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

There was a copse,

An upright bank of wood and woody rock

That opposite our rural dwelling stood,

In which a sparkling patch of diamond light

Was in bright weather duly to be seen

On summer afternoons, within the wood

At the same place. 'Twas doubtless nothing more

Than a black rock, which, wet with constant springs,

Glistered far seen from out its lurking-place

As soon as ever the declining sun

Had smitten it. Beside our cottage hearth

Sitting with open door, a hundred times

Upon this lustre have I gazed, that seemed

To have some meaning which I could not find –

And now it was a burnished shield, I fancied,

Suspended over a knight's tomb, who lay

Inglorious, buried in the dusky wood;

An entrance now into some magic cave,

Or palace for a fairy of the rock.

Nor would I, though not certain whence the cause

Of the effulgence, thither have repaired

Without a precious bribe, and day by day

And month by month I saw the spectacle,

Nor ever once have visited the spot

Unto this hour. Thus sometimes were the shapes

Of wilful fancy grafted upon feelings

Of the imagination, and they rose

In worth accordingly.

My present theme

Is to retrace the way that led me on

Through Nature to the love of human-kind;

Nor could I with such object overlook

The influence of this power which turned itself

Instinctively to human passions, things

Least understood – of this adulterate power,

For so it may be called, and without wrong,

When with that first compared. Yet in the midst

Of these vagaries, with an eye so rich

As mine was – through the chance, on me not wasted,

Of having been brought up in such a grand

And lovely region – I had forms distinct

To steady me. These thoughts did oft revolve

About some centre palpable, which at once

Incited them to motion, and controlled,

And whatsoever shape the fit might take,

And whencesoever it might come, I still

At all times had a real solid world

Of images about me, did not pine

As one in cities bred might do – as thou,

Beloved friend, hast told me that thou didst,

Great spirit as thou art – in endless dreams

Of sickness, disjoining, joining things,

Without the light of knowledge. Where the harm

If when the woodman languished with disease

From sleeping night by night among the woods

Within his sod-built cabin, Indian-wise,

I called the pangs of disappointed love

And all the long etcetera of such thought

To help him to his grave? – meanwhile the man,

If not already from the woods retired

To die at home, was haply, as I knew,

Pining alone among the gentle airs,

Birds, running streams, and hills so beautiful

On golden evenings, while the charcoal-pile

Breathed up its smoke, an image of his ghost

Or spirit that was soon to take its flight.

There came a time of greater dignity,

Which had been gradually prepared, and now

Rushed in as if on wings – the time in which

The pulse of being everywhere was felt,

When all the several frames of things, like stars

Through every magnitude distinguishable,

Were half confounded in each other's blaze,

One galaxy of life and joy. Then rose

Man, inwardly contemplated, and present

In my own being, to a loftier height –

As of all visible natures crown, and first

In capability of feeling what

Was to be felt, in being rapt away

By the divine effect of power and love –

As, more than any thing we know, instinct

With godhead, and by reason and by will

Acknowledging dependency sublime.

Erelong, transported hence as in a dream,

I found myself begirt with temporal shapes

Of vice and folly thrust upon my view,

Objects of sport and ridicule and scorn,

Manners and characters discriminate,

And little busy passions that eclipsed,

As well they might, the impersonated thought,

The idea or abstraction of the kind.

An idler among academic bowers,

Such was my new condition – as at large

Hath been set forth – yet here the vulgar light

Of present, actual, superficial life,

Gleaming through colouring of other times,

Old usages and local privilege,

Thereby was softened, almost solemnized,

And rendered apt and pleasing to the view.

This notwithstanding, being brought more near

As I was now to guilt and wretchedness,

I trembled, thought of human life at times

With an indefinite terror and dismay,

Such as the storms and angry elements

Had bred in me; but gloomier far, a dim

Analogy to uproar and misrule,

Disquiet, danger, and obscurity.

It might be told (but wherefore speak of things

Common to all?) that, seeing, I essayed

To give relief, began to deem myself

A moral agent, judging between good

And evil not as for the mind's delight

But for her safety, one who was to act –

As sometimes to the best of my weak means

I did, by human sympathy impelled,

And through dislike and most offensive pain

Was to the truth conducted – of this faith

Never forsaken, that by acting well,

And understanding, I should learn to love

The end of life and every thing we know.

Preceptress stern, that didst instruct me next,

London, to thee I willingly return.

