APPENDIX

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The following is the full text of the original edition of Descriptive Sketches, first published in 1793 :—

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES. | IN VERSE. | TAKEN DURING A

PEDESTRIAN TOUR ¦ IN THE | ITALIAN, GRISON, Swiss, AND SAVOYARD | ALPS. | BY | W. WORDSWORTH, B.A. | OF ST. JOHN'S, Cambridge. | "LOCA PASTORUM DESERTA ATQUE OTIA DIA." | Lucret. | "CASTELLA IN TUMULIS – | ET LONGE SALTUS LATEQUE VACANTES." | Virgil. | LONDON PRINTED FOR J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL'S CHURCH-YARD. | 1793.

TO THE REV. ROBERT JONES, fellow of ST. JOHN'S COLlege, CAMBRIDGE.

DEAR SIR, However desirous I might have been of giving you proofs of the high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious of wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the circumstance of my having accompanied you amongst the Alps, seemed to give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples which your modesty might otherwise have suggested.

In inscribing this little work to you I consult my heart. You know well how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a post chaise, and two travellers plodding slowly along the road, side by side, each with his little knapsack of necessaries upon his shoulders. How much more of

heart between the two latter !

I am happy in being conscious I shall have one reader who will approach the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must certainly interest, in reminding you of moments

to which you can hardly look back without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of melancholy. You will meet with few images without recollecting the spot where we observed them together, consequently, whatever is feeble in my design, or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by your own memory.

With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a description of some of the features of your native mountains, through which we have wandered together, in the same manner, with so much pleasure. But the seasunsets which give such splendour to the vale of Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of Bethkelert, Menai and her druids, the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and the still more interesting windings of the wizard stream of the Dee remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that my pencil may never be exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip this opportunity of thus publicly assuring you with how much affection and esteem, I am Dear Sir,

Your most obedient very humble Servant

ARGUMENT

W. WORDSWORTH.

Happiness (if she had been to be found on Earth) amongst the Charms of Nature-Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller-Author crosses France to the Alps-Present state of the Grande Chartreuse -Lake of Como-Time, Sunset-Same Scene, Twilight-Same Scene, Morning, it's Voluptuous Character; Old Man and Forest Cottage Music-River Tusa - Via Mala and Grison Gypsey. Valley of Schellenen-thal-Lake of Uri. Stormy Sunset-Chapel of William Tell-force of Local Emotion-Chamois Chaser-View of the higher Alps-Manner of Life of a Swiss Mountaineer interspersed with views of the higher Alps-Golden Age of the Alps -Life and Views continued-Ranz des Vaches famous Swiss Air -Abbey of Einsiedlen and it's Pilgrims-Valley of Chamouny Mont Blanc-Slavery of Savoy-Influence of Liberty on Cottage Happiness-France-Wish for the extirpation of Slavery-Con

clusion.

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES *

WERE there, below, a spot of holy ground,
By Pain and her sad family unfound,

Sure, Nature's GOD that spot to man had giv'n,

All the notes to this reprint of the edition of 1793 are Wordsworth's own, as given in that edition.-ED.

Where murmuring rivers join the song of ev'n;
Where falls the purple morning far and wide
In flakes of light upon the mountain-side;
Where summer Suns in ocean sink to rest,
Or moonlight Upland lifts her hoary breast;
Where Silence, on her night of wing, o'er-broods
Unfathom'd dells and undiscover'd woods;

Where rocks and groves the power of waters shakes
In cataracts, or sleeps in quiet lakes.

But doubly pitying Nature loves to show'r
Soft on his wounded heart her healing pow'r,
Who plods o'er hills and vales his road forlorn,
Wooing her varying charms from eve to morn.
No sad vacuities his heart annoy,
Blows not a Zephyr but it whispers joy;
For him lost flowers their idle sweets exhale ;
He tastes the meanest note that swells the gale;
For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn,
And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn!
Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head,
And dear the green-sward to his velvet tread ;
Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?
Upward he looks—and calls it luxury;
Kind Nature's charities his steps attend,

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In every babbling brook he finds a friend,

While chast'ning thoughts of sweetest use, bestow'd

By Wisdom, moralize his pensive road.

