Wordsworth (9 page)

’Six feet in earth my Emma lay,

And yet I loved her more,

For so it seemed, than till that day

I e’er had loved before.

’And, turning from her grave, I met

Beside the church-yard Yew

A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet

With points of morning dew.

’A basket on her head she bare,

Her brow was smooth and white,

To see a Child so very fair,

It was a pure delight!

’No fountain from its rocky cave

E’er tripped with foot so free,

She seemed as happy as a wave

That dances on the sea.

‘There came from me a sigh of pain

Which I could ill confine;

I looked at her and looked again;

– And did not wish her mine.’

Matthew is in his grave, yet now

Methinks I see him stand,

As at that moment, with his bough

Of wilding in his hand.

Art thou a Statist in the van

Of public conflicts trained and bred?

– First learn to love one living man;

Then
mayst thou think upon the dead.

A Lawyer art thou? – draw not nigh!

Go, carry to some fitter place

The keenness of that practised eye,

The hardness of that sallow face.

Art thou a Man of purple cheer?

A rosy Man, right plump to see?

Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near,

This grave no cushion is for thee.

Or art thou one of gallant pride,

A Soldier and no man of chaff?

Welcome! – but lay thy sword aside,

And lean upon a peasant’s staff.

Physician art thou? – one, all eyes,

Philosopher! – a fingering slave,

One that would peep and botanize

Upon his mother’s grave?

Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece,

O turn aside, – and take, I pray,

That he below may rest in peace,

Thy ever-dwindling soul, away!

A Moralist perchance appears;

Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod:

And he has neither eyes nor ears;

Himself his world, and his own God;

One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling

Nor form, nor feeling, great or small;

A reasoning, self-sufficing thing,

An intellectual All-in-all!

Shut close the door; press down the latch;

Sleep in thy intellectual crust;

Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch

Near this unprofitable dust.

But who is He, with modest looks,

And clad in homely russet brown?

He murmurs near the running brooks

A music sweeter than their own.

He is retired as noontide dew,

Or fountain in a noon-day grove;

And you must love him, ere to you

He will seem worthy of your love.

The outward shows of sky and earth,

Of hill and valley, he has viewed;

And impulses of deeper birth

Have come to him in solitude.

In common things that round us lie

Some random truths he can impart, –

The harvest of a quiet eye

That broods and sleeps on his own heart.

But he is weak; both Man and Boy,

Hath been an idler in the land;

Contented if he might enjoy

The things which others understand.

– Come hither in thy hour of strength;

Come, weak as is a breaking wave!

Here stretch thy body at full length;

Or build thy house upon this grave.

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. – Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,

The holy time is quiet as a Nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun

Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven broods o’er the Sea:

Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make

A sound like thunder – everlastingly.

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,

If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,

Thy nature is not therefore less divine:

Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year;

And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine,

God being with thee when we know it not.

Earth has not anything to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

So didst thou travel on life’s common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;

And hermits are contented with their cells;

And students with their pensive citadels;

Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,

Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,

High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,

Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:

In truth the prison, unto which we doom

Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,

In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound

Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;

Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)

Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,

Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,

Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;

Some lying fast at anchor in the road,

Some veering up and down, one knew not why.

A goodly Vessel did I then espy

Come like a Giant from a haven broad;

And lustily along the Bay she strode,

Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.

This Ship was nought to me, nor I to her,

Yet I pursued her with a Lover’s look;

This Ship to all the rest did I prefer:

When will she turn, and whither? She will brook

No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir:

On went She, and due north her journey took.

Dear Native Brooks your ways have I pursued

How fondly! whether you delight in screen

Of shady woods to rest yourselves unseen,

Or from your lofty dwellings scarcely viewed

But by the mountain eagle, your bold brood

Pure as the morning, angry, boisterous, keen,

Green as sea water, foaming white and green,

Comes roaring like a joyous multitude.

Nor have I been your follower in vain;

For not to speak of life and its first joys

Bound to your goings by a tender chain

Of flowers and delicate dreams that entertain

Loose minds when Men are growing into Boys,

My manly heart has owed to your rough noise

Triumph and thoughts no bondage could restrain.