Erewhile my verse played only with the flowers

Enwrought upon thy mantle, satisfied

With this amusement, and a simple look

Of childlike inquisition now and then

Cast upwards on thine eye to puzzle out

Some inner meanings which might harbour there.

Yet did I not give way to this light mood

Wholly beguiled, as one incapable

Of higher things, and ignorant that high things

Were round me. Never shall I forget the hour,

The moment rather say, when, having thridded

The labyrinth of suburban villages,

At length I did unto myself first seem

To enter the great city. On the roof

Of an itinerant vehicle I sate,

With vulgar men about me, vulgar forms

Of houses, pavement, streets, of men and things,

Mean shapes on every side; but, at the time,

When to myself it fairly might be said

(The very moment that I seemed to know)

»The threshold now is overpast«, great God!

That aught external to the living mind

Should have such mighty sway, yet so it was:

A weight of ages did at once descend

Upon my heart – no thought embodied, no

Distinct remembrances, but weight and power,

Power growing with the weight. Alas, I feel

That I am trifling. 'Twas a moment's pause:

All that took place within me came and went

As in a moment, and I only now

Remember that it was a thing divine.

As when a traveller hath from open day

With torches passed into some vault of earth,

The grotto of Antiparos, or the den

Of Yordas among Craven's mountain tracts,

He looks and sees the cavern spread and grow,

Widening itself on all sides, sees, or thinks

He sees, erelong, the roof above his head,

Which instantly unsettles and recedes –

Substance and shadow, light and darkness, all

Commingled, making up a canopy

Of shapes, and forms, and tendencies to shape,

That shift and vanish, change and interchange

Like spectres – ferment quiet and sublime,

Which, after a short space, works less and less

Till, every effort, every motion gone,

The scene before him lies in perfect view

Exposed, and lifeless as a written book.

But let him pause awhile and look again,

And a new quickening shall succeed, at first

Beginning timidly, then creeping fast

Through all which he beholds: the senseless mass,

In its projections, wrinkles, cavities,

Through all its surface, with all colours streaming,

Like a magician's airy pageant, parts,

Unites, embodying everywhere some pressure

Or image, recognised or new, some type

Or picture of the world – forests and lakes,

Ships, rivers, towers, the warrior clad in mail,

The prancing steed, the pilgrim with his staff,

The mitred bishop and the thronèd king –

A spectacle to which there is no end.

No otherwise had I at first been moved –

With such a swell of feeling, followed soon

By a blank sense of greatness passed away –

And afterwards continued to be moved,

In presence of that vast metropolis,

The fountain of my country's destiny

And of the destiny of earth itself,

That great emporium, chronicle at once

And burial-place of passions, and their home

Imperial, and chief living residence.

With strong sensations teeming as it did

Of past and present, such a place must needs

Have pleased me in those times. I sought not then

Knowledge, but craved for power – and power I found

In all things. Nothing had a circumscribed

And narrow influence; but all objects, being

Themselves capacious, also found in me

Capaciousness and amplitude of mind –

Such is the strength and glory of our youth.

The human nature unto which I felt

That I belonged, and which I loved and reverenced,

Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit

Living in time and space, and far diffused.

In this my joy, in this my dignity

Consisted: the external universe,

By striking upon what is found within,

Had given me this conception, with the help

Of books and what they picture and record.

'Tis true the history of my native land,

With those of Greece compared and popular Rome –

Events not lovely nor magnanimous,

But harsh and unaffecting in themselves;

And in our high-wrought modern narratives

Stript of their humanizing soul, the life

Of manners and familiar incidents –

Had never much delighted me. And less

Than other minds I had been used to owe

The pleasure which I found in place or thing

To extrinsic transitory accidents,

To records or traditions; but a sense

Of what had been here done, and suffered here

Through ages, and was doing, suffering, still,

Weighed with me, could support the test of thought –

Was like the enduring majesty and power

Of independent nature. And not seldom

Even individual remembrances,

By working on the shapes before my eyes,

Became like vital functions of the soul;

And out of what had been, what was, the place

Was thronged with impregnations, like those wilds

In which my early feelings had been nursed,

And naked valleys full of caverns, rocks,

And audible seclusions, dashing lakes,

Echoes and waterfalls, and pointed crags

That into music touch the passing wind.