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Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bow'r,

To his spare meal he calls the passing poor;

He views the Sun uprear his golden fire,

Or sink, with heart alive like * Memnon's lyre;
Blesses the Moon that comes with kindest ray

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To light him shaken by his viewless way.
With bashful fear no cottage children steal
From him, a brother at the cottage meal,
His humble looks no shy restraint impart,
Around him plays at will the virgin heart.
While unsuspended wheels the village dance,
The maidens eye him with inquiring glance,
Much wondering what sad stroke of crazing Care
Or desperate Love could lead a wanderer there.

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* The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or chearful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning rays.

Me, lur'd by hope her sorrows to remove,
A heart, that could not much itself approve,
O'er Gallia's wastes of corn dejected led,
*Her road elms rustling thin above my head,
Or through her truant pathway's native charms,
By secret villages and lonely farms,
To where the Alps, ascending white in air,
Toy with the Sun, and glitter from afar.

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Ev'n now I sigh at hoary Chartreuse' doom
Weeping beneath his chill of mountain gloom.
Where now is fled that Power whose frown severe
Tam'd "sober Reason" till she crouch'd in fear?
That breath'd a death-like peace these woods around
Broke only by th' unvaried torrent's sound,
Or prayer-bell by the dull cicada drown'd.
The cloister startles at the gleam of arms,

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And Blasphemy the shuddering fane alarms;

Nod the cloud-piercing pines their troubl'd heads,

Spires, rocks, and lawns, a browner night o'erspreads.
Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs,
And start th' astonish'd shades at female eyes.
The thundering tube the aged angler hears,

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And swells the groaning torrent with his tears.
From Bruno's forest screams the frighted jay,
And slow th' insulted eagle wheels away.
The cross with hideous laughter Demons mock,
By+ angels planted on the aëreal rock.
The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath
Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.
Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds
Portentous, thro' her old woods' trackless bounds,
Deepening her echoing torrents' awful peal
And bidding paler shades her form conceal,
§Vallombre, mid her falling fanes, deplores,
For ever broke, the sabbath of her bow'rs.

More pleas'd, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como bosom'd deep in chesnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps

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There are few people whom it may be necessary to inform, that the sides of many of the post-roads in France are planted with a row of trees.

Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of the Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible.

Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.

§ Name of one of the vallies of the Chartreuse.

Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.

*

To towns, whose shades of no rude sound complain,
To ringing team unknown and grating wain,
To flat-roof'd towns, that touch the water's bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or from the bending rocks obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whiten'd wave their shadows fling;
Wild round the steeps the little pathway twines,
And Silence loves it's purple roof of vines.
The viewless lingerer hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, mid opening cliffs, fair dark-ey'd maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades,
Or, led by distant warbling notes, surveys,
With hollow ringing ears and darkening gaze,
Binding the charmed soul in powerless trance,
Lip-dewing Song and ringlet-tossing Dance,
Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume
The bosom'd cabin's lyre-enliven'd gloom;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch, o'er their pictur'd mirror, broad and blue,
Tracking the yellow sun from steep to steep,

As up th' opposing hills, with tortoise foot, they creep.
Here half a village shines, in gold array'd,
Bright as the moon, half hides itself in shade.
From the dark sylvan roofs the restless spire
Inconstant glancing, mounts like springing fire.
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the waves below.
Slow glides the sail along th' illumin'd shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar.
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amourous music on the water dies.
Heedless how Pliny, musing here, survey'd
Old Roman boats and figures thro' the shade,
Pale Passion, overpower'd, retires and woos
The thicket, where th' unlisten'd stock-dove coos.
How bless'd, delicious Scene! the eye that greets

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Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats;

* If any of my readers should ever visit the Lake of Como, I recommend it to him to take a stroll along this charming little pathway: he must chuse the evening, as it is on the western side of the Lake. We pursued it from the foot of the water to it's head: it is once interrupted by a ferry.