishing for the 1 William Calvert. [ 63 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND opportunity of engaging himself as tutor to some young gentleman, an office for which he is peculiarly well quali- fied. ... I cannot describe his attention to me. There was no pleasure that he would not have given up with joy for half an hour's conversation with me. It was in winter (at Christmas) that he was last at Forncett; and every day, as soon as we rose from dinner, we used to pace the gravel walk in the garden till six o'clock, when we received summons (which was always welcome) to tea. Nothing but rain or snow prevented our taking this walk. Often have I gone out, when the keenest north wind has been whistling amongst the trees over our head, and have paced that walk in the garden, which will always be dear to me — from the remembrance of those very long conversations I have had upon it supported by my brother's arm. Ah ! I never thought of the cold when he was with me. I am as heretical as yourself in my opinions concerning love and friendship. I am very sure that love will never bind me closer to any human being than friendship binds me to you, my earliest friends, and to William, my earliest and my dearest male friend. . . . Dorothy Wordsworth. FROM DOROTHY WORDSWORTH TO MISS POLLARD Windy Brow, near Keswick [1794], Since I wrote to 1 walked from Grasmere to Kes- wick, 13 miles, and at Keswick I still remain. I have been so much delighted with the people of this house, with [ 64 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 its situation, with the cheapness of living, and above all with the opportunity which I have of enjoying my brother's company, that although on my arrival I only talked of staying a few days, I have already been here above a fort- night, and intend staying still a few weeks longer, perhaps three or four. You cannot conceive anything more de- lightful than the situation of this house. It stands upon the top of a very steep bank, which rises in a direction nearly perpendicular from a dashing stream below. From the window of the room where I write, I have a prospect of the wood winding along the opposite banks of this river, of a part of the Lake of Keswick and the town, and tower- ing above the town a woody steep of a very considerable height, whose summit is a long range of silver rocks. This is the view from the house, but a hundred yards above it is impossible to describe its grandeur. There is a natural terrace along the side of the mountain, which shelters Windybrow, whence we command a view of the whole vale of Keswick (the Yale of Elysium, as Mr Gray calls it). This vale is terminated at one end by a huge pile of grand mountains, in whose lap the lovely Lake of Derwent is placed; at the other end by the Lake of Bas- senthwaite, on one side of which Skiddaw towers sublime, and on the other a range of mountains, not of equal size, but of much grandeur ; and the middle part of the vale is of beautiful cultivated grounds, interspersed with cottages, and watered by a winding stream which runs between the Lakes of Derwent "and Bassenthwaite. I have never been more delighted with the manners of any people than of the family under whose roof I am at present. They are the 6 [ 65 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND most honest, sensible people I ever saw in their rank of life, and I think I may safely affirm, happier than anybody I know. They are contented with a supply of the bare necessaries of life, are active and industrious, and declare with simple frankness, unmixed with ostentation, that they prefer their cottage at Windy Brow to any of the showy edifices in the neighbourhood, and they believe that there is not to be found in the whole vale a happier family than they are. They are fond of reading, and reason not indif- ferently on what they read. We have a neat parlour to ourselves, which Mr Calvert has fitted up for his own use, and the lodging rooms are very comfortable. Till my brother gets some employment he will lodge here. Mr Calvert is not now at Windy Brow, as you will suppose. We please ourselves in calculating from our present ex- penses for how very small a sum we could live. We find our own food. Our breakfast and supper are of milk, and our dinner chiefly of potatoes, and we drink no tea. We have received great civilities from many very pleasant families, particularly from a Mr Spedding of Armath- waite, at whose house you may recollect my brother was staying before he went to Halifax. Mr Spedding has two daughters, who are in every respect charming women. . . . They live in the most delightful place that ever was beheld. We have been staying there three nights. William is very intimate with the eldest son. [ 66 ] ^ 2 <- ^ °* S. QQ 3 O 5: « OQ Of THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 TO WILLIAM MATHEWS Whitehaven, May, 1794. I am at present nearly at leisure — I say nearly, for I am not quite so, as I am correcting