The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet's Mind Read Online

Distress of mind

Was growing in him when, behold, at once

To his great joy a man was at his side,

Upon a dromedary mounted high.

He seemed an arab of the Bedouin tribes;

A lance he bore, and underneath one arm

A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell

Of a surpassing brightness. Much rejoiced

The dreaming man that he should have a guide

To lead him through the desart; and he thought,

While questioning himself what this strange freight

Which the newcomer carried through the waste

Could mean, the arab told him that the stone –

To give it in the language of the dream –

Was Euclid's Elements. »And this«, said he,

»This other«, pointing to the shell, »this book

Is something of more worth.« »And, at the word,

The stranger«, said my friend continuing,

»Stretched forth the shell towards me, with command

That I should hold it to my ear. I did so

And heard that instant in an unknown tongue,

Which yet I understood, articulate sounds,

A loud prophetic blast of harmony,

An ode in passion uttered, which foretold

Destruction to the children of the earth

By deluge now at hand. No sooner ceased

The song, but with calm look the arab said

That all was true, that it was even so

As had been spoken, and that he himself

Was going then to bury those two books –

The one that held acquaintance with the stars,

And wedded man to man by purest bond

Of nature, undisturbed by space or time;

Th' other that was a god, yea many gods,

Had voices more than all the winds, and was

A joy, a consolation, and a hope.«

My friend continued, »Strange as it may seem

I wondered not, although I plainly saw

The one to be a stone, th' other a shell,

Nor doubted once but that they both were books,

Having a perfect faith in all that passed.

A wish was now engendered in my fear

To cleave unto this man, and I begged leave

To share his errand with him. On he passed

Not heeding me; I followed, and took note

That he looked often backward with wild look,

Grasping his twofold treasure to his side.

Upon a dromedary, lance in rest,

He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now

I fancied that he was the very knight

Whose tale Cervantes tells, yet not the knight,

But was an arab of the desart too,

Of these was neither, and was both at once.

His countenance meanwhile grew more disturbed,

And looking backwards when he looked I saw

A glittering light, and asked him whence it came.

›It is‹, said he, ›the waters of the deep

Gathering upon us.‹ Quickening then his pace

He left me; I called after him aloud;

He heeded not, but with his twofold charge

Beneath his arm – before me full in view –

I saw him riding o'er the desart sands

With the fleet waters of the drowning world

In chace of him; whereat I waked in terror,

And saw the sea before me, and the book

In which I had been reading at my side.«

Full often, taking from the world of sleep

This arab phantom which my friend beheld,

This semi-Quixote, I to him have given

A substance, fancied him a living man –

A gentle dweller in the desart, crazed

By love, and feeling, and internal thought

Protracted among endless solitudes –

Have shaped him, in the oppression of his brain,

Wandering upon this quest and thus equipped.

And I have scarcely pitied him, have felt

A reverence for a being thus employed,

And thought that in the blind and awful lair

Of such a madness reason did lie couched.

Enow there are on earth to take in charge

Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves,

Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear –

Enow to think of these – yea, will I say,

In sober contemplation of the approach

Of such great overthrow, made manifest

By certain evidence, that I methinks

Could share that maniac's anxiousness, could go

Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least

Me hath such deep entrancement half-possessed

When I have held a volume in my hand –

Poor earthly casket of immortal verse –

Shakespeare or Milton, labourers divine.

Mighty, indeed supreme, must be the power

Of living Nature which could thus so long

Detain me from the best of other thoughts.

Even in the lisping time of infancy

And, later down, in prattling childhood – even

While I was travelling back among those days –

How could I ever play an ingrate's part?

Once more should I have made those bowers resound,

And intermingled strains of thankfulness

With their own thoughtless melodies. At least

It might have well beseemed me to repeat

Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again

In slender accents of sweet verse some tale

That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now.

