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

I have singled out

Some moments, the earliest that I could, in which

Their several currents, blended into one –

Weak yet, and gathering imperceptibly –

Flowed in by gushes. My first human love,

As hath been mentioned, did incline to those

Whose occupations and concerns were most

Illustrated by Nature, and adorned,

And shepherds were the men who pleased me first:

Not such as, in Arcadian fastnesses

Sequestered, handed down among themselves,

So ancient poets sing, the golden age;

Nor such – a second race, allied to these –

As Shakespeare in the wood of Arden placed,

Where Phoebe sighed for the false Ganymede,

Or there where Florizel and Perdita

Together danced, Queen of the feast and King;

Nor such as Spenser fabled. True it is

That I had heard, what he perhaps had seen,

Of maids at sunrise bringing in from far

Their May-bush, and along the streets in flocks

Parading, with a song of taunting rhymes

Aimed at the laggards slumbering within doors –

Had also heard, from those who yet remembered,

Tales of the maypole dance, and flowers that decked

The posts and the kirk-pillars, and of youths,

That each one with his maid at break of day,

By annual custom, issued forth in troops

To drink the waters of some favorite well,

And hang it round with garlands. This, alas,

Was but a dream: the times had scattered all

These lighter graces, and the rural ways

And manners which it was my chance to see

In childhood were severe and unadorned,

The unluxuriant produce of a life

Intent on little but substantial needs,

Yet beautiful – and beauty that was felt.

But images of danger and distress

And suffering, these took deepest hold of me,

Man suffering among awful powers and forms:

Of this I heard and saw enough to make

The imagination restless – nor was free

Myself from frequent perils. Nor were tales

Wanting, the tragedies of former times,

Or hazards and escapes, which in my walks

I carried with me among crags and woods

And mountains; and of these may here be told

One as recorded by my household dame.

»At the first falling of autumnal snow

A shepherd and his son one day went forth«,

Thus did the matron's tale begin, »to seek

A straggler of their flock. They both had ranged

Upon this service the preceding day

All over their own pastures and beyond,

And now, at sunrise sallying out again,

Renewed their search, begun where from Dove Crag –

Ill home for bird so gentle – they looked down

On Deepdale Head, and Brothers Water (named

From those two brothers that were drowned therein)

Thence, northward, having passed by Arthur's Seat,

To Fairfield's highest summit. On the right

Leaving St Sunday's Pike, to Grisedale Tarn

They shot, and over that cloud-loving hill,

Seat Sandal – a fond lover of the clouds –

Thence up Helvellyn, a superior mount

With prospect underneath of Striding Edge

And Grisedale's houseless vale, along the brink

Of Russet Cove, and those two other coves,

Huge skeletons of crags, which from the trunk

Of old Helvellyn spread their arms abroad

And make a stormy harbour for the winds.

Far went those shepherds in their devious quest,

From mountain ridges peeping as they passed

Down into every glen; at length the boy

Said, ›Father, with your leave I will go back,

And range the ground which we have searched before.‹

So speaking, southward down the hill the lad

Sprang like a gust of wind, crying aloud,

›I know where I shall find him.‹ ›For take note‹,

Said here my grey-haired dame, ›that though the storm

Drive one of these poor creatures miles and miles,

If he can crawl he will return again

To his own hills, the spots where when a lamb

He learnt to pasture at his mother's side.‹

After so long a labour suddenly

Bethinking him of this, the boy

Pursued his way towards a brook whose course

Was through that unfenced tract of mountain ground

Which to his father's little farm belonged,

The home and ancient birthright of their flock.

Down the deep channel of the stream he went,

Prying through every nook. Meanwhile the rain

Began to fall upon the mountain tops,

Thick storm and heavy which for three hours' space

Abated not, and all that time the boy

Was busy in his search, until at length

He spied the sheep upon a plot of grass,

An island in the brook. It was a place

Remote and deep, piled round with rocks, where foot

Of man or beast was seldom used to tread;

But now, when everywhere the summer grass

Had failed, this one adventurer, hunger-pressed,

Had left his fellows, and made his way alone

To the green plot of pasture in the brook.

Before the boy knew well what he had seen,

He leapt upon the island with proud heart

And with a prophet's joy. Immediately

The sheep sprang forward to the further shore

And was borne headlong by the roaring flood –

At this the boy looked round him, and his heart

Fainted with fear. Thrice did he turn his face

To either brink, nor could he summon up

The courage that was needful to leap back

Cross the tempestuous torrent: so he stood,

A prisoner on the island, not without

More than one thought of death and his last hour.

Meanwhile the father had returned alone

To his own house; and now at the approach

Of evening he went forth to meet his son,

Conjecturing vainly for what cause the boy

Had stayed so long. The shepherd took his way

Up his own mountain grounds, where, as he walked

Along the steep that overhung the brook

He seemed to hear a voice, which was again

Repeated, like the whistling of a kite.