and considerably add- ing to, those poems which I published in your absence. l It was with great reluctance that I sent those two little works into the world in so imperfect a state. But as I had done nothing by which to distinguish myself at the university, I thought these little things might show I could do something. They have been treated with un- merited contempt by some of the periodicals, and others have spoken in higher terms than they deserve. FROM "THE PRELUDE," BOOK V [tribute to books, especially to fiction and poetry] . . . Yet is it just That here, in memory of all books which lay Their sure foundations in the heart of man, Whether by native prose, or numerous verse, That in the name of all inspired souls — Erom Homer the great Thunderer, from the voice That roars along the bed of Jewish song, And that more varied and elaborate, Those trumpet-tones of harmony that shake 1 " The Evening Walk " and " Descriptive Sketches." [ 67 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Our shores in England, — from those loftiest notes Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made For cottagers and spinners at the wheel, And sun-burnt travellers resting their tired limbs, Stretched under wayside hedge-rows, ballad tunes, Food for the hungry ears of little ones, And of old men who have survived their joys — 'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works, And of the men that framed them, whether known Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves, That I should here assert their rights, attest Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce Their benediction ; speak of them as Powers For ever to be hallowed ; only less, For what we are and what we may become, Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God, Or His pure Word by miracle revealed. Barely and with reluctance would I stoop To transitory themes ; yet I rejoice, And, by these thoughts admonished, will pour out Thanks with uplifted heart, that I was reared Safe from an evil which these days have laid Upon the children of the land, a pest That might have dried me up, body and soul. This verse is dedicate to Nature's self, And things that teach as Nature teaches : then, Oh ! where had been the Man, the Poet where, Where had we been, we two, beloved Friend ! If in the season of unperilous choice, [ 68 ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 In lieu of wandering, as we did, through vales Rich with indigenous produce, open ground Of Fancy, happy pastures ranged at will, We had been followed, hourly watched, and noosed, Each in his several melancholy walk Stringed like a poor man's heifer at its feed, Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude ; Or rather like a stalled ox debarred From touch of growing grass, that may not taste A flower till it have yielded up its sweets A prelibation to the mower's scythe. A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides, And o'er the heart of man ; invisibly It comes, to works of unreproved delight, And tendency benign, directing those Who care not, know not, think not, what they do. The tales that charm away the wakeful night In Araby ; romances ; legends penned For solace by dim light of monkish lamps ; Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised By youthful squires ; adventures endless, spun By the dismantled warrior in old age, Out of the bowels of those very schemes In which his youth did first extravagate ; These spread like day, and something in the shape Of these will live till man shall be no more. Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours, And they must have their food. Our childhood sits, Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne [ 69 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND That hath more power than all the elements. I guess not what this tells of Being past, Nor what it augurs of the life to come ; But so it is ; and, in that dubious hour — That twilight — when we first begin to see This dawning earth, to recognise, expect, And, in the long probation that ensues, The time of trial, ere we learn to live In reconcilement with our stinted powers ; To endure this state of meagre vassalage, Unwilling to forego, confess, submit, Uneasy and unsettled, yoke-fellows To custom, mettlesome, and not yet tamed And humbled down — oh ! then we feel, we feel, We know where we have friends. Ye dreamers, then, Forgers of daring tales ! we bless you then, Impostors, drivellers, dotards, as the ape Philosophy will call you : then we feel With what, and how great might ye are in league, Who make our wish, our power, our thought a deed, An empire, a possession, — ye whom time And seasons serve ; all Faculties to whom Earth crouches, the elements are potter's clay, Space like a heaven filled up with northern lights, Here, nowhere, there, and everywhere at once. Eelinquishing this lofty eminence For ground, though humbler, not the less a tract Of the same isthmus, which our