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

Thus prepared,

And with such general insight into evil,

And of the bounds which sever it from good,

As books and common intercourse with life

Must needs have given (to the noviciate mind,

When the world travels in a beaten road,

Guide faithful as is needed), I began

To think with fervour upon management

Of nations – what it is and ought to be,

And how their worth depended on their laws,

And on the constitution of the state.

O pleasant exercise of hope and joy,

For great were the auxiliars which then stood

Upon our side, we who were strong in love.

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,

But to be young was very heaven! O times,

In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways

Of custom, law, and statute took at once

The attraction of a country in romance –

When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights

When most intent on making of herself

A prime enchanter to assist the work

Which then was going forwards in her name.

Not favored spots alone, but the whole earth,

The beauty wore of promise, that which sets

(To take an image which was felt, no doubt,

Among the bowers of Paradise itself)

The budding rose above the rose full-blown.

What temper at the prospect did not wake

To happiness unthought of? The inert

Were rouzed, and lively natures rapt away.

They