O friend, O poet, brother of my soul,

Think not that I could ever pass along

Untouched by these remembrances; no, no,

But I was hurried forward by a stream

And could not stop. Yet wherefore should I speak,

Why call upon a few weak words to say

What is already written in the hearts

Of all that breathe – what in the path of all

Drops daily from the tongue of every child

Wherever man is found? The trickling tear

Upon the cheek of listening infancy

Tells it, and the insuperable look

That drinks as if it never could be full.

That portion of my story I shall leave

There registered. Whatever else there be

Of power or pleasure, sown or fostered thus –

Peculiar to myself – let that remain

Where it lies hidden in its endless home

Among the depths of time. And yet it seems

That here, in memory of all books which lay

Their sure foundations in the heart of man,

Whether by native prose, or numerous verse,

That in the name of all inspirèd souls –

From Homer the great thunderer, from the voice

Which roars along the bed of Jewish song,

And that, more varied and elaborate,

Those trumpet-tones of harmony that shake

Our shores in England, from those loftiest notes

Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made

For cottagers and spinners at the wheel

And weary travellers when they rest themselves

By the highways and hedges: ballad-tunes,

Food for the hungry ears of little ones,

And of old men who have survived their joy –

It seemeth in behalf of these, the works,

And of the men who framed them, whether known,

Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves,

That I should here assert their rights, attest

Their honours, and should once for all pronounce

Their benediction, speak of them as powers

For ever to be hallowed – only less

For what we may become, and what we need,

Than Nature's self which is the breath of God.

Rarely and with reluctance would I stoop

To transitory themes, yet I rejoice,

And, by these thoughts admonished, must speak out

Thanksgivings from my heart that I was reared

Safe from an evil which these days have laid

Upon the children of the land – a pest

That might have dried me up body and soul.

This verse is dedicate to Nature's self

And things that teach as Nature teaches: then,

Oh, where had been the man, the poet where –

Where had we been we two, belovèd friend,

If we, in lieu of wandering as we did

Through heights and hollows and bye-spots of tales

Rich with indigenous produce, open ground

Of fancy, happy pastures ranged at will,

Had been attended, followed, watched, and noosed,

Each in his several melancholy walk,

Stringed like a poor man's heifer at its feed,

Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude;

Or rather like a stallèd ox shut out

From touch of growing grass, that may not taste

A flower till it have yielded up its sweets

A prelibation to the mower's scythe.

Behold the parent hen amid her brood,

Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part

And straggle from her presence, still a brood,

And she herself from the maternal bond

Still undischarged. Yet doth she little more

Than move with them in tenderness and love,

A centre of the circle which they make;

And now and then – alike from need of theirs

And call of her own natural appetites –

She scratches, ransacks up the earth for food

Which they partake at pleasure. Early died

My honoured mother, she who was the heart

And hinge of all our learnings and our loves;

She left us destitute, and as we might

Trooping together. Little suits it me

To break upon the sabbath of her rest

With any thought that looks at others' blame,

Nor would I praise her but in perfect love;

Hence am I checked, but I will boldly say

In gratitude, and for the sake of truth,

Unheard by her, that she, not falsely taught,

Fetching her goodness rather from times past

Than shaping novelties from those to come,

Had no presumption, no such jealousy –

Nor did by habit of her thoughts mistrust

Our nature, but had virtual faith that He

Who fills the mother's breasts with innocent milk

Doth also for our nobler part provide,

Under His great correction and controul,

As innocent instincts, and as innocent food.

This was her creed, and therefore she was pure

From feverish dread of error and mishap

And evil, overweeningly so called,

Was not puffed up by false unnatural hopes,

Nor selfish with unnecessary cares,

Nor with impatience from the season asked

More than its timely produce – rather loved

The hours for what they are, than from regards

Glanced on their promises in restless pride.

Such was she: not from faculties more strong

Than others have, but from the times, perhaps,

And spot in which she lived, and through a grace

Of modest meekness, simple-mindedness,

A heart that found benignity and hope,

Being itself benign.

