Recluse; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.—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would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the Public, entitled him to candid attention for such a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 mixed;
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 the 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 prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard- In holiest mood. 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 unalarmed. Not Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,
Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped 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
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 Man, 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, VOL. VI.
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 called) 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 these Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn !— Descend, prophetic Spirit! that inspir'st The human Soul of universal earth,
Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess 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 I 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 !'
A summer forenoon.-The Author reaches a ruined Cottage upon a Common, and there meets with a revered Friend, the Wanderer, of whose education and course of life he gives an account.-The Wanderer, 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, showed far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots Determined and unmoved, with steady beams Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed; To him most pleasant who on 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 side-long eye looks out upon the scene, By power of that impending covert, thrown, To finer distance. Mine was at that hour Far other lot, yet with good hope that soon Under a shade as grateful I should find Rest, and be welcomed there to livelier joy.
Across a bare wide Common I was toiling With languid steps that by the slippery turf Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse The host of insects gathering round my face, And ever with me as I paced along.
The wished-for port to which my course was bound. Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms, Appeared a roofless Hut; four naked walls. That stared upon each other!—I looked round, And to my wish and to my hope espied The Friend I sought; a Man of reverend age, But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired. 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 marked the day before—alone
And stationed in the public way, with face Turned toward the sun then setting, while that staff Afforded, to the figure of the man Detained for contemplation or repose,
Graceful support; his countenance as he stood Was hidden from my view, and he remained Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight, With slackened 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, Under the covert of these clustering elms.
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