One Christmas-time,

The day before the holidays began,

Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forth

Into the fields, impatient for the sight

Of those three horses which should bear us home,

My brothers and myself. There was a crag,

An eminence, which from the meeting-point

Of two highways ascending overlooked

At least a long half-mile of those two roads,

By each of which the expected steeds might come –

The choice uncertain. Thither I repaired

Up to the highest summit. 'Twas a day

Stormy, and rough, and wild, and on the grass

I sate half sheltered by a naked wall.

Upon my right hand was a single sheep,

A whistling hawthorn on my left, and there,

Those two companions at my side, I watched

With eyes intensely straining, as the mist

Gave intermitting prospects of the wood

And plain beneath. Ere I to school returned

That dreary time, ere I had been ten days

A dweller in my father's house, he died,

And I and my two brothers, orphans then,

Followed his body to the grave. The event,

With all the sorrow which it brought, appeared

A chastisement; and when I called to mind

That day so lately passed, when from the crag

I looked in such anxiety of hope,

With trite reflections of morality,

Yet with the deepest passion, I bowed low

To God who thus corrected my desires.

And afterwards the wind and sleety rain,

And all the business of the elements,

The single sheep, and the one blasted tree,

And the bleak music of that old stone wall,

The noise of wood and water, and the mist

Which on the line of each of those two roads

Advanced in such indisputable shapes –

All these were spectacles and sounds to which

I often would repair, and thence would drink

As at a fountain. And I do not doubt

That in this later time, when storm and rain

Beat on my roof at midnight, or by day

When I am in the woods, unknown to me

The workings of my spirit thence are brought.

 

Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace

How Nature by collateral interest,

And by extrinsic passion, peopled first

My mind with forms or beautiful or grand

And made me love them, may I well forget

How other pleasures have been mine, and joys

Of subtler origin – how I have felt

Not seldom, even in that tempestuous time,

Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense

Which seem in their simplicity to own

An intellectual charm, that calm delight

Which, if I err not, surely must belong

To those first-born affinities that fit

Our new existence to existing things,

And, in our dawn of being, constitute

The bond of union betwixt life and joy.

 

Yes, I remember when the changeful earth

And twice five seasons on my mind had stamped

The faces of the moving year, even then,

A child, I held unconscious intercourse

With the eternal beauty, drinking in

A pure organic pleasure from the lines

Of curling mist, or from the level plain

Of waters coloured by the steady clouds.

The sands of Westmoreland, the creeks and bays

Of Cumbria's rocky limits, they can tell

How when the sea threw off his evening shade

And to the shepherd's hut beneath the crags

Did send sweet notice of the rising moon,

How I have stood, to images like these

A stranger, linking with the spectacle

No body of associated forms,

And bringing with me no peculiar sense

Of quietness or peace – yet I have stood

Even while my eye has moved o'er three long leagues

Of shining water, gathering, as it seemed,

Through the wide surface of that field of light

New pleasure, like a bee among the flowers.

 

Thus often in those fits of vulgar joy

Which through all seasons on a child's pursuits

Are prompt attendants, 'mid that giddy bliss

Which like a tempest works along the blood

And is forgotten, even then I felt

Gleams like the flashing of a shield. The earth

And common face of Nature spake to me

Rememberable things – sometimes, 'tis true,

By quaint associations, yet not vain

Nor profitless, if haply they impressed

Collateral objects and appearances,

Albeit lifeless then, and doomed to sleep

Until maturer seasons called them forth

To impregnate and to elevate the mind.

And if the vulgar joy by its own weight

Wearied itself out of the memory,

The scenes which were a witness of that joy

Remained, in their substantial lineaments

Depicted on the brain, and to the eye

Were visible, a daily sight. And thus

By the impressive agency of fear,

By pleasure and repeated happiness –

So frequently repeated – and by force

Of obscure feelings representative

Of joys that were forgotten, these same scenes,

So beauteous and majestic in themselves,

Though yet the day was distant, did at length

Become habitually dear, and all

Their hues and forms were by invisible links

Allied to the affections.

 

I began

My story early, feeling, as I fear,

The weakness of a human love for days

Disowned by memory – ere the birth of spring

Planting my snowdrops among winter snows.

Nor will it seem to thee, my friend, so prompt

In sympathy, that I have lengthened out

With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale.

Meanwhile my hope has been that I might fetch

Reproaches from my former years, whose power

May spur me on, in manhood now mature,

To honourable toil. Yet should it be

That this is but an impotent desire –

That I by such inquiry am not taught

To understand myself, nor thou to know

With better knowledge how the heart was framed

Of him thou lovest – need I dread from thee

Harsh judgements if I am so loth to quit

Those recollected hours that have the charm

Of visionary things, and lovely forms

And sweet sensations, that throw back our life

And make our infancy a visible scene

On which the sun is shining?