spirits cross In progress from their native continent [ TO ] THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 To earth and human life, the Song might dwell On that delightful time of growing youth, When craving for the marvellous gives way To strengthening love for things that we have seen ; When sober truth and steady sympathies, Offered to notice by less daring pens, Take firmer hold of us, and words themselves Move us with conscious pleasure. I am sad At thought of rapture now for ever flown ; Almost to tears I sometimes could be sad To think of, to read over, many a page, Poems withal of name, which at that time Did never fail to entrance me, and are now Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre Fresh emptied of spectators. Twice five years Or less I might have seen, when first my mind With conscious pleasure opened to the charm Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet For their own sakes, a passion, and a power ; And phrases pleased me chosen for delight, For pomp, or love. Oft, in the public roads Yet unfrequented, while the morning light Was yellowing the hill tops, I went abroad With a dear friend, and for the better part Of two delightful hours we strolled along By the still borders of the misty lake, Eepeating favourite verses with one voice, Or conning more, as happy as the birds That round us chaunted. Well might we be glad, [ 71 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Lifted above the ground by airy fancies, More bright than madness or the dreams of wine ; And, though full oft the objects of our love Were false, and in their splendour overwrought, Yet was there surely then no vulgar power Working within us, — nothing less, in truth, Than that most noble attribute of man, Though yet untutored and inordinate, That wish for something loftier, more adorned, Than is the common aspect, daily garb, Of human life. What wonder, then, if sounds Of exultation echoed through the groves ! For, images, and sentiments, and words, And everything encountered or pursued In that delicious world of poesy, Kept holiday, a never-ending show, With music, incense, festival, and flowers ! Here must we pause : this only let me add, Prom heart-experience, and in humblest sense Of modesty, that he, who in his youth A daily wanderer among woods and fields With living Nature hath been intimate, Not only in that raw unpractised time Is stirred to ecstasy, as others are, By glittering verse ; but further, doth receive, In measure only dealt out to himself, Knowledge and increase of enduring joy From the great Nature that exists in works Of mighty Poets. Visionary power [ ™ ] a ^ t * a Si? a o act THE YEARS 1770 TO 1795 Attends the motions of the viewless winds, Embodied in the mystery of words : There, darkness makes abode, and all the host Of shadowy things work endless changes, — there, As in a mansion like their proper home, Even forms and substances are circumfused By that transparent veil with light divine, And, through the turnings intricate of verse, Present themselves as objects recognised, In flashes, and with glory not their own. FEOM DOEOTHY WOEDSWOETH TO MISS POLLAED (NOW MES. MAESHALL) Millhouse, September 2, 1795. I am going to live in Dorsetshire. . . . You know the pleasure I have always attached to the idea of home, a blessing which I have so early lost. ... I think I told you that Mr Montagu had a little boy, who, as you will perceive, could not be very well taken care of, either in his father's chambers, or under the uncertain management of various friends of Mr M., with whom he has frequently stayed. ... A daughter of Mr Tom Myers (a cousin of mine whom I daresay you have heard me mention) is com- ing over to England by the first ship, which is expected in about a week, to be educated. She is, I believe, about three or four years old, and T. Myers' brother, who has charge of her, has suggested that I should take her under my care. With these two children, and the produce of [ ™ ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Baisley Calvert's legacy, we shall have an income of at least £70 or £80 per annum. William finds that he cau get nine per cent, for the money upon the best security. He means to sink half of it upon my life, which will make me always comfortable and independent. . . . Living in the unsettled way in which my brother has hitherto lived in London is altogether unfavourable to mental exertion. ... He has had the oner of ten guineas for a work which has not taken up much time, and half the profits of a second edition if it should be called for. It is a little sum ; but it is one step. . . . I am determined to work with resolution. It will greatly contribute to my happiness, and place me in such a situation that I shall be doing something. . . . I shall have to join William at Bristol, and proceed thence in a chaise with Basil 1 to Racedown. It is fifty miles. Dorothy Wordsworth. 