The Prelude; or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind
Book Second
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The Prelude
or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind
An Autobiographical Poem
Book Second
School-Time (continued)
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Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much Unvisited, endeavoured to retrace The simple ways in which my childhood walked; Those chiefly that first led me to the love Of rivers, woods, and fields. The passion yet Was in its birth, sustained as might befal By nourishment that came unsought; for still From week to week, from month to month, we lived A round of tumult. Duly were our games Prolonged in summer till the day-light failed: No chair remained before the doors; the bench And threshold steps were empty; fast asleep The labourer, and the old man who had sate A later lingerer; yet the revelry Continued and the loud uproar: at last, When all the ground was dark, and twinkling stars Edged the black clouds, home and to bed we went, Feverish with weary joints and beating minds. Ah! is there one who ever has been young, Nor needs a warning voice to tame the pride Of intellect and virtue’s self-esteem? One is there, though the wisest and the best Of all mankind, who covets not at times Union that cannot be;—who would not give, If so he might, to duty and to truth The eagerness of infantine desire? A tranquillising spirit presses now On my corporeal frame, so wide appears The vacancy between me and those days Which yet have such self-presence in my mind, That, musing on them, often do I seem Two consciousnesses, conscious of myself And of some other Being. A rude mass Of native rock, left midway in the square Of our small market village, was the goal Or centre of these sports; and when, returned After long absence, thither I repaired, Gone was the old grey stone, and in its place A smart Assembly-room usurped the ground That had been ours. There let the fiddle scream, And be ye happy! Yet, my Friends! I know That more than one of you will think with me Of those soft starry nights, and that old Dame From whom the stone was named, who there had sate, And watched her table with its huckster’s wares Assiduous, through the length of sixty years. We ran a boisterous course; the year span round With giddy motion. But the time approached That brought with it a regular desire For calmer pleasures, when the winning forms Of Nature were collaterally attached To every scheme of holiday delight And every boyish sport, less grateful else And languidly pursued. And languidly pursued. When summer came, Our pastime was, on bright half-holidays, To sweep, along the plain of Windermere With rival oars; and the selected bourne Was now an Island musical with birds That sang and ceased not; now a Sister Isle Beneath the oaks’ umbrageous covert, sown With lilies of the valley like a field; And now a third small Island, where survived In solitude the ruins of a shrine Once to Our Lady dedicate, and served Daily with chaunted rites. In such a race So ended, disappointment could be none, Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy: We rested in the shade, all pleased alike, Conquered and conqueror. Thus the pride of strength, And the vain-glory of superior skill, Were tempered; thus was gradually produced A quiet independence of the heart; And to my Friend who knows me I may add, Fearless of blame, that hence for future days Ensued a diffidence and modesty, And I was taught to feel, perhaps too much, The self-sufficing power of Solitude. Our daily meals were frugal, Sabine fare! More than we wished we knew the blessing then Of vigorous hunger—hence corporeal strength Unsapped by delicate viands; for, exclude A little weekly stipend, and we lived Through three divisions of the quartered year In penniless poverty. But now to school From the half-yearly holidays returned, We came with weightier purses, that sufficed To furnish treats more costly than the Dame Of the old grey stone, from her scant board, supplied. Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground, Or in the woods, or by a river side Or shady fountains, while among the leaves Soft airs were stirring, and the mid-day sun Unfelt shone brightly round us in our joy. Nor is my aim neglected if I tell How sometimes, in the length of those half-years, We from our funds drew largely;—proud to curb, And eager to spur on, the galloping steed; And with the courteous inn-keeper, whose stud Supplied our want, we haply might employ Sly subterfuge, if the adventure’s bound Were distant: some famed temple where of yore The Druids worshipped, or the antique walls Of that large abbey, where within the Vale Of Nightshade, to St. Mary’s honour built, Stands yet a mouldering pile with fractured arch, Belfry, and images, and living trees, A holy scene! Along the smooth green turf Our horses grazed. To more than inland peace Left by the west wind sweeping overhead From a tumultuous ocean, trees and towers In that sequestered valley may be seen, Both silent