 

Second Part

Thus far, my friend, have we retraced the way

Through which I travelled when I first began

To love the woods and fields; the passion yet

Was in its birth, sustained, as might befal,

By nourishment that came unsought – for still

From week to week, from month to month, we lived

A round of tumult. Duly were our games

Prolonged in summer till the daylight failed:

No chair remained before the doors, the bench

And threshold steps were empty, fast asleep

The labourer and the old man who had sate

A later lingerer, yet the revelry

Continued and the loud uproar. At last,

When all the ground was dark and the huge clouds

Were edged with twinkling stars, to bed we went

With weary joints and with a beating mind.

Ah, is there one who ever has been young

And needs a monitory voice to tame

The pride of virtue and of intellect?

And is there one, the wisest and the best

Of all mankind, who does not sometimes wish

For things which cannot be, who would not give,

If so he might, to duty and to truth

The eagerness of infantine desire?

A tranquillizing spirit presses now

On my corporeal frame, so wide appears

The vacancy between me and those days,

Which yet have such self-presence in my heart

That sometimes when I think of them I seem

Two consciousnesses – conscious of myself,

And of some other being.

A grey stone

Of native rock, left midway in the square

Of our small market-village, was the home

And centre of these joys; and when, returned

After long absence thither I repaired,

I found that it was split and gone to build

A smart assembly-room that perked and flared

With wash and rough-cast, elbowing the ground

Which had been ours. But let the fiddle scream,

And be ye happy! Yet I know, my friends,

That more than one of you will think with me

Of those soft starry nights, and that old dame

From whom the stone was named, who there had sate

And watched her table with its huckster's wares,

Assiduous, for the length of sixty years.

 

We ran a boisterous race, the year span round

With giddy motion; but the time approached

That brought with it a regular desire

For calmer pleasures – when the beauteous scenes

Of Nature were collaterally attached

To every scheme of holiday delight,

And every boyish sport, less grateful else

And languidly pursued. When summer came

It was the pastime of our afternoons

To beat along the plain of Windermere

With rival oars; and the selected bourn

Was now an island musical with birds

That sang for ever, now a sister isle

Beneath the oak's umbrageous covert, sown

With lilies-of-the-valley like a field,

And now a third small island where remained

An old stone table and one mouldered cave –

A hermit's history. In such a race,

So ended, disappointment could be none,

Uneasiness, or pain, or jealousy;

We rested in the shade, all pleased alike,

Conquered or conqueror. Thus our selfishness

Was mellowed down, and thus the pride of strength

And the vainglory of superior skill

Were interfused with objects which subdued

And tempered them, and gradually produced

A quiet independence of the heart.

And to my friend who knows me I may add,

Unapprehensive of reproof, that hence

Ensued a diffidence and modesty,

And I was taught to feel – perhaps too much –

The self-sufficing power of solitude.

No delicate viands sapped our bodily strength:

More than we wished we knew the blessing then

Of vigorous hunger, for our daily meals

Were frugal, Sabine fare – and then, exclude

A little weekly stipend, and we lived

Through three divisions of the quartered year

In pennyless poverty. But now, to school

Returned from the half-yearly holidays,

We came with purses more profusely filled,

Allowance which abundantly sufficed

To gratify the palate with repasts

More costly than the dame of whom I spake,

That ancient woman, and her board, supplied.

Hence inroads into distant vales, and long

Excursions far away among the hills,

Hence rustic dinners on the cool green ground –

Or in the woods, or by a river-side

Or fountain – festive banquets, that provoked

The languid action of a natural scene

By pleasure of corporeal appetite.

Nor is my aim neglected if I tell

How twice in the long length of those half-years

We from our funds perhaps with bolder hand

Drew largely, anxious for one day at least

To feel the motion of the galloping steed;

And with the good old innkeeper, in truth

I needs must say, that sometimes we have used

Sly subterfuge, for the intended bound

Of the day's journey was too distant far

For any cautious man: a structure famed

Beyond its neighbourhood, the antique walls

Of a large abbey, with its fractured arch,

Belfry, and images, and living trees –

A holy scene. Along the smooth green turf

Our horses grazed. In more than inland peace,

Left by the winds that overpass the vale,

In that sequestered ruin trees and towers –

Both silent and both motionless alike –

Hear all day long the murmuring sea that beats

Incessantly upon a craggy shore.