At this, not knowing why, as oftentimes

Long afterwards he has been heard to say,

Down to the brook he went, and tracked its course

Upwards among the o'erhanging rocks – nor thus

Had he gone far, ere he espied the boy,

Where on that little plot of ground he stood

Right in the middle of the roaring stream,

Now stronger every moment and more fierce.

The sight was such as no one could have seen

Without distress and fear. The shepherd heard

The outcry of his son, he stretched his staff

Towards him, bade him leap – which word scarce said,

The boy was safe within his father's arms.«

Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,

Long springs and tepid winters on the banks

Of delicate Galesus – and no less

Those scattered along Adria's myrtle shores –

Smooth life the herdsman and his snow-white herd,

To triumphs and to sacrificial rites

Devoted, on the inviolable stream

Of rich Clitumnus; and the goatherd lived

As sweetly underneath the pleasant brows

Of cool Lucretilis, where the pipe was heard

Of Pan, the invisible God, thrilling the rocks

With tutelary music, from all harm

The fold protecting. I myself, mature

In manhood then, have seen a pastoral tract

Like one of these, where fancy might run wild,

Though under skies less generous and serene;

Yet there, as for herself, had Nature framed

A pleasure-ground, diffused a fair expanse

Of level pasture, islanded with groves

And banked with woody risings – but the plain

Endless, here opening widely out, and there

Shut up in lesser lakes or beds of lawn

And intricate recesses, creek or bay

Sheltered within a shelter, where at large

The shepherd strays, a rolling hut his home:

Thither he comes with springtime, there abides

All summer, and at sunrise ye may hear

His flute or flagelet resounding far.

There's not a nook or hold of that vast space,

Nor strait where passage is, but it shall have

In turn its visitant, telling there his hours

In unlaborious pleasure, with no task

More toilsome than to carve a beechen bowl

For spring or fountain, which the traveller finds,

When through the region he pursues at will

His devious course.

A glimpse of such sweet life

I saw when, from the melancholy walls

Of Goslar, once imperial, I renewed

My daily walk along that chearful plain,

Which, reaching to her gates, spreads east and west

And northwards, from beneath the mountainous verge

Of the Hercynian forest. Yet hail to you,

Your rocks and precipices, ye that seize

The heart with firmer grasp, your snows and streams

Ungovernable, and your terrifying winds,

That howled so dismally when I have been

Companionless among your solitudes!

There, 'tis the shepherd's task the winter long

To wait upon the storms: of their approach

Sagacious, from the height he drives his flock

Down into sheltering coves, and feeds them there

Through the hard time, long as the storm is ›locked‹

(So do they phrase it), bearing from the stalls

A toilsome burthen up the craggy ways

To strew it on the snow. And when the spring

Looks out, and all the mountains dance with lambs,

He through the enclosures won from the steep waste,

And through the lower heights hath gone his rounds;

And when the flock with warmer weather climbs

Higher and higher, him his office leads

To range among them through the hills dispersed,

And watch their goings, whatsoever track

Each wanderer chuses for itself – a work

That lasts the summer through. He quits his home

At dayspring, and no sooner doth the sun

Begin to strike him with a fire-like heat,

Than he lies down upon some shining place,

And breakfasts with his dog. When he hath stayed –

As for the most he doth – beyond this time,

He springs up with a bound, and then away!

Ascending fast with his long pole in hand,

Or winding in and out among the crags.

What need to follow him through what he does

Or sees in his day's march? He feels himself

In those vast regions where his service is

A freeman, wedded to his life of hope

And hazard, and hard labour interchanged

With that majestic indolence so dear

To native man.

A rambling schoolboy, thus

Have I beheld him; without knowing why,

Have felt his presence in his own domain

As of a lord and master, or a power,

Or genius, under Nature, under God,

Presiding – and severest solitude

Seemed more commanding oft when he was there.

Seeking the raven's nest and suddenly

Surprized with vapours, or on rainy days

When I have angled up the lonely brooks,

Mine eyes have glanced upon him, few steps off,

In size a giant, stalking through the fog,

His sheep like Greenland beaars. At other times,

When round some shady promontory turning,

His form hath flashed upon me glorified

By the deep radiance of the setting sun;

Or him have I descried in distant sky,

A solitary object and sublime,

Above all height, like an aërial cross,

As it is stationed on some spiry rock

Of the Chartreuse, for worship. Thus was man

Ennobled outwardly before mine eyes,

And thus my heart at first was introduced

To an unconscious love and reverence

Of human nature; hence the human form

To me was like an index of delight,

Of grace and honour, power and worthiness.

Meanwhile, this creature – spiritual almost

As those of books, but more exalted far,

Far more of an imaginative form –

Was not a Corin of the groves, who lives

For his own fancies, or to dance by the hour

In coronal, with Phyllis in the midst,

But, for the purposes of kind, a man

With the most common – husband, father – learned,

Could teach, admonish, suffered with the rest

From vice and folly, wretchedness and fear.