and both motionless alike; Such the deep shelter that is there, and such The safeguard for repose and quietness. Our steeds remounted and the summons given, With whip and spur we through the chauntry flew In uncouth race, and left the cross-legged knight, And the stone-abbot, and that single wren Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave Of the old church, that—though from recent showers The earth was comfortless, and touched by faint Internal breezes, sobbings of the place And respirations, from the roofless walls The shuddering ivy dripped large drops—yet still So sweetly ’mid the gloom the invisible bird Sang to herself, that there I could have made My dwelling-place, and lived for ever there To hear such music. Through the walls we flew And down the valley, and, a circuit made In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth We scampered homewards. Oh, ye rocks and streams, And that still spirit shed from evening air! Even in this joyous time I sometimes felt Your presence, when with slackened step we breathed Along the sides of the steep hills, or when Lighted by gleams of moonlight from the sea We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand. Midway on long Winander’s eastern shore, Within the crescent of a pleasant bay, A tavern stood; no homely-featured house, Primeval like its neighbouring cottages, But ’twas a splendid place, the door beset With chaises, grooms, and liveries, and within Decanters, glasses, and the blood-red wine. In ancient times, and ere the Hall was built On the large island, had this dwelling been More worthy of a poet’s love, a hut, Proud of its own bright fire and sycamore shade. But—though the rhymes were gone that once inscribed The threshold, and large golden characters, Spread o’er the spangled sign-board, had dislodged The old Lion and usurped his place, in slight And mockery of the rustic painter’s hand— Yet, to this hour, the spot to me is dear With all its foolish pomp. The garden lay Upon a slope surmounted by a plain Of a small bowling-green; beneath us stood A grove, with gleams of water through the trees And over the tree-tops; nor did we want Refreshment, strawberries and mellow cream. There, while through half an afternoon we played On the smooth platform, whether skill prevailed Or happy blunder triumphed, bursts of glee Made all the mountains ring. But, ere night-fall, When in our pinnace we returned at leisure Over the shadowy lake, and to the beach Of some small island steered our course with one, The Minstrel of the Troop, and left him there, And rowed off gently, while he blew his flute Alone upon the rock—oh, then, the calm And dead still water lay upon my mind Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky, Never before so beautiful, sank down Into my heart, and held me like a dream! Thus were my sympathies enlarged, and thus Daily the common range of visible things Grew dear to me: already I began To love the sun; a boy I loved the sun, Not as I since have loved him, as a pledge And surety of our earthly life, a light Which we behold and feel we are alive; Nor for his bounty to so many worlds— But for this cause, that I had seen him lay His beauty on the morning hills, had seen The western mountain touch his setting orb, In many a thoughtless hour, when, from excess Of happiness, my blood appeared to flow For its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy. And, from like feelings, humble though intense, To patriotic and domestic love Analogous, the moon to me was dear; For I could dream away my purposes, Standing to gaze upon her while she hung Midway between the hills, as if she knew No other region, but belonged to thee, Yea, appertained by a peculiar right To thee and thy grey huts, thou one dear Vale! Those incidental charms which first attached My heart to rural objects, day by day Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell How Nature, intervenient till this time And secondary, now at length was sought For her own sake. But who shall parcel out His intellect by geometric rules, Split like a province into round and square? Who knows the individual hour in which His habits were first sown, even as a seed? Who that shall point as with a wand and say “This portion of the river of my mind Came from yon fountain?” Thou, my Friend! art one More deeply read in thy own thoughts; to thee Science appears but what in truth she is, Not as our glory and our absolute boast, But as a succedaneum, and a prop To our infirmity. No officious slave Art thou of that false secondary power By which we multiply distinctions; then, Deem that our puny boundaries are things That we perceive, and not that we have made. To thee, unblinded by these formal arts, The unity of all hath been revealed, And thou wilt doubt, with me less aptly skilled Than many are to range the faculties In scale and order, class the cabinet Of their sensations, and in voluble phrase Run through the history and birth of each As of a single independent thing. Hard task, vain hope, to analyse the mind, If each most obvious and particular thought, Not