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

It was a grief –

Grief call it not, 'twas any thing but that –

A conflict of sensations without name,

Of which he only who may love the sight

Of a village steeple as I do can judge,

When in the congregation, bending all

To their great Father, prayers were offered up

Or praises for our country's victories,

And, 'mid the simple worshippers perchance

I only, like an uninvited guest

Whom no one owned, sate silent – shall I add,

Fed on the day of vengeance yet to come!

Oh, much have they to account for, who could tear

By violence at one decisive rent

From the best youth in England their dear pride,

Their joy, in England. This, too, at a time

In which worst losses easily might wear

The best of names; when patriotic love

Did of itself in modesty give way

Like the precursor when the deity

Is come, whose harbinger he is – a time

In which apostacy from ancient faith

Seemed but conversion to a higher creed;

Withal a season dangerous and wild –

A time in which Experience would have plucked

Flowers out of any hedge to make thereof

A chaplet, in contempt of his grey locks.

Ere yet the fleet of Britain had gone forth

On this unworthy service, whereunto

The unhappy counsel of a few weak men

Had doomed it, I beheld the vessels lie –

A brood of gallant creatures – on the deep

I saw them in their rest, a sojourner

Through a whole month of calm and glassy days

In that delightful island which protects

Their place of convocation. There I heard

Each evening, walking by the still sea-shore,

A monitory sound which never failed –

The sunset cannon. When the orb went down

In the tranquillity of Nature, came

That voice – ill requiem – seldom heard by me

Without a spirit overcast, a deep

Imagination, thought of woes to come,

And sorrow for mankind, and pain of heart.

In France, the men who for their desperate ends

Had plucked up mercy by the roots were glad

Of this new enemy. Tyrants, strong before

In devilish pleas, were ten times stronger now,

And thus beset with foes on every side,

The goaded land waxed mad; the crimes of few

Spread into madness of the many; blasts

From hell came sanctified like airs from heaven.

The sternness of the just, the faith of those

Who doubted not that Providence had times

Of anger and of vengeance, theirs who throned

The human understanding paramount

And made of that their god, the hopes of those

Who were content to barter short-lived pangs

For a paradise of ages, the blind rage

Of insolent tempers, the light vanity

Of intermeddlers, steady purposes

Of the suspicious, slips of the indiscreet,

And all the accidents of life, were pressed

Into one service, busy with one work.

The Senate was heart-stricken, not a voice

Uplifted, none to oppose or mitigate.

Domestic carnage now filled all the year

With feast-days: the old man from the chimney-nook,

The maiden from the bosom of her love,

The mother from the cradle of her babe,

The warrior from the field – all perished, all –

Friends, enemies, of all parties, ages, ranks,

Head after head, and never heads enough

For those who bade them fall. They found their joy,

They made it, ever thirsty, as a child –

If light desires of innocent little ones

May with such heinous appetites be matched –

Having a toy, a windmill, though the air

Do of itself blow fresh and makes the vane

Spin in his eyesight, he is not content,

But with the plaything at arm's length he sets

His front against the blast, and runs amain

To make it whirl the faster.

In the depth

Of these enormities, even thinking minds

Forgot at seasons whence they had their being –

Forgot that such a sound was ever heard

As Liberty upon earth – yet all beneath

Her innocent authority was wrought,

Nor could have been, without her blessèd name.

The illustrious wife of Roland, in the hour

Of her composure, felt that agony

And gave it vent in her last words. O friend,

It was a lamentable time for man,

Whether a hope had e'er been his or not;

A woeful time for them whose hopes did still

Outlast the shock; most woeful for those few –

They had the deepest feeling of the grief –

Who still were flattered, and had trust in man.

Meanwhile the invaders fared as they deserved:

The herculean Commonwealth had put forth her arms,

And throttled with an infant godhead's might

The snakes about her cradle – that was well,

And as it should be, yet no cure for those

Whose souls were sick with pain of what would be

Hereafter brought in charge against mankind.

Most melancholy at that time, O friend,

Were my day-thoughts, my dreams were miserable;

Through months, through years, long after the last beat

Of those atrocities (I speak bare truth,

As if to thee alone in private talk)

I scarcely had one night of quiet sleep,

Such ghastly visions had I of despair,

And tyranny, and implements of death,

And long orations which in dreams I pleaded

Before unjust tribunals, with a voice

Labouring, a brain confounded, and a sense

Of treachery and desertion in the place

The holiest that I knew of – my own soul.

When I began at first, in early youth,

To yield myself to Nature – when that strong

And holy passion overcame me first –

Neither day nor night, evening or morn,

Were free from the oppression, but, great God,

Who send'st thyself into this breathing world

Through Nature and through every kind of life,

And mak'st man what he is, creature divine,

In single or in social eminence,

Above all these raised infinite ascents

When reason, which enables him to be,

Is not sequestered – what a change is here!

How different ritual for this after-worship,

What countenance to promote this second love!

That first was service but to things which lie

At rest, within the bosom of thy will:

Therefore to serve was high beatitude;

The tumult was a gladness, and the fear

Ennobling, venerable; sleep secure,

And waking thoughts more rich than happiest dreams.