Great Men have been among us; hands that penned

And tongues that uttered wisdom, better none:

The later Sydney, Marvel, Harrington,

Young Vane, and others who called Milton Friend.

These Moralists could act and comprehend:

They knew how genuine glory was put on;

Taught us how rightfully a nation shone

In splendor: what strength was, that would not bend

But in magnanimous meekness. France, ’tis strange,

Hath brought forth no such souls as we had then.

Perpetual emptiness! unceasing change!

No single Volume paramount, no code,

No master spirit, no determined road;

But equally a want of Books and Men!

Toussaint, the most unhappy Man of Men!

Whether the rural Milk-maid by her Cow

Sing in thy hearing, or thou liest now

Alone in some deep dungeon’s earless den,

O miserable Chieftain! where and when

Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou

Wear rather in thy bonds a chearful brow:

Though fallen Thyself, never to rise again,

Live, and take comfort. Thou hast left behind

Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies;

There’s not a breathing of the common wind

That will forget thee; thou hast great allies;

Thy friends are exultations, agonies,

And love, and Man’s unconquerable mind.

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,

As being past away. – Vain sympathies!

For,
backward
, Duddon! as I cast my eyes,

I see what was, and is, and will abide;

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;

The Form remains, the Function never dies;

While
we
, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,

We Men, who in our morn of youth defied

The elements, must vanish; – be it so!

Enough, if something from our hands have power

To live, and act, and serve the future hour;

And if, as tow’rd the silent tomb we go,

Thro’ love, thro’ hope, and faith’s transcendent dower,

We feel that we are greater than we know.

    The little hedgerow birds,

That peck along the road, regard him not.

He travels on, and in his face, his step,

His gait, is one expression: every limb,

His look and bending figure, all bespeak

A man who does not move with pain, but moves

With thought. – He is insensibly subdued

To settled quiet: he is one by whom

All effort seems forgotten; one to whom

Long patience hath such mild composure given,

That patience now doth seem a thing of which

He hath no need. He is by nature led

To peace so perfect that the young behold

With envy, what the Old Man hardly feels.

The class of Beggars, to which the Old Man here described

belongs, will probably soon be extinct. It consisted of poor,

and, mostly, old and infirm persons, who confined

themselves to a stated round in their neighbourhood, and had

certain fixed days, on which, at different houses, they

regularly received alms, sometimes in money, but mostly in

provisions.

I saw an aged Beggar in my walk;

And he was seated, by the highway side,

On a low structure of rude masonry

Built at the foot of a huge hill, that they

Who lead their horses down the steep rough road

May thence remount at ease. The aged Man

Had placed his staff across the broad smooth stone

That overlays the pile; and, from a bag

All white with flour, the dole of village dames,

He drew his scraps and fragments, one by one;

And scanned them with a fixed and serious look

Of idle computation. In the sun,

Upon the second step of that small pile,

Surrounded by those wild unpeopled hills,

He sat, and ate his food in solitude:

And ever, scattered from his palsied hand,

That, still attempting to prevent the waste,

Was baffled still, the crumbs in little showers

Fell on the ground; and the small mountain birds,

Not venturing yet to peck their destined meal,

Approached within the length of half his staff.

    Him from my childhood have I known; and then

He was so old, he seems not older now;

He travels on, a solitary Man,

So helpless in appearance, that for him

The sauntering Horseman throws not with a slack

And careless hand his alms upon the ground,

But stops, – that he may safely lodge the coin

Within the old Man’s hat; nor quits him so,

But still, when he has given his horse the rein,

Watches the aged Beggar with a look

Sidelong, and half-reverted. She who tends

The toll-gate, when in summer at her door

She turns her wheel, if on the road she sees

The aged Beggar coming, quits her work,

And lifts the latch for him that he may pass.

The post-boy, when his rattling wheels o’ertake

The aged Beggar in the woody lane,

Shouts to him from behind; and, if thus warned

The old Man does not change his course, the boy

Turns with less noisy wheels to the roadside,

And passes gently by, without a curse

Upon his lips, or anger at his heart.