in a mystical and idle sense, But in the words of Reason deeply weighed, Hath no beginning. Hath no beginning. Blest the infant Babe, (For with my best conjecture I would trace Our Being’s earthly progress,) blest the Babe, Nursed in his Mother’s arms, who sinks to sleep Rocked on his Mother’s breast; who with his soul Drinks in the feelings of his Mother’s eye! For him, in one dear Presence, there exists A virtue which irradiates and exalts Objects through widest intercourse of sense. No outcast he, bewildered and depressed: Along his infant veins are interfused The gravitation and the filial bond Of nature that connect him with the world. Is there a flower, to which he points with hand Too weak to gather it, already love Drawn from love’s purest earthly fount for him Hath beautified that flower; already shades Of pity cast from inward tenderness Do fall around him upon aught that bears Unsightly marks of violence or harm. Emphatically such a Being lives, Frail creature as he is, helpless as frail, An inmate of this active universe. For feeling has to him imparted power That through the growing faculties of sense Doth like an agent of the one great Mind Create, creator and receiver both, Working but in alliance with the works Which it beholds. Such, verily, is the first Poetic spirit of our human life, By uniform control of after years, In most, abated or suppressed; in some, Through every change of growth and of decay, Pre-eminent till death. Pre-eminent till death. From early days, Beginning not long after that first time In which, a Babe, by intercourse of touch I held mute dialogues with my Mother’s heart, I have endeavoured to display the means Whereby this infant sensibility, Great birthright of our being, was in me Augmented and sustained. Yet is a path More difficult before me; and I fear That in its broken windings we shall need The chamois’ sinews, and the eagle’s wing: For now a trouble came into my mind From unknown causes. I was left alone Seeking the visible world, nor knowing why. The props of my affections were removed, And yet the building stood, as if sustained By its own spirit! All that I beheld Was dear, and hence to finer influxes The mind lay open to a more exact And close communion. Many are our joys In youth, but oh! what happiness to live When every hour brings palpable access Of knowledge, when all knowledge is delight, And sorrow is not there! The seasons came, And every season wheresoe’er I moved Unfolded transitory qualities, Which, but for this most watchful power of love, Had been neglected; left a register Of permanent relations, else unknown. Hence life, and change, and beauty, solitude More active even than “best society”— Society made sweet as solitude By silent inobtrusive sympathies— And gentle agitations of the mind From manifold distinctions, difference Perceived in things, where, to the unwatchful eye, No difference is, and hence, from the same source, Sublimer joy; for I would walk alone, Under the quiet stars, and at that time Have felt whate’er there is of power in sound To breathe an elevated mood, by form Or image unprofaned; and I would stand, If the night blackened with a coming storm, Beneath some rock, listening to notes that are The ghostly language of the ancient earth, Or make their dim abode in distant winds. Thence did I drink the visionary power; And deem not profitless those fleeting moods Of shadowy exultation: not for this, That they are kindred to our purer mind And intellectual life; but that the soul, Remembering how she felt, but what she felt Remembering not, retains an obscure sense Of possible sublimity, whereto With growing faculties she doth aspire, With faculties still growing, feeling still That whatsoever point they gain, they yet Have something to pursue. Have something to pursue. And not alone, ’Mid gloom and tumult, but no less ’mid fair And tranquil scenes, that universal power And fitness in the latent qualities And essences of things, by which the mind Is moved with feelings of delight, to me Came, strengthened with a superadded soul, A virtue not its own. My morning walks Were early;—oft before the hours of school I travelled round our little lake, five miles Of pleasant wandering. Happy time! more dear For this, that one was by my side, a Friend, Then passionately loved; with heart how full Would he peruse these lines! For many years Have since flowed in between us, and, our minds Both silent to each other, at this time We live as if those hours had never been. Nor seldom did I lift—our cottage latch Far earlier, ere one smoke-wreath had risen From human dwelling, or the vernal thrush Was audible; and sate among the woods Alone upon some jutting eminence, At the first gleam of dawn-light, when the Vale, Yet slumbering, lay in utter solitude. How shall I seek the origin? where find Faith in the marvellous things which then I felt? Oft in these moments such a holy calm Would overspread my soul, that bodily eyes Were utterly forgotten, and what I saw Appeared like something in myself, a dream, A prospect in the mind. A prospect in the