My drift hath scarcely

I fear been obvious, for I have recoiled

From showing as it is the monster birth

Engendered by these too industrious times.

Let few words paint it: 'tis a child, no child,

But a dwarf man; in knowledge, virtue, skill,

In what he is not, and in what he is,

The noontide shadow of a man complete;

A worshipper of worldly seemliness –

Not quarrelsome, for that were far beneath

His dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er

As generous as a fountain; selfishness

May not come near him, gluttony or pride;

The wandering beggars propagate his name,

Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun.

Yet deem him not for this a naked dish

Of goodness merely – he is garnished out.

Arch are his notices, and nice his sense

Of the ridiculous; deceit and guile,

Meanness and falsehood, he detects, can treat

With apt and graceful laughter; nor is blind

To the broad follies of the licensed world;

Though shrewd, yet innocent himself withal,

And can read lectures upon innocence.

He is fenced round, nay armed, for ought we know,

In panoply complete; and fear itself,

Natural or supernatural alike,

Unless it leap upon him in a dream,

Touches him not. Briefly, the moral part

Is perfect, and in learning and in books

He is a prodigy. His discourse moves slow,

Massy and ponderous as a prison door,

Tremendously embossed with terms of art.

Rank growth of propositions overruns

The stripling's brain; the path in which he treads

Is choked with grammars. Cushion of divine

Was never such a type of thought profound

As is the pillow where he rests his head.

The ensigns of the empire which he holds –

The globe and sceptre of his royalties –

Are telescopes, and crucibles, and maps.

Ships he can guide across the pathless sea,

And tell you all their cunning; he can read

The inside of the earth, and spell the stars;

He knows the policies of foreign lands,

Can string you names of districts, cities, towns,

The whole world over, tight as beads of dew

Upon a gossamer thread. He sifts, he weighs,

Takes nothing upon trust. His teachers stare,

The country people pray for God's good grace,

And tremble at his deep experiments.

All things are put to question: he must live

Knowing that he grows wiser every day,

Or else not live at all, and seeing too

Each little drop of wisdom as it falls

Into the dimpling cistern of his heart.

Meanwhile old Grandame Earth is grieved to find

The playthings which her love designed for him

Unthought of – in their woodland beds the flowers

Weep, and the river-sides are all forlorn.

Now this is hollow, 'tis a life of lies

From the beginning, and in lies must end.

Forth bring him to the air of common sense

And, fresh and shewy as it is, the corps

Slips from us into powder. Vanity,

That is his soul: there lives he, and there moves –

It is the soul of every thing he seeks –

That gone, nothing is left which he can love.

Nay, if a thought of purer birth should rise

To carry him towards a better clime,

Some busy helper still is on the watch

To drive him back, and pound him like a stray

With the pinfold of his own conceit,

Which is his home, his natural dwelling-place.

Oh, give us once again the wishing-cap

Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat

Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood,

And Sabra in the forest with St George!

The child whose love is here, at least doth reap

One precious gain – that he forgets himself.

These mighty workmen of our later age

Who with a broad highway have overbridged

The forward chaos of futurity,

Tamed to their bidding – they who have the art

To manage books, and things, and make them work

Gently on infant minds as does the sun

Upon a flower – the tutors of our youth,

The guides, the wardens of our faculties

And stewards of our labour, watchful men

And skilful in the usury of time,

Sages, who in their prescience would controul

All accidents, and to the very road

Which they have fashioned would confine us down

Like engines – when will they be taught

That in the unreasoning progress of the world

A wiser spirit is at work for us,

A better eye than theirs, most prodigal

Of blessings, and most studious of our good,

Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours?

There was a boy – ye knew him well, ye cliffs

And islands of Winander – many a time

At evening, when the stars had just begun

To move along the edges of the hills,

Rising or setting, would he stand alone

Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake,

And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands

Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth

Uplifted, he as through an instrument

Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls

That they might answer him. And they would shout

Across the wat'ry vale, and shout again,

Responsive to his call, with quivering peals

And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud,

Redoubled and redoubled – concourse wild

Of mirth and jocund din. And when it chanced

That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill,

Then sometimes in that silence, while he hung

Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprize

Has carried far into his heart the voice

Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene

Would enter unawares into his mind

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received

Into the bosom of the steady lake.

