Ruffled the waters to the angler's wish, For a whole day together, have I lain Down by thy side, O Derwent! murmuring stream, On the hot stones and in the glaring sun, And there have read, devouring as I read, Defrauding the day's glory, desperate! Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach, Such as an idler deals with in his shame, I to the sport betook myself again.
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
Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
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 recognize, 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,
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.
Relinquishing 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 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.
At thought of raptures 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, Repeating favorite verses with one voice, Or conning more, as happy as the birds That round us chanted. Well might we be glad,
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 splendor 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 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
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 recognized, In flashes, and with glory not their own.
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