mind. ’Twere long to tell What spring and autumn, what the winter snows, And what the summer shade, what day and night, Evening and morning, sleep and waking, thought From sources inexhaustible, poured forth To feed the spirit of religious love In which I walked with Nature. But let this Be not forgotten, that I still retained My first creative sensibility; That by the regular action of the world My soul was unsubdued. A plastic power Abode with me; a forming hand, at times Rebellious, acting in a devious mood; A local spirit of his own, at war With general tendency, but, for the most, Subservient strictly to external things With which it communed. An auxiliar light Came from my mind, which on the setting sun Bestowed new splendour; the melodious birds, The fluttering breezes, fountains that run on Murmuring so sweetly in themselves, obeyed A like dominion, and the midnight storm Grew darker in the presence of my eye: Hence my obeisance, my devotion hence, And hence my transport. And hence my transport. Nor should this, perchance, Pass unrecorded, that I still had loved The exercise and produce of a toil, Than analytic industry to me More pleasing, and whose character I deem Is more poetic as resembling more Creative agency. The song would speak Of that interminable building reared By observation of affinities In objects where no brotherhood exists To passive minds. My seventeenth year was come; And, whether from this habit rooted now So deeply in my mind; or from excess In the great social principle of life Coercing all things into sympathy, To unorganic natures were transferred My own enjoyments; or the power of truth Coming in revelation, did converse With things that really are; I, at this time, Saw blessings spread around me like a sea. Thus while the days flew by, and years passed on, From Nature and her overflowing soul, I had received so much, that all my thoughts Were steeped in feeling; I was only then Contented, when with bliss ineffable I felt the sentiment of Being spread O’er all that moves and all that seemeth still; O’er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought And human knowledge, to the human eye Invisible, yet liveth to the heart; O’er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings, Or beats the gladsome air; o’er all that glides Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself, And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not If high the transport, great the joy I felt, Communing in this sort through earth and heaven With every form of creature, as it looked Towards the Uncreated with a countenance Of adoration, with an eye of love. One song they sang, and it was audible, Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear, O’ercome by humblest prelude of that strain, Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed. If this be error, and another faith Find easier access to the pious mind, Yet were I grossly destitute of all Those human sentiments that make this earth So dear, if I should fail with grateful voice To speak of you, ye mountains, and ye lakes And sounding cataracts, ye mists and winds That dwell among the hills where I was born. If in my youth I have been pure in heart, If, mingling with the world, I am content With my own modest pleasures, and have lived With God and Nature communing, removed From little enmities and low desires, The gift is yours; if in these times of fear, This melancholy waste of hopes o’erthrown, If, ’mid indifference and apathy, And wicked exultation when good men On every side fall off, we know not how, To selfishness, disguised in gentle names Of peace and quiet and domestic love, Yet mingled not unwillingly with sneers On visionary minds; if, in this time Of dereliction and dismay, I yet Despair not of our nature, but retain A more than Roman confidence, a faith That fails not, in all sorrow my support, The blessing of my life; the gift is yours, Ye winds and sounding cataracts! ’tis yours, Ye mountains! thine, O Nature! Thou hast fed My lofty speculations; and in thee, For this uneasy heart of ours, I find A never-failing principle of joy And purest passion. And purest passion. Thou, my Friend! wert reared In the great city, ’mid far other scenes; But we, by different roads, at length have gained The self-same bourne. And for this cause to thee I speak, unapprehensive of contempt, The insinuated scoff of coward tongues, And all that silent language which so oft In conversation between man and man Blots from the human countenance all trace Of beauty and of love. For thou hast sought The truth in solitude, and, since the days That gave thee liberty, full long desired, To serve in Nature’s temple, thou hast been The most assiduous of her ministers; In many things my brother, chiefly here In this our deep devotion. In this our deep devotion. Fare thee well! Health and the quiet of a healthful mind Attend thee! seeking oft the haunts of men, And yet more often living with thyself, And for thyself, so haply shall thy days Be many, and a blessing to mankind. |
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