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, From 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 extasy, 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 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.
CAMBRIDGE AND THE ALPS.
THE leaves were fading when to Esthwaite's banks And the simplicities of cottage life
I bade farewell; and, one among the youth Who, summoned by that season, reunite As scattered birds troop to the fowler's lure, Went back to Granta's cloisters, not so prompt Or eager, though as gay and undepressed In mind, as when I thence had taken flight A few short months before. I turned my face Without repining from the coves and heights Clothed in the sunshine of the withering fern; Quitted, not loth, the mild magnificence Of calmer lakes and louder streams; and you, Frank-hearted maids of rocky Cumberland, You and your not unwelcome days of mirth, Relinquished, and your nights of revelry, And in my own unlovely cell sate down In lightsome mood-such privilege has youth That cannot take long leave of pleasant thoughts.
The bonds of indolent society
Relaxing in their hold, henceforth I lived More to myself. Two winters may be passed Without a separate notice: many books Were skimmed, devoured, or studiously perused, But with no settled plan. I was detached Internally from academic cares;
Yet independent study seemed a course Of hardy disobedience toward friends And kindred, proud rebellion and unkind. This spurious virtue, rather let it bear A name it now deserves, this cowardice, Gave treacherous sanction to that over-love Of freedom which encouraged me to turn From regulations even of my own
As from restraints and bonds.
Who knows what thus may have been gained, both then And at a later season, or preserved;
What love of nature, what original strength
Of contemplation, what intuitive truths The deepest and the best, what keen research, Unbiassed, unbewildered, and unawed?
The Poet's soul was with me at that time; Sweet meditations, the still overflow Of present happiness, while future years Lacked not anticipations, tender dreams, No few of which have since been realised; And some remain, hopes for my future life. Four years and thirty, told this very week, Have I been now a sojourner on earth, By sorrow not unsmitten; yet for me
Life's morning radiance hath not left the hills,
Her dew is on the flowers. Those were the days Which also first emboldened me to trust With firmness, hitherto but slightly touched By such a daring thought, that I might leave Some monument behind me which pure hearts Should reverence. The instinctive humbleness, Maintained even by the very name and thought Of printed books and authorship, began To melt away; and further, the dread awe Of mighty names was softened down and seemed Approachable, admitting fellowship
Of modest sympathy. Such aspect now, Though not familiarly, my mind put on, Content to observe, to achieve, and to enjoy.
All winter long, whenever free to choose, Did I by night frequent the College grove And tributary walks; the last, and oft The only one, who had been lingering there Through hours of silence, till the porter's bell, A punctual follower on the stroke of nine, Rang with its blunt unceremonious voice; Inexorable summons! Lofty elms, Inviting shades of opportune recess, Bestowed composure on a neighbourhood Unpeaceful in itself. A single tree
With sinuous trunk, boughs exquisitely wreathed, Grew there; an ash which Winter for himself Decked out with pride, and with outlandish Up from the ground, and almost to the top, The trunk and every master branch were green With clustering ivy, and the lightsome twigs And outer spray profusely tipped with seeds
That hung in yellow tassels, while the air Stirred them, not voiceless. Often have I stood Foot-bound uplooking at this lovely tree Beneath a frosty moon. The hemisphere Of magic fiction, verse of mine perchance May never tread; but scarcely Spenser's self Could have more tranquil visions in his youth, Or could more bright appearances create Of human forms with superhuman powers, Than I beheld, loitering on calm clear nights Alone, beneath this fairy work of earth.
On the vague reading of a truant youth 'Twere idle to descant. My inner judgment Not seldom differed from my taste in books, As if it appertained to another mind, And yet the books which then I valued most Are dearest to me now; for, having scanned, Not heedlessly, the laws, and watched the forms Of Nature, in that knowledge I possessed A standard, often usefully applied, Even when unconsciously, to things removed From a familiar sympathy.-In fine,
I was a better judge of thoughts than words, Misled in estimating words, not only By common inexperience of youth,
But by the trade in classic niceties,
The dangerous craft, of culling term and phrase From languages that want the living voice To carry meaning to the natural heart; To tell us what is passion, what is truth, What reason, what simplicity and sense.
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