The Excursion Read Online

What, though in my veins

There flowed no Gallic blood, nor had I breathed

The air of France, not less than Gallic zeal

Kindled and burned among the sapless twigs

Of my exhausted heart. If busy men

In sober conclave met, to weave a web

Of amity, whose living threads should stretch

Beyond the seas, and to the farthest pole,

There did I sit, assisting. If, with noise

And acclamation, crowds in open air

Expressed the tumult of their minds, my voice

There mingled, heard or not. The powers of song

I left not uninvoked; and, in still groves,

Where mild enthusiasts tuned a pensive lay

Of thanks and expectation, in accord

With their belief, I sang Saturnian rule

Returned, – a progeny of golden years

Permitted to descend, and bless mankind.

– With promises the Hebrew Scriptures teem:

I felt their invitation; and resumed

A long-suspended office in the House

Of public worship, where, the glowing phrase

Of ancient inspiration serving me,

I promised also, – with undaunted trust

Foretold, and added prayer to prophecy;

The admiration winning of the crowd;

The help desiring of the pure devout.

Scorn and contempt forbid me to proceed!

But History, time's slavish scribe, will tell

How rapidly the zealots of the cause

Disbanded – or in hostile ranks appeared;

Some, tired of honest service; these, outdone,

Disgusted therefore, or appalled, by aims

Of fiercer zealots – so confusion reigned,

And the more faithful were compelled to exclaim,

As Brutus did to Virtue, ›Liberty,

I worshipped thee, and find thee but a Shade!‹

Such recantation had for me no charm,

Nor would I bend to it; who should have grieved

At aught, however fair, that bore the mien

Of a conclusion, or catastrophe.

Why then conceal, that, when the simply good

In timid selfishness withdrew, I sought

Other support, not scrupulous whence it came;

And, by what compromise it stood, not nice?

Enough if notions seemed to be high-pitched,

And qualities determined. – Among men

So charactered did I maintain a strife

Hopeless, and still more hopeless every hour;

But, in the process, I began to feel

That, if the emancipation of the world

Were missed, I should at least secure my own,

And be in part compensated. For rights,

Widely – inveterately usurped upon,

I spake with vehemence; and promptly seized

All that Abstraction furnished for my needs

Or purposes; nor scrupled to proclaim,

And propagate, by liberty of life,

Those new persuasions. Not that I rejoiced,

Or even found pleasure, in such vagrant course,

For its own sake; but farthest from the walk

Which I had trod in happiness and peace,

Was most inviting to a troubled mind;

That, in a struggling and distempered world,

Saw a seductive image of herself.

Yet, mark the contradictions of which Man

Is still the sport! Here Nature was my guide,

The Nature of the dissolute; but thee,

O fostering Nature! I rejected – smiled

At others' tears in pity; and in scorn

At those, which thy soft influence sometimes drew

From my unguarded heart. – The tranquil shores

Of Britain circumscribed me; else, perhaps

I might have been entangled among deeds,

Which, now, as infamous, I should abhor –

Despise, as senseless: for my spirit relished

Strangely the exasperation of that Land,

Which turned an angry beak against the down

Of her own breast; confounded into hope

Of disencumbering thus her fretful wings.

But all was quieted by iron bonds

Of military sway. The shifting aims,

The moral interests, the creative might,

The varied functions and high attributes

Of civil action, yielded to a power

Formal, and odious, and contemptible.

– In Britain, ruled a panic dread of change;

The weak were praised, rewarded, and advanced;

And, from the impulse of a just disdain,

Once more did I retire into myself.

There feeling no contentment, I resolved

To fly, for safeguard, to some foreign shore,

Remote from Europe; from her blasted hopes;

Her fields of carnage, and polluted air.

Fresh blew the wind, when o'er the Atlantic Main

The ship went gliding with her thoughtless crew;

And who among them but an Exile, freed

From discontent, indifferent, pleased to sit

Among the busily-employed, not more

With obligation charged, with service taxed,

Than the loose pendant – to the idle wind

Upon the tall mast streaming. But, ye Powers

Of soul and sense mysteriously allied,

O, never let the Wretched, if a choice

Be left him, trust the freight of his distress

To a long voyage on the silent deep!

For, like a plague, will memory break out;

And, in the blank and solitude of things,

Upon his spirit, with a fever's strength,

Will conscience prey. – Feebly must they have felt

Who, in old time, attired with snakes and whips

The vengeful Furies. Beautiful regards

Were turned on me – the face of her I loved;

The Wife and Mother pitifully fixing

Tender reproaches, insupportable!

Where now that boasted liberty? No welcome

From unknown objects I received; and those,

Known and familiar, which the vaulted sky

Did, in the placid clearness of the night,

Disclose, had accusations to prefer

Against my peace. Within the cabin stood

That volume – as a compass for the soul –

Revered among the nations. I implored

Its guidance; but the infallible support

Of faith was wanting. Tell me, why refused

To One by storms annoyed and adverse winds;

Perplexed with currents; of his weakness sick;

Of vain endeavours tired; and by his own,

And by his nature's, ignorance, dismayed!