1 Basil Montagu, the "little boy " mentioned above. [ 74 ] THE YEARS 1795 TO 1800 RACEDOWN: ALFOXDEN INTRODUCTORY M \URING these years of .storm and stress, when JL_^J so few heard Wordsworth' $ voice aright, there was one man, RaisHey Calvert, who recognized its power and resolved that It should have a chance to utter itself. On his death m 1796 it was found that he had left to Wordsworth a legacy of nine hundred pounds. Small as the sum sums, it was enough to justify his long-deferred dream of making a home for himself and his sister; for the first time liberty and leisure were at his command Now began that life of plain living and high thinking, so congenial to the Wordsworths that they never afterwards departed greatly from it. It was almost an aeeident that determined their particular location, A local merchant of Bristol, Mr. Finney, had a country house at Racedown, Dorset- shire, which he had given over to his son and which the son in turn HOW gave over to Wordsworth, with furni- ture, orchard, and gardens, free of rent, on condition that the young man might occasionally come down for a few weeks at a time. The garden, cultivated by [ 75 ] *" WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Wordsworth himself, supplied the principal food of the family, while £50 a year received for the board and teaching of the son of a London barrister supplemented the slender income. Here Wordsworth wrote " Guilt and Sorrow,' 9 " The Borderers " and a number of short poems. It was a happy time for the long-separated brother and sister, and years afterward Dorothy wrote of it as " the place dearest to my recollections upon the whole surface of the island, the first home / ever had." But there are few traces of locality in the poems, beyond the description of the ruined cottage, and the general scenery of Book I of " The Excursion." Dorsetshire downs rise plainly to the eye when we read: " 'T was summer, and the sun had mounted high ; Southward the landscape indistinctly glared Through a pale stream ; hut all the northern downs In clearest air ascending, showed far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung From brooding clouds." The real epoch-making event of these two years m Dorsetshire occurred when Coleridge came down from Bristol to visit them, m June, 1797. Wordsworth read to Coleridge " The Borderers," and Coleridge read to Wordsworth " Orsorio, a Tragedy," and they walked and talked and sat up far into the night in order to have more time for talk, and thus began the friendship which later meant so much in both lives. Brother and sister returned the visit in the following month at Coleridge's home in Nether-Stowey, among the [76 ] THE YEARS 1795 TO 1800 Quant ock Hills, Somersetshire. Dorothy's feelmg about this region and this visit is thus recorded: " There is everything here; sea, woods, wild as fancy ever painted, brooks clear and pebbly as in Cumberland, villages so romantic; and William and I, in a wander by ourselves, found out a sequestered waterfall m a d€ll formed by steep hills covered with full-grown tim- ber trees. The woods are as fine as those of Lowther, and the country more romantic." To live in so charm- ing a country and at the same t'vme to have Coleridge as a neighbor appealed to both guests as so highly desirable that they seem not even to have returned to the Dorsetshire farm. It happened that a fine old mansion house known as Alfoxden (now commonly called Alfoxton), just beyond the glen described by Dorothy, was for rent. Seeing this beautiful country residence to-day with its fine appointments, stables, gardens, etc.; its stately approach bordered with mag- nificent beeches and elms and set m its background of park, hill-side, and holly-grove, one is amazed at the thought of so much luxury as possible to the im- pecunious Wordsworths. Doubtless the place was less imposing then, and, the owner being in his minority, it was offered at the ridiculously paltry sum of £23 per year. Never, perhaps, were Arcadia and Academus combined at so small an outlay. Here were written many of Wordsworth's most charming minor poems, and here, conjointly with Coleridge, was planned and executed that book so ridiculed at the time, but since [ 7? ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND recognized as one of the most epoch-making in the whole history of poetry — " Lyrical Ballads." It is quite a sore point with the Somerset folk to-day that Wordsworth did not make their region famous, as he has the Lake Country, by localizing the places and incidents which served him for inspiration. For example, " Lines written in Early Spring," " A Vfhirl-Blast from behind the Hill," " To My Sister" " Ruth," etc., are full of the Somerset scenery and atmosphere for those who know the Quantock Hills. One passage in " The Prelude" (p. 116) does indeed celebrate the wonderful walking-trip made by the two poets (with Dorothy keeping step both physically and poetically) over the hills to Watchet and thence to the Valley of Rocks near Lynton; "That