Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

272

WORDSWORTH'S POEMS.

ment. The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the author's mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the ante-chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor pieces, which have been long before the public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive reader to have such connection with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices.

The author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the public, entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please, and, he would hope, to benefit, his countrymen. Nothing further need be added than that the first and third parts of "The Recluse" will consist chiefly of meditations in the author's own person; and that in the intermediate part ("The Excursion ") the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

It is not the author's intention formally to announce a system: it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the mean time the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of "The Recluse," may be acceptable as a kind of Prospectus of the design and scope of the whole poem :

"On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive

Fair trains of imagery before me rise,

Accompanied by feelings of delight

Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mix'd;

And I am conscious of affecting thoughts

And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes

Or elevates the mind, intent to weigh

The good and evil of our mortal state.

-To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come,

Whether from breath of outward circumstance,

Or from the soul-an impulse to herself;

I would give utterance in numerous verse.

Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope,
And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith;

Of blessed consolations in distress;

Of moral strength, and intellectual power;

Of joy in widest commonalty spread;

Of th' Individual Mind that keeps her own

Inviolate retirement, subject there

To Conscience only, and the law supreme

Of that Intelligence which governs all;

I sing fit audience' let me find, though few!

"So pray'd, more gaining than he ask'd, the Bard,
Holiest of men. Urania, I shall need
Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such
Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven!
For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink
Deep-and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds
To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil.
All strength-all terror, single or in bands,
That ever was put forth in personal form;
Jehovah, with his thunder, and the choir
Of shouting angels, and the empyreal thrones,
I pass them, unalarm'd. Not Chaos, not

The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,

Nor aught of blinder vacancy-scoop'd out

By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe

As fall upon us often when we look

Into our minds-into the mind of man

[graphic]

My haunt, and the main region of my song
-Beauty-a living presence of the earth,
Surpassing the most fair ideal forms
Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed
From earth's materials-waits upon my steps;
Pitches her tents before me as I move,

An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves
Elysian, Fortunate Fields-like those of old
Sought in the Atlantic main, why should they be
A history only of departed things,

Or a mere fiction of what never was?
For the discerning intellect of inan,
When wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion, shall find these
A simple produce of the common day.

I, long before the blissful hour arrives,
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse
Of this great consummation;-and, by words
Which speak of nothing more than what we are.
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep
Of death, and win the vacant and the vain
To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims
How exquisitely the individual Mind
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less
Of the whole species) to the external world

Is fitted:-and how exquisitely, too

(Theme this but little heard of among men),
The external world is fitted to the mind;
And the creation (by no lower name

Can it be call'd) which they with blended might
Accomplish:-this is our high argument.

Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft
Must turn elsewhere-to travel near the tribes
And fellowships of men, and see ill sights
Of madding passions mutually inflamed;
Must hear Humanity in fields and groves
Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore

Within the walls of cities; may these sounds
Have their authentic comment-that, even thes

Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn!

Come thou, prophetic Spirit, that inspirest

The human Soul of universal earth,

Dreaming on things to come; and dost posscas
A metropolitan temple in the hearts

Of mighty poets: upon me bestow

A gift of genuine insight; that my song
With star-like virtue in its place may shine,
Shedding benignant influence,-and secure,
Itself, from all malevolent effect

Of those mutations that extend their sway
Throughout the nether sphere! And if with this
1 mix more lowly matter; with the thing
Contemplated, describe the mind and man
Contemplating; and who, and what he was,
The transitory being that beheld

This vision; when and where, and how he lived;

Be not this labour useless. If such theme

May sort with highest objects, then, dread Power,
Whose gracious favour is the primal source
Of all illumination, may my life

Express the image of a better time,

More wise desires, and simpler manners; nurse

My heart in genuine freedom: all pure thoughts
Be with me; so shall Thy unfailing love
Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end !"

THE EXCURSION.

BOOK I.

THE WANDERER.

A summer forenoon-The Author reaches a ruined cottage upon a common, and there meets with a reverend friend, the Wanderer, of whom he gives an account-The W&3derer, while resting under the shade of the trees that surround the cottage, relates the history of its last inhabitant.

'Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high:
Southward, the landscape indistinctly glared
Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs,
In clearest air ascending, show'd far off
A surface dappled o'er with shadows, flung
From many a brooding cloud; far as the sight
Could reach, those many shadows lay in spots
Determined and unmoved, with steady beams
Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed;
Pleasant to him who on the soft cool moss
Extends his careless limbs along the front
Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts
A twilight of its own, an ample shade,

Where the wren warbles; while the dreaming man,
Half conscious of the soothing melody,
With sidelong eye looks out upon the scene,
By that impending covert made more soft,
More low and distant! Other lot was mine;
Yet with good hope that soon I should obtain
As grateful resting-place, and livelier joy.
Across a bare wide common I was toiling
With languid feet, which by the slippery ground
Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse
The host of insects gathering round my face,
And ever with me as I paced along.

Upon that open level stood a grove,

The wish'd-for port to which my steps were bound.
Thither I came, and there amid the gloom

Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms-
Appear'd a roofless hut; four naked walls
That stared upon each other! I look'd round,
And to my wish and to my hope espied
Him whom I sought; a man of reverend age,

But stout and hale, for travel unimpair'd.
There was he seen upon the cottage bench,
Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep :
An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.

Him had I mark'd the day before-alone
And in the middle of the public way
Station'd, as if to rest himself, with face

Turn'd towards the sun then setting, while that staf
Afforded to his figure, as he stood,
Detain'd for contemplation or repose,
Graceful support; the countenance of the man
Was hidden from my view, and he himself
Unrecognized; but, stricken by the sight,
With slacken'd footsteps I advanced, and soon
A glad congratulation we exchanged
At such unthought-of meeting. For the night
We parted, nothing willingly; and now
He by appointment waited for me here,
Reneath the shelter of these clustering elms.

We were tried friends: I from my childhood up
Had known him. In a little town obscure,
A market-village, seated in a tract

Of mountains, where my school-day time was pass'd,
One room he own'd, the fifth part of a house,
A place to which he drew, from time to time,
And found a kind of home or harbour there.

He loved me; from a swarm of rosy boys
Singled out me, as he in sport would say,
For my grave looks-too thoughtful for my years.
As I grew up, it was my best delight

To be his chosen comrade. Many a time,
On holidays, we wander'd through the woods,

A pair of random travellers we sate

We walk'd; he pleased me with his sweet discours
Of things which he had seen; and often touch'd
Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind
Turn'd inward; or at my request he sang
Old songs-the product of his native hills:
A skilful distribution of sweet sounds,
Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed
As cool refreshing water, by the care
Of the industrious husbandman diffused

Through a parch'd meadow-ground in time of drought.

Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse:

How precious when in riper days I learn'd

To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice
In the plain presence of his dignity!

O many are the poets that are sown

By Nature! men endow'd with highest gifts---
The vision, and the faculty divine-
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse

(Which in the docile season of their youth
It was denied them to acquire, through lack
Of culture and the inspiring aid of books;
Or haply by a temper too severe;

Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame),
Nor having e'er, as life advanced, been led
By circumstance to take unto the height
The measure of themselves, these favour'd beinge,
All but a scatter'd few, live out their time,
Husbanding that which they possess within,
And go to the grave unthought of. Strongest minda
Are often those of whom the noisy world
Hears least; else surely this man had not left
His graces unreveal'd and unproclaim'd.
But, as the mind was fill'd with inward light,
So not without distinction had he lived,
Beloved and honour'd-far as he was known.
And some small portion of his eloquent speech,
And something that may serve to set in view
The feeling pleasures of his loneliness,
The doings, observations, which his mind
Had dealt with-I will here record in verse;
Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink
Or rise, as venerable Nature leads,
The high and tender Muses shall accept
With gracious smile, deliberately pleased,
And listening Time reward with sacred praizo.
Among the hills of Athol he was born:
There, on a small hereditary farm,
An unproductive slip of rugged ground,
His father dwelt; and died in poverty;
While he, whose lowly fortune I retrace,
The youngest of three sons, was yet a babe,
A little one, unconscious of their loss.
But ere he had outgrown his infant days,
His widow'd mother, for a second mate,
Espoused the teacher of the village school;
Who on her offspring zealously bestow'd
Needful instruction; not alone in arts
Which to his humble duties appertain❜d,
But in the lore of right and wrong, the rule
Of human kindness, in the peaceful ways
Of honesty, and holiness severe.

A virtuous household, though exceeding poor!
Pure livers were they all, austere and grave,
And fearing God; the very children taught
Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word,
And an habitual piety, maintain'd

With strictness scarcely known on English ground.

From his sixth year, the boy of whom I speak
In summer tended cattle on the hills;

But, through the inclement and the perilous daya
Of long-continuing winter, he repair

« AnteriorContinuar »