Long wished-for sight, the Western World appeared;

And, when the ship was moored, I leaped ashore

Indignantly – resolved to be a man,

Who, having o'er the past no power, would live

No longer in subjection to the past,

With abject mind – from a tyrannic lord

Inviting penance, fruitlessly endured:

So, like a fugitive, whose feet have cleared

Some boundary, which his followers may not cross

In prosecution of their deadly chase,

Respiring I looked round. – How bright the sun,

The breeze how soft! Can any thing produced

In the old World compare, thought I, for power

And majesty with this gigantic stream,

Sprung from the desert? And behold a city

Fresh, youthful, and aspiring! What are these

To me, or I to them? As much, at least

As he desires that they should be, whom winds

And waves have wafted to this distant shore,

In the condition of a damaged seed,

Whose fibres cannot, if they would, take root.

Here may I roam at large; – my business is,

Roaming at large, to observe, and not to feel

And, therefore, not to act – convinced that all

Which bears the name of action, howsoe'er

Beginning, ends in servitude – still painful,

And mostly profitless. And, sooth to say,

On nearer view, a motley spectacle

Appeared, of high pretensions – unreproved

But by the obstreperous voice of higher still;

Big passions strutting on a petty stage;

Which a detached spectator may regard

Not unamused. – But ridicule demands

Quick change of objects; and, to laugh alone,

At a composing distance from the haunts

Of strife and folly, though it be a treat

As choice as musing Leisure can bestow;

Yet, in the very centre of the crowd,

To keep the secret of a poignant scorn,

Howe'er to airy Demons suitable,

Of all unsocial courses, is least fit

For the gross spirit of mankind, – the one

That soonest fails to please, and quickliest turns

Into vexation.

Let us, then, I said,

Leave this unknit Republic to the scourge

Of her own passions; and to regions haste,

Whose shades have never felt the encroaching axe,

Or soil endured a transfer in the mart

Of dire rapacity. There, Man abides,

Primeval Nature's child. A creature weak

In combination, (wherefore else driven back

So far, and of his old inheritance

So easily deprived?) but, for that cause,

More dignified, and stronger in himself;

Whether to act, judge, suffer, or enjoy.

True, the intelligence of social art

Hath overpowered his forefathers, and soon

Will sweep the remnant of his line away;

But contemplations, worthier, nobler far

Than her destructive energies, attend

His independence, when along the side

Of Mississippi, or that northern stream

That spreads into successive seas, he walks;

Pleased to perceive his own unshackled life,

And his innate capacities of soul,

There imaged: or when, having gained the top

Of some commanding eminence, which yet

Intruder ne'er beheld, he thence surveys

Regions of wood and wide savannah, vast

Expanse of unappropriated earth,

With mind that sheds a light on what he sees;

Free as the sun, and lonely as the sun,

Pouring above his head its radiance down

Upon a living and rejoicing world!

So, westward, tow'rd the unviolated woods

I bent my way; and, roaming far and wide,

Failed not to greet the merry Mocking-bird;

And, while the melancholy Muccawiss

(The sportive bird's companion in the grove)

Repeated o'er and o'er his plaintive cry,

I sympathised at leisure with the sound;

But that pure archetype of human greatness,

I found him not. There, in his stead, appeared

A creature, squalid, vengeful, and impure;

Remorseless, and submissive to no law

But superstitious fear, and abject sloth.

Enough is told! Here am I – ye have heard

What evidence I seek, and vainly seek;

What from my fellow-beings I require,

And either they have not to give, or I

Lack virtue to receive; what I myself,

Too oft by wilful forfeiture, have lost

Nor can regain. How languidly I look

Upon this visible fabric of the world,

May be divined – perhaps it hath been said: –

But spare your pity, if there be in me

Aught that deserves respect: for I exist,

Within myself, not comfortless. – The tenour

Which my life holds, he readily may conceive

Whoe'er hath stood to watch a mountain brook

In some still passage of its course, and seen,

Within the depths of its capacious breast,

Inverted trees, rocks, clouds, and azure sky;

And, on its glassy surface, specks of foam,

And conglobated bubbles undissolved,

Numerous as stars; that, by their onward lapse,

Betray to sight the motion of the stream,

Else imperceptible. Meanwhile, is heard

A softened roar, or murmur; and the sound

Though soothing, and the little floating isles

Though beautiful, are both by Nature charged

With the same pensive office; and make known

Through what perplexing labyrinths, abrupt

Precipitations, and untoward straits,

The earth-born wanderer hath passed; and quickly,

That respite o'er, like traverses and toils

Must he again encounter. – Such a stream

Is human Life; and so the Spirit fares

In the best quiet to her course allowed;

And such is mine, – save only for a hope

That my particular current soon will reach

The unfathomable gulf, where all is still!«

Book Fourth

Despondency Corrected

Argument

State of feeling produced by the foregoing Narrative. – A belief in a superintending Providence the only adequate support under affliction. – Wanderer's ejaculation. – Acknowledges the difficulty of a lively faith. – Hence immoderate sorrow.