But as the ancient prophets were enflamed,

Nor wanted consolations of their own

And majesty of mind, when they denounced

On towns and cities, wallowing in the abyss

Of their offences, punishment to come;

Or saw like other men with bodily eyes

Before them in some desolated place

The consummation of the wrath of Heaven;

So did some portion of that spirit fall

On me to uphold me through those evil times,

And in their rage and dog-day heat I found

Something to glory in, as just and fit,

And in the order of sublimest laws.

And even if that were not, amid the awe

Of unintelligible chastisement

I felt a kind of sympathy with power –

Motions raised up within me, nevertheless,

Which had relationship to highest things.

Wild blasts of music thus did find their way

Into the midst of terrible events,

So that worst tempests might be listened to:

Then was the truth received into my heart

That under heaviest sorrow earth can bring,

Griefs bitterest of ourselves or of our kind,

If from the affliction somewhere do not grow

Honour which could not else have been – a faith,

An elevation, and a sanctity –

If new strength be not given, or old restored,

The blame is ours, not Nature's. When a taunt

Was taken up by scoffers in their pride,

Saying, »Behold the harvest which we reap

From popular government and equality«,

I saw that it was neither these nor aught

Of wild belief engrafted on their names

By false philosophy, that caused the woe,

But that it was a reservoir of guilt

And ignorance, filled up from age to age,

That could no longer hold its loathsome charge,

But burst and spread in deluge through the land.

And as the desert hath green spots, the sea

Small islands in the midst of stormy waves,

So that disastrous period did not want

Such sprinklings of all human excellence

As were a joy to hear of. Yet – nor less

For those bright spots, those fair examples given

Of fortitude, and energy, and love,

And human nature faithful to itself

Under worst trials – was I impelled to think

Of the glad time when first I traversed France,

A youthful pilgrim; above all remembered

That day when through an arch that spanned the street,

A rainbow made of garish ornaments

(Triumphal pomp for Liberty confirmed)

We walked, a pair of weary travellers,

Along the town of Arras – place from which

Issued that Robespierre, who afterwards

Wielded the sceptre of the atheist crew.

When the calamity spread far and wide,

And this same city, which had even appeared

To outrun the rest in exultation, groaned

Under the vengeance of her cruel son,

As Lear reproached the winds, I could almost

Have quarrelled with that blameless spectacle

For being yet an image in my mind

To mock me under such a strange reverse.

O friend, few happier moments have been mine

Through my whole life than that when first I heard

That this foul tribe of Moloch was o'erthrown,

And their chief regent levelled with the dust.

The day was one which haply may deserve

A separate chronicle. Having gone abroad

From a small village where I tarried then,

To the same far-secluded privacy

I was returning. Over the smooth sands

Of Leven's ample aestuary lay

My journey, and beneath a genial sun,

With distant prospect among gleams of sky

And clouds, and intermingled mountain-tops,

In one inseparable glory clad –

Creatures of one ethereal substance, met

In consistory, like a diadem

Or crown of burning seraphs, as they sit

In the empyrean. Underneath this show

Lay, as I knew, the nest of pastoral vales

Among whose happy fields I had grown up

From childhood. On the fulgent spectacle,

Which neither changed, nor stirred, nor passed away,

I gazed, and with a fancy more alive

On this account – that I had chanced to find

That morning, ranging through the churchyard graves

Of Cartmell's rural town, the place in which

An honored teacher of my youth was laid.

While we were schoolboys he had died among us,

And was born hither, as I knew, to rest

With his own family. A plain stone, inscribed

With name, date, office, pointed out the spot,

To which a slip of verses was subjoined –

By his desire, as afterwards I learned –

A fragment from the Elegy of Gray.

A week, or little less, before his death

He had said to me, »My head will soon lie low«;

And when I saw the turf that covered him,

After the lapse of full eight years, those words,

With sound of voice, and countenance of the man,

Came back upon me, so that some few tears

Fell from me in my own despite. And now,

Thus travelling smoothly o'er the level sands,

I thought with pleasure of the verses graven

Upon his tombstone, saying to myself,

»He loved the poets, and if now alive

Would have loved me, as one not destitute

Of promise, nor belying the kind hope

Which he had formed when I at his command

Began to spin, at first, my toilsome songs.«

Without me and within as I advanced

All that I saw, or felt, or communed with,

Was gentleness and peace. Upon a small

And rocky island near, a fragment stood –

Itself like a sea rock – of what had been

A Romish chapel, where in ancient times

Masses were said at the hour which suited those

Who crossed the sands with ebb of morning tide.

Not far from this still ruin all the plain

Was spotted with a variegated crowd

Of coaches, wains, and travellers, horse and foot,

Wading, beneath the conduct of their guide,

In loose procession through the shallow stream

Of inland water; the great sea meanwhile

Was at safe distance, far retired. I paused,

Unwilling to proceed, the scene appeared

So gay and chearful – when a traveller

Chancing to pass, I carelessly inquired

If any news were stirring, he replied

In the familiar language of the day

That, Robespierre was dead. Nor was a doubt,

On further question, left within my mind

But that the tidings were substantial truth –

That he and his supporters all were fallen.