Our steeds remounted, and the summons given,

With whip and spur we by the chantry flew

In uncouth race, and left the cross-legged knight

And the stone abbot, and that single wren

Which one day sang so sweetly in the nave

Of the old church that, though from recent showers

The earth was comfortless, and, touched by faint

Internal breezes, from the roofless walls

The shuddering ivy dripped large drops, yet still

So sweetly 'mid the gloom the invisible bird

Sang to itself that there I could have made

My dwelling-place, and lived for ever there,

To hear such music. Through the walls we flew

And down the valley, and, a circuit made

In wantonness of heart, through rough and smooth

We scampered homeward. O, ye rocks and streams,

And that still spirit of the evening air,

Even in this joyous time I sometimes felt

Your presence, when, with slackened step, we breathed

Along the sides of the steep hills, or when,

Lightened by gleams of moonlight from the sea,

We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand.

There was a row of ancient trees, since fallen,

That on the margin of a jutting land

Stood near the lake of Coniston, and made,

With its long boughs above the water stretched,

A gloom through which a boat might sail along

As in a cloister. An old hall was near,

Grotesque and beautiful, its gavel-end

And huge round chimneys to the top o'ergrown

With fields of ivy. Thither we repaired –

'Twas even a custom with us – to the shore,

And to that cool piazza. They who dwelt

In the neglected mansion-house supplied

Fresh butter, tea-kettle and earthernware,

And chafing-dish with smoking coals; and so

Beneath the trees we sate in our small boat,

And in the covert eat our delicate meal

Upon the calm smooth lake. It was a joy

Worthy the heart of one who is full grown

To rest beneath those horizontal boughs

And mark the radiance of the setting sun,

Himself unseen, reposing on the top

Of the high eastern hills. And there I said,

That beauteous sight before me, there I said

(Then first beginning in my thoughts to mark

That sense of dim similitude which links

Our moral feelings with external forms)

That in whatever region I should close

My mortal life I would remember you,

Fair scenes – that dying I would think on you,

My soul would send a longing look to you,

Even as that setting sun, while all the vale

Could nowhere catch one faint memorial gleam,

Yet with the last remains of his last light

Still lingered, and a farewell lustre threw

On the dear mountain-tops where first he rose.

'Twas then my fourteenth summer, and these words

Were uttered in a casual access

Of sentiment, a momentary trance

That far outran the habit of my mind.

Upon the eastern shore of Windermere

Above the crescent of a pleasant bay

There was an inn, no homely-featured shed,

Brother of the surrounding cottages,

But 'twas a splendid place, the door beset

With chaises, grooms, and liveries, and within

Decanters, glasses and the blood-red wine.

In ancient times, or ere the hall was built

On the large island, had the dwelling been

More worthy of a poet's love, a hut

Proud of its one bright fire and sycamore shade;

But though the rhymes were gone which once inscribed

The threshold, and large golden characters

On the blue-frosted signboard had usurped

The place of the old lion, in contempt

And mockery of the rustic painter's hand,

Yet to this hour the spot to me is dear

With all its foolish pomp. The garden lay

Upon a slope surmounted by the plain

Of a small bowling-green; beneath us stood

A grove, with gleams of water through the trees

And over the tree-tops – nor did we want

Refreshment, strawberries and mellow cream –

And there through half an afternoon we played

On the smooth platform, and the shouts we sent

Made all the mountains ring. But ere the fall

Of night, when in our pinnace we returned

Over the dusky lake, and to the beach

Of some small island steered our course, with one,

The minstrel of our troop, and left him there,

And rowed off gently, while he blew his flute

Alone upon the rock, oh, then the calm

And dead still water lay upon my mind

Even with a weight of pleasure, and the sky,

Never before so beautiful, sank down

Into my heart and held me like a dream.

 

Thus day by day my sympathies increased,

And thus the common range of visible things

Grew dear to me: already I began

To love the sun, a boy I loved the sun

Not as I since have loved him – as a pledge

And surety of my earthly life, a light

Which while I view I feel I am alive –

But for this cause, that I had seen him lay

His beauty on the morning hills, had seen

The western mountain touch his setting orb

In many a thoughtless hour, when from excess

Of happiness my blood appeared to flow

With its own pleasure, and I breathed with joy.

And from like feelings, humble though intense,

To patriotic and domestic love

Analogous, the moon to me was dear:

For I would dream away my purposes

Standing to look upon her, while she hung

Midway between the hills as if she knew

No other region but belonged to thee,

Yea, appertained by a peculiar right

To thee and thy grey huts, my native vale.

 

Those incidental charms which first attached

My heart to rural objects, day by day

Grew weaker, and I hasten on to tell

How Nature, intervenient till this time

And secondary, now at length was sought

For her own sake.