Thus here imagination also found

An element that pleased her, tried her strength

Among new objects, simplified, arranged,

Impregnated my knowledge, made it live –

And the result was elevating thoughts

Of human nature. Neither guilt nor vice,

Debasement of the body or the mind,

Nor all the misery forced upon my sight,

Which was not lightly passed, but often scanned

Most feelingly, could overthrow my trust

In what we may become, induce belief

That I was ignorant, had been falsely taught,

A solitary, who with vain conceits

Had been inspired, and walked about in dreams.

When from that rueful prospect, overcast

And in eclipse, my meditations turned,

Lo, every thing that was indeed divine

Retained its purity inviolate

And unencroached upon, nay, seemed brighter far

For this deep shade in counterview, the gloom

Of opposition, such as shewed itself

To the eyes of Adam, yet in Paradise

Though fallen from bliss, when in the East he saw

Darkness ere day's mid course, and morning light

More orient in the western cloud, that drew

›O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,

Descending slow with something heavenly fraught.‹

Add also, that among the multitudes

Of that great city oftentimes was seen

Affectingly set forth, more than elsewhere

Is possible, the unity of man,

One spirit over ignorance and vice

Predominant, in good and evil hearts

One sense for moral judgments, as one eye

For the sun's light. When strongly breathed upon

By this sensation – whencesoe'er it comes,

Of union or communion – doth the soul

Rejoice as in her highest joy; for there,

There chiefly, hath she feeling whence she is,

And passing through all Nature rests with God.

And is not, too, that vast abiding-place

Of human creatures, turn where'er we may,

Profusely sown with individual sights

Of courage, and integrity, and truth,

And tenderness, which, here set off by foil,

Appears more touching? In the tender scenes

Chiefly was my delight, and one of these

Never will be forgotten. 'Twas a man,

Whom I saw sitting in an open square

Close to the iron paling that fenced in

The spacious grass-plot: on the corner-stone

Of the low wall in which the pales were fixed

Sate this one man, and with a sickly babe

Upon his knee, whom he had thither brought

For sunshine, and to breathe the fresher air.

Of those who passed, and me who looked at him,

He took no note; but in his brawny arms

(The artificer was to the elbow bare,

And from his work this moment had been stolen)

He held the child, and, bending over it

As if he were afraid both of the sun

And of the air which he had come to seek,

He eyed it with unutterable love.

Thus from a very early age, O friend,

My thoughts had been attracted more and more

By slow gradations towards human-kind,

And to the good and ill of human life.

Nature had led me on, and now I seemed

To travel independent of her help,

As if I had forgotten her – but no,

My fellow-beings still were unto me

Far less than she was: though the scale of love

Were filling fast, 'twas light as yet compared

With that in which her mighty objects lay.

Book Ninth

Residence in France

As oftentimes a river, it might seem,

Yielding in part to old remembrances,

Part swayed by fear to tread an onward road

That leads direct to the devouring sea,

Turns and will measure back his course – far back,

Towards the very regions which he crossed

In his first outset – so have we long time

Made motions retrograde, in like pursuit

Detained. But now we start afresh: I feel

An impulse to precipitate my verse.

Fair greetings to this shapeless eagerness,

Whene'er it comes, needful in work so long,

Thrice needful to the argument which now

Awaits us – oh, how much unlike the past –

One which though bright the promise, will be found

Ere far we shall advance, ungenial, hard

To treat of, and forbidding in itself.

Free as a colt at pasture on the hills

I ranged at large through the metropolis

Month after month. Obscurely did I live,

Not courting the society of men,

By literature, or elegance, or rank,

Distinguished – in the midst of things, it seemed,

Looking as from a distance on the world

That moved about me. Yet insensibly

False preconceptions were corrected thus,

And errors of the fancy rectified

(Alike with reference to men and things),

And sometimes from each quarter were poured in

Novel imaginations and profound.

A year thus spent, this field, with small regret –

Save only for the bookstalls in the streets

(Wild produce, hedgerow fruit, on all sides hung

To lure the sauntering traveller from his track) –

I quitted, and betook myself to France,

Led thither chiefly by a personal wish

To speak the language more familiarly,

With which intent I chose for my abode

A city on the borders of the Loire.