Of this I little saw, cared less for it,

But something must have felt.

Call ye these appearances

Which I beheld of shepherds in my youth,

This sanctity of Nature given to man,

A shadow, a delusion? – ye who are fed

By the dead letter, not the spirit of things,

Whose truth is not a motion or a shape

Instinct with vital functions, but a block

Or waxen image which yourselves have made,

And ye adore. But blessèd be the God

Of Nature and of man that this was so,

That men did at the first present themselves

Before my untaught eyes thus purified,

Removed, and at a distance that was fit.

And so we all of us in some degree

Are led to knowledge, whencesoever led,

And howsoever – were it otherwise,

And we found evil fast as we find good

In our first years, or think that it is found,

How could the innocent heart bear up and live?

But doubly fortunate my lot: not here

Alone, that something of a better life

Perhaps was round me than it is the privilege

Of most to move in, but that first I looked

At man through objects that were great and fair,

First communed with him by their help. And thus

Was founded a sure safeguard and defence

Against the weight of meanness, selfish cares,

Coarse manners, vulgar passions, that beat in

On all sides from the ordinary world

In which we traffic. Starting from this point,

I had my face towards the truth, began

With an advantage, furnished with that kind

Of prepossession without which the soul

Receives no knowledge that can bring forth good –

No genuine insight ever comes to her –

Happy in this, that I with Nature walked,

Not having a too early intercourse

With the deformities of crowded life,

And those ensuing laughters and contempts

Self-pleasing, which if we would wish to think

With admiration and respect of man

Will not permit us, but pursue the mind

That to devotion willingly would be raised,

Into the temple and the temple's heart.

Yet do not deem, my friend, though thus I speak

Of man as having taken in my mind

A place thus early which might almost seem

Preeminent, that this was really so.

Nature herself was at this unripe time

But secondary to my own pursuits

And animal activities, and all

Their trivial pleasures. And long afterwards

When those had died away, and Nature did

For her own sake become my joy, even then,

And upwards through late youth until not less

Than three-and-twenty summers had been told,

Was man in my affections and regards

Subordinate to her, her awful forms

And viewless agencies – a passion, she,

A rapture often, and immediate joy

Ever at hand: he distant, but a grace

Occasional, and accidental thought,

His hour being not yet come. Far less had then

The inferior creatures, beast or bird, attuned

My spirit to that gentleness of love,

Won from me those minute obeisances

Of tenderness which I may number now

With my first blessings. Nevertheless, on these

The light of beauty did not fall in vain,

Or grandeur circumfuse them to no end.

Why should I speak of tillers of the soil? –

The ploughman and his team; or men and boys

In festive summer busy with the rake,

Old men and ruddy maids, and little ones

All out together, and in sun and shade

Dispersed among the hay-grounds alder-fringed;

The quarryman, far heard, that blasts the rock;

The fishermen in pairs, the one to row,

And one to drop the net, plying their trade

›'Mid tossing lakes and tumbling boats‹ and winds

Whistling; the miner, melancholy man,

That works by taper-light, while all the hills

Are shining with the glory of the day.

But when that first poetic faculty

Of plain imagination and severe –

No longer a mute influence of the soul,

An element of the nature's inner self –

Began to have some promptings to put on

A visible shape, and to the works of art,

The notions and the images of books,

Did knowingly conform itself (by these

Enflamed, and proud of that her new delight),

There came among these shapes of human life

A wilfulness of fancy and conceit

Which gave them new importance to the mind –

And Nature and her objects beautified

These fictions, as, in some sort, in their turn

They burnished her. From touch of this new power

Nothing was safe: the elder-tree that grew

Beside the well-known charnel-house had then

A dismal look, the yew-tree had its ghost

That took its station there for ornament.

Then common death was none, common mishap,

But matter for this humour everywhere,

The tragic super-tragic, else left short.

Then, if a widow staggering with the blow

Of her distress was known to have made her way

To the cold grave in which her husband slept,

One night, or haply more than one – through pain

Or half-insensate impotence of mind –

The fact was caught at greedily, and there

She was a visitant the whole year through,

Wetting the turf with never-ending tears,

And all the storms of heaven must beat on her.

Through wild obliquities could I pursue

Among all objects of the fields and groves

These cravings: when the foxglove, one by one,

Upwards through every stage of its tall stem

Had shed its bells, and stood by the wayside

Dismantled, with a single one perhaps

Left at the ladder's top, with which the plant

Appeared to stoop, as slender blades of grass

Tipped with a bead of rain or dew, behold,

If such a sight were seen, would fancy bring

Some vagrant thither with her babes and seat her

Upon the turf beneath the stately flower,

Drooping in sympathy and making so

A melancholy crest above the head

Of the lorn creature, while her little ones,

All unconcerned with her unhappy plight,

Were sporting with the purple cups that lay

Scattered upon the ground.