summer, under whose indulgent skies, Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs." Wordsworth always looked back upon these Alf ox- den days with keenest pleasure. And well he might, since seldom has been known a group of choicer spirits than those who came and went or stayed in this little corner of Somerset in the closing years of the eigh- teenth century. Charles Lamb, seeking this retreat after the great sorrow which always continued to over- shadow his life; Charles Lloyd, the son of a rich Bir- mingham banker, rejecting a life of pleasure to devote himself to poetry and the pursuit of truth; John Thelwell, the intrepid democrat from London; Thomas [ 78 ] THE YEARS 1795 TO 1800 Cottle, poet and publisher, who came from Bristol to hear the poets read their verses, and afterwards pub- lished them to his own great loss; Thomas Poole, a Somerset farmer of plain exterior, but a wonderful example of the thoroughly developed man, and the magnet that had at first attracted Coleridge, and through him the rest of this brilliant group. So sin- cere and intimate was the daily companionship of Wordsworth, Dorothy, and Coleridge that Coleridge said " We are three people but only one soul." Yet one must beware of thinkmg that this unity of understanding meant any weak yielding of individ- ualities. A sympathetic writer x has stated the case truly: — "No two men could be more unlike than the two poets who now met beside the Quant ocks. Cole- ridge, a student and recluse from his boyhood, of im- mense erudition, all his life a valetudinarian, who scarcely knew what health was, ever planning mighty works, yet so irresolute and infirm of purpose as never to realize his aspirations, the very Hamlet of literature; Wordsworth, on the other hand, — as robust in body as one of the peasants of his native Cumberland, of indomitable purpose, keeping his way right onward when made the scorn of fools, till he became the glory of his age — was no reader of books, except of the great book of Nature, and his study was on the Quantock downs." 1 Rev. W. L. Nichols. [ 79 1 WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND The Wordsworth residence at Alfoxden lasted only about one year. As a tenant, he was regarded with suspicion, not only because of his habit of wandering round and muttering to himself, but because he was so continually surrounded by groups of persons who talked of queer and mysterious things. The trustees of the property terminated the lease, and in June, 1798, the Wordsworths left Alfoxden, spending one week with Coleridge m N ether-Stow ey, another in Bristol with the publisher Cottle, arranging details for the forthcoming " Lyrical Ballads." TJiey then started for that ramble along the Wye in which the " Lines on Tintern Abbey " took shape, and of which Words- worth said: " No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bris- tol m the evening, after a ramble of four or five days with my sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol." In September, the trio of friends decided to spend the Winter in Germany. The object of Coleridge was to learn the German language; of Wordsworth to study natural history. His interest in science, at this time, seems to have been very great, and to have con- tinued for several years. He was one of the first to foresee what has since come to pass, — the time when " what is now called science shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form of flesh and blood." [ 80 ] THE YEARS 1795 TO 1800 The poems written during the stay of about jive months m Germany show that his thoughts often turned to his native land. But perhaps the most sig- nificant event was that here he resolved to make a searching review of his mental history from his youth to the present moment, in order to determine whether he was fitted to devote himself to poetry. The poem now begun was not published until the year after his death, when it was brought out by Mrs. Wordsworth and named by her " The Prelude." His reasons should silence those who criticise it as the work of a self- conceited man: — " my hope has been that I might fetch Invigorating thoughts from former years ; Might fix the wavering balance of my mind And haply meet reproaches too, wlwse power May spur me on, in manhood now mature, To honourable toil." [81 ] THE YEARS 1795 TO 1800 TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT 1 Calvert ! it must not be unheard by them Who may respect my name, that I to thee Owed many years of early liberty. This care was thine when sickness did condemn Thy youth to hopeless wasting, root and stem — That I, if frugal and severe, might stray Where'er I liked ; and finally array My temples with the Muse's diadem. Hence, if in freedom I have loved the truth ; If there be aught of pure, or good, or great In my past verse ; or shall be, in the lays Of higher mood, which now I meditate ; — It gladdens me, worthy, short-lived Youth ! To think how much of this will