Through Paris lay my readiest path, and there

I sojourned a few days, and visited

In haste each spot of old and recent fame –

The latter chiefly – from the field of Mars

Down to the suburbs of St Anthony,

And from Mont Martyr southward to the Dome

Of Geneviève. In both her clamorous halls,

The National Synod and the Jacobins,

I saw the revolutionary power

Toss like a ship at anchor, rocked by storms;

The Arcades I traversed in the Palace huge

Of Orleans, coasted round and round the line

Of tavern, brothel, gaming-house, and shop,

Great rendezvous of worst and best, the walk

Of all who had a purpose, or had not;

I stared and listened with a stranger's ears,

To hawkers and haranguers, hubbub wild,

And hissing factionists with ardent eyes,

In knots, or pairs, or single, ant-like swarms

Of builders and subverters, every face

That hope or apprehension could put on –

Joy, anger, and vexation, in the midst

Of gaiety and dissolute idleness.

Where silent zephyrs sported with the dust

Of the Bastile I sate in the open sun

And from the rubbish gathered up a stone,

And pocketed the relick in the guise

Of an enthusiast; yet, in honest truth,

Though not without some strong incumbencies,

And glad – could living man be otherwise? –

I looked for something which I could not find,

Affecting more emotion than I felt.

For 'tis most certain that the utmost force

Of all these various objects which may shew

The temper of my mind as then it was

Seemed less to recompense the traveller's pains,

Less moved me, gave me less delight, than did

A single picture merely, hunted out

Among other sights, the Magdalene of le Brun,

A beauty exquisitely wrought – fair face

And rueful, with its ever-flowing tears.

But hence to my more permanent residence

I hasten: there, by novelties in speech,

Domestic manners, customs, gestures, looks,

And all the attire of ordinary life,

Attention was at first engrossed; and thus

Amused and satisfied, I scarcely felt

The shock of these concussions, unconcerned,

Tranquil almost, and careless as a flower

Glassed in a greenhouse, or a parlour-shrub,

When every bush and tree the country through,

Is shaking to the roots – indifference this

Which may seem strange, but I was unprepared

With needful knowledge, had abruptly passed

Into a theatre of which the stage

Was busy with an action far advanced.

Like others I had read, and eagerly

Sometimes, the master pamphlets of the day,

Nor wanted such half-insight as grew wild

Upon that meagre soil, helped out by talk

And public news; but having never chanced

To see a regular chronicle which might shew –

If any such indeed existed then –

Whence the main organs of the public power

Had sprung, their transmigrations, when and how

Accomplished (giving thus unto events

A form and body), all things were to me

Loose and disjointed, and the affections left

Without a vital interest. At that time,

Moreover, the first storm was overblown,

And the strong hand of outward violence

Locked up in quiet. For myself – I fear

Now in connection with so great a theme

To speak, as I must be compelled to do,

Of one so unimportant – a short time

I loitered, and frequented night by night

Routs, card-tables, the formal haunts of men

Whom in the city privilege of birth

Sequestered from the rest, societies

Where, through punctilios of elegance

And deeper causes, all discourse, alike

Of good and evil, in the time, was shunned

With studious care. But 'twas not long ere this

Proved tedious, and I gradually withdrew

Into a noisier world, and thus did soon

Become a patriot – and my heart was all

Given to the people, and my love was theirs.

A knot of military officers

That to a regiment appertained which then

Was stationed in the city were the chief

Of my associates; some of these wore swords

Which had been seasoned in the wars, and all

Were men well-born, at least laid claim to such

Distinction, as the chivalry of France.

In age and temper differing, they had yet

One spirit ruling in them all – alike

(Save only one, hereafter to be named)

Were bent upon undoing what was done.

This was their rest, and only hope; therewith

No fear had they of bad becoming worse,

For worst to them was come – nor would have stirred,

Or deemed it worth a moment's while to stir,

In any thing, save only as the act

Looked thitherward. One, reckoning by years,

Was in the prime of manhood, and erewhile

He had sate lord in many tender hearts,

Though heedless of such honours now, and changed:

His temper was quite mastered by the times,

And they had blighted him, had eat away

The beauty of his person, doing wrong

Alike to body and to mind. His port,

Which once had been erect and open, now

Was stooping and contracted, and a face

By nature lovely in itself, expressed,

As much as any that was ever seen,

A ravage out of season, made by thoughts

Unhealthy and vexatious. At the hour,

The most important of each day, in which

The public news was read, the fever came,

A punctual visitant, to shake this man,

Disarmed his voice and fanned his yellow cheek

Into a thousand colours.