This boy was taken from his mates, and died

In childhood ere he was full ten years old.

Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot,

The vale where he was born; the churchyard hangs

Upon a slope above the village school,

And there, along that bank, when I have passed

At evening, I believe that oftentimes

A full half-hour together I have stood

Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies.

Even now methinks I have before my sight

That self-same village church: I see her sit –

The thronèd lady spoken of erewhile –

On her green hill, forgetful of this boy

Who slumbers at her feet, forgetful too

Of all her silent neighbourhood of graves,

And listening only to the gladsome sounds

That, from the rural school ascending, play

Beneath her and about her. May she long

Behold a race of young ones like to those

With whom I herded – easily, indeed,

We might have fed upon a fatter soil

Of Arts and Letters, but be that forgiven –

A race of real children, not too wise,

Too learned, or too good, but wanton, fresh,

And bandied up and down by love and hate;

Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy,

Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds;

Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft

Bending beneath our life's mysterious weight

Of pain and fear, yet still in happiness

Not yielding to the happiest upon earth.

Simplicity in habit, truth in speech,

Be these the daily strengtheners of their minds!

May books and Nature be their early joy,

And knowledge, rightly honored with that name –

Knowledge not purchased with the loss of power!

Well do I call to mind the very week

When I was first entrusted to the care

Of that sweet valley – when its paths, its shores

And brooks, were like a dream of novelty

To my half-infant thoughts – that very week,

While I was roving up and down alone

Seeking I knew not what, I chanced to cross

One of those open fields, which, shaped like ears,

Make green peninsulas on Esthwaite's Lake.

Twilight was coming on, yet through the gloom

I saw distinctly on the opposite shore

A heap of garments, left as I supposed

By one who there was bathing. Long I watched,

But no one owned them; meanwhile the calm lake

Grew dark, with all the shadows on its breast,

And now and then a fish up-leaping snapped

The breathless stillness. The succeeding day –

Those unclaimed garments telling a plain tale –

Went there a company, and in their boat

Sounded with grappling-irons and long poles:

At length, the dead man, 'mid that beauteous scene

Of trees and hills and water, bolt upright

Rose with his ghastly face, a spectre shape –

Of terror even. And yet no vulgar fear,

Young as I was, a child not nine years old,

Possessed me, for my inner eye had seen

Such sights before among the shining streams

Of fairyland, the forests of romance –

Thence came a spirit hallowing what I saw

With decoration and ideal grace,

A dignity, a smoothness, like the words

Of Grecian art and purest poesy.

I had a precious treasure at that time,

A little yellow canvass-covered book,

A slender abstract of the Arabian Tales;

And when I learned, as now I first did learn

From my companions in this new abode,

That this dear prize of mine was but a block

Hewn from a mighty quarry – in a word,

That there were four large volumes, laden all

With kindred matter – 'twas in truth to me

A promise scarcely earthly. Instantly

I made a league, a covenant with a friend

Of my own age, that we should lay aside

The monies we possessed, and hoard up more,

Till our joint savings had amassed enough

To make this book our own. Through several months

Religiously did we preserve that vow,

And spite of all temptation hoarded up,

And hoarded up; but firmness failed at length,

Nor were we ever masters of our wish.

And afterwards, when, to my father's house

Returning at the holidays, I found

That golden store of books which I had left

Open to my enjoyment once again,

What heart was mine! Full often through the course

Of those glad respites in the summertime

When armed with rod and line we went abroad

For a whole day together, I have 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 my sport betook myself again.

A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides,

And o'er the heart of man: invisibly

It comes, directing those to works of love

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 the 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 thoughts

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 sits,

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 recognise, 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, when we have friends.