be thy praise. FROM "THE PRELUDE/' BOOK XI [the poet's tribute to his sister] • ••••• Somewhat stern In temperament, withal a happy man, And therefore bold to look on painful things, Free likewise of the world, and thence more bold, I summoned my best skill, and toiled, intent To anatomise the frame of social life ; Yea, the whole body of society 1 Calvert died in 1795 ; sonnet composed in 1806. [ 83 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Searched to its heart. Share with me, Friend ! the wish That some dramatic tale, endued with shapes Livelier, and flinging out less guarded words Than suit the work we fashion, might set forth What then I learned, or think I learned, of truth, And the errors into which I fell, betrayed By present objects, and by reasonings false From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn Out of a heart that had been turned aside From Nature's way by outward accidents, And which was thus confounded, more and more Misguided, and misguiding. So I fared, Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds, Like culprits to the bar ; calling the mind, Suspiciously, to establish in plain day Her titles and her honours ; now believing, Now disbelieving ; endlessly perplexed With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground Of obligation, what the rule and whence The sanction ; till, demanding formal proof, And seeking it in every thing, I lost All feeling of conviction, and, in fine, Sick, wearied out with contrarieties, Yielded up moral questions in despair. This was the crisis of that strong disease, This the soul's last and lowest ebb ; I drooped, Deeming our blessed reason of least use Where wanted most : " The lordly attributes Of will and choice/' I bitterly exclaimed, [ 84 ] THE YEARS 1795 TO 1800 " What are they but a mockery of a Being Who hath in no concerns of his a test Of good and evil ; knows not what to fear Or hope for, what to covet or to shun ; And who, if those could be discerned, would yet Be little profited, would see, and ask Where is the obligation to enforce ? And, to acknowledged law rebellious, still, As selfish passion urged, would act amiss ; The dupe of folly, or the slave of crime." Depressed, bewildered thus, I did not walk With scoffers, seeking light and gay revenge From indiscriminate laughter, nor sate down In reconcilement with an utter waste Of intellect ; such sloth I could not brook, (Too well I loved, in that my spring of life, Pains-taking thoughts, and truth, their dear reward) But turned to abstract science, and there sought Work for the reasoning faculty enthroned Where the disturbances of space and time — Whether in matters various, properties Inherent, or from human will and power Derived — find no admission. Then it was — Thanks to the bounteous Giver of all good ! — That the beloved Sister in whose sight Those days were passed, now speaking in a voice Of sudden admonition — like a brook That did but cross a lonely road, and now Is seen, heard, felt, and caught at every turn, [ 85 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND Companion never lost through many a league — Maintained for me a saving intercourse With my true self ; for, though bedimmed and changed Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed Than as a clouded and a waning moon : She whispered still that brightness would return ; She, in the midst of all, preserved me still A Poet, made me seek beneath that name, And that alone, my office upon earth ; And, lastly, as hereafter will be shown, If willing audience fail not, Nature's self, By all varieties of human love Assisted, led me back through opening day To those sweet counsels between head and heart Whence grew that genuine knowledge, fraught with peace, Which, through the later sinkings of this cause, Hath still upheld me, and upholds me now In the catastrophe (for so they dream, And nothing less), when, finally to close And seal up all the gains of France, a Pope Is summoned in, to crown an Emperor * — This last opprobrium, when we see a people, That once looked up in faith, as if to Heaven Por manna, take a lesson from the dog Eeturning to his vomit ; when the sun That rose in splendour, was alive, and moved In exultation with a living pomp Of clouds — his glory's natural retinue — 1 Buonaparte summoned the Pope to anoint him Emperor of France in 1804. t 86 ] TDORTRAIT of Dorothy Wordsworth at the age of sixty-two. ; She, in the midst of all, preserved me still A Poet, made me seek beneath that name, And that alone, my office upon earth." — The Prelude, Book xi, p. 8G. THE YEARS 1795 TO 1800 Hath dropped all functions by the gods bestowed, And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine, Sets like an Opera phantom. Thus, O Friend ! Through times of honour and through times of shame Descending, have I faithfully retraced The perturbations of a youthful mind Under a long-lived storm of great events — A story destined for thy ear, who now, Among the