Great was my glee of spirit, great my joy

In vengeance, and eternal justice, thus

Made manifest. »Come now, ye golden times«,

Said I, forth-breathing on those open sands

A hymn of triumph, »as the morning comes

Out of the bosom of the night, come ye.

Thus far our trust is verified: behold,

They who with clumsy desperation brought

Rivers of blood, and preached that nothing else

Could cleanse the Augean stable, by the might

Of their own helper have been swept away.

Their madness is declared and visible;

Elsewhere will safety now be sought, and earth

March firmly towards righteousness and peace.«

Then schemes I framed more calmly, when and how

The madding factions might be tranquillized,

And – though through hardships manifold and long –

The mighty renovation would proceed.

Thus, interrupted by uneasy bursts

Of exultation, I pursued my way

Along that very shore which I had skimmed

In former times, when, spurring from the Vale

Of Nightshade, and St Mary's mouldering fane,

And the stone abbot, after circuit made

In wantonness of heart, a joyous crew

Of schoolboys, hastening to their distant home,

Along the margin of the moonlight sea,

We beat with thundering hoofs the level sand.

From this time forth in France, as is well known,

Authority put on a milder face;

Yet every thing was wanting that might give

Courage to those who looked for good by light

Of rational experience – good I mean

At hand, and in the spirit of past aims.

The same belief I nevertheless retained:

The language of the Senate, and the acts

And public measures of the Government,

Though both of heartless omen, had not power

To daunt me. In the people was my trust,

And in the virtues which mine eyes had seen,

And to the ultimate repose of things

I looked with unabated confidence.

I knew that wound external could not take

Life from the young Republic, that new foes

Would only follow in the path of shame

Their brethren, and her triumphs be in the end

Great, universal, irresistible.

This faith, which was an object in my mind

Of passionate intuition, had effect

Not small in dazzling me; for thus, through zeal,

Such victory I confounded in my thoughts

With one far higher and more difficult:

Triumphs of unambitious peace at home,

And noiseless fortitude. Beholding still

Resistance strong as heretofore, I thought

That what was in degree the same was likewise

The same in quality, that as the worse

Of the two spirits then at strife remained

Untired, the better surely would preserve

The heart that first had rouzed him – never dreamt

That transmigration could be undergone,

A fall of being suffered, and of hope,

By creature that appeared to have received

Entire conviction what a great ascent

Had been accomplished, what high faculties

It had been called to. Youth maintains, I knew,

In all conditions of society

Communion more direct and intimate

With Nature, and the inner strength she has –

And hence, ofttimes, no less with reason too –

Than age, or manhood even. To Nature then,

Power had reverted: habit, custom, law,

Had left an interregnum's open space

For her to stir about in, uncontrolled.

The warmest judgments, and the most untaught,

Found in events which every day brought forth

Enough to sanction them – and far, far more

To shake the authority of canons drawn

From ordinary practice. I could see

How Babel-like the employment was of those

Who, by the recent deluge stupefied,

With their whole souls went culling from the day

Its petty promises to build a tower

For their own safety – laughed at gravest heads,

Who, watching in their hate of France for signs

Of her disasters, if the stream of rumour

Brought with it one green branch, conceited thence

That not a single tree was left alive

In all her forests. How could I believe

That wisdom could in any shape come near

Men clinging to delusions so insane?

And thus, experience proving that no few

Of my opinions had been just, I took

Like credit to myself where less was due,

And thought that other notions were as sound –

Yea, could not but be right – because I saw

That foolish men opposed them.

To a strain

More animated I might here give way,

And tell, since juvenile errors are my theme,

What in those days through Britain was performed

To turn all judgements out of their right course;

But this is passion over near ourselves,

Reality too close and too intense,

And mingled up with something, in my mind,

Of scorn and condemnation personal

That would profane the sanctity of verse.

Our shepherds (this say merely) at that time

Thirsted to make the guardian crook of law

A tool of murder. They who ruled the state,

Though with such awful proof before their eyes

That he who would sow death, reaps death, or worse,

And can reap nothing better, childlike longed

To imitate – not wise enough to avoid.

Giants in their impiety alone,

But in their weapons and their warfare base

As vermin working out of reach, they leagued

Their strength perfidiously to undermine

Justice, and make an end of liberty.

But from these bitter truths I must return

To my own history. It hath been told

That I was led to take an eager part

In arguments of civil polity

Abruptly, and indeed before my time:

I had approached, like other youth, the shield

Of human nature from the golden side,

And would have fought even to the death to attest

The quality of the metal which I saw.

What there is best in individual man,

Of wise in passion and sublime in power,

What there is strong and pure in household love,

Benevolent in small societies,

And great in large ones also, when called forth

By great occasions – these were things of which

I something knew; yet even these themselves,

Felt deeply, were not thoroughly understood

By reason. Nay, far from it; they were yet,

As cause was given me afterwards to learn,

Not proof against the injuries of the day –

Lodged only at the sanctuary's door,

Not safe within its bosom.