fallen of nations, dost abide Where Etna, over hill and valley, casts His shadow stretching towards Syracuse, 1 The city of Timoleon ! Eighteous Heaven ! How are the mighty prostrated ! They first, They first of all that breathe should have awaked When the great voice was heard from out the tombs Of ancient heroes. If I suffered grief For ill- requited France, by many deemed A trifler only in her proudest day ; Have been distressed to think of what she once Promised, now is ; a far more sober cause Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land, To the reanimating influence lost Of memory, to virtue lost and hope, Though with the wreck of loftier years bestrewn. But indignation works where hope is not, And thou, O Friend ! wilt be refreshed. 1 Coleridge was now in Sicily. Timoleon, after reducing Sicily to order, refused all titles and lived as a private citizen. [87 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND There is One great society alone on earth : The noble Living and the noble Dead. TO FEANCIS WEANGHAM 1 Eacedown, November 20th, 1795. ... I have a poem 2 which I should wish to dispose of, provided I should get anything for it. Its object is partly to expose the vices of the penal law, and the calam- ities of war as they affect individuals. ... As to your promoting my interest in the way of pupils, upon a review of my own attainments, I think there is so little that I am able to teach that this may be suffered to fly quietly away to the paradise of fools. . . . The copy of the poem 3 you will contrive to frank, else ten to one I shall not be able to release it from the post-office. I have lately been living upon air and the essence of carrots, cabbages, turnips, and other esculent vegetables, not excluding parsley, — the produce of my garden. EEOM DOEOTHY WOEDSWOETH TO MES. MAESHALL Racedown, November 30th, 1795. . . . We walk about two hours every morning. We have very pleasant walks about us ; and what is a great advantage, the roads are of a sandy kind, and are almost 1 A fellow-student at Cambridge ; later Archdeacon of Chester. 2 "Guilt and Sorrow." 8 "Juvenal's Satires"; Wordsworth had planned to write some imi- tations of Juvenal, for a volume of satirical pieces to be written jointly with Wrangham. The scheme was abandoned later. [ 88 ] THE YEARS 1795 TO 1800 always dry. We can see the sea, 150 or 200 yards from the door ; and at a little distance we have a very extensive view terminated by the sea, seen through different open- ings of the unequal hills. We have not the warmth and luxuriance of Devonshire, though there is no want either of wood, or of cultivation ; but the trees appear to suffer from the sea-blasts. We have hills which, seen from a distance, almost take the character of mountains, some cultivated nearly to their summits; others in their wild state, covered with furze and broom. These delight me most, as they remind me of our native wilds. Our com- mon parlour is the prettiest little room that can be. . . . FROM DOROTHY WORDSWORTH TO A FRIEND, AFTER A "VISIT AT RACEDOWN Eacedown, 1797- . . . You had a great loss in not seeing Coleridge. He is a wonderful man. His conversation teems with soul, mind, and spirit. Then he is so benevolent, so good- tempered and cheerful, and, like William, interests himself so much about every little trifle. At first I thought him very plain, that is, for about three minutes. He is pale, thin, has a wide mouth, thick lips, and not very good teeth, longish, loose-growing, half-curling, rough, black hair. But if you hear him speak for five minutes you think no more of them. His eye is large and full, and not very dark, but grey, such an eye as would receive from a heavy soul the dullest expression ; but it speaks every emotion of his animated mind : it has more of " the poet's eye in a [ 89 ] WITH WORDSWORTH IN ENGLAND fine frenzy rolling " than I ever witnessed. He has fine dark eyebrows, and an overhanging forehead. The first thing that was read after he came was Wil- liam's new poem, " The Burned Cottage," 1 with which he was much delighted; and after tea he repeated to us two acts and a half of his tragedy, " Osorio." The next morn- ing William read his tragedy, " The Borderers." LINES WRITTEN IN EAELY SPRING I heard a thousand blended notes, While in a grove I sate reclined, In that sweet mood when pleasant thoughts Bring sad thoughts to the mind. To her fair works did Nature link The human soul that through me ran ; And much it grieved my heart to think What man has made of man. Through primrose tufts, in that green bower, The periwinkle trailed its wreaths ; And 't is my faith that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes. The birds around me hopped and played, Their thoughts I cannot measure : — But the least motion which they made It seemed a thrill of pleasure. 1 Afterwards incorporated into " The Excursion," Book I, where it ia told by The Wanderer. [ 90 ] AY rORDSWoKTirs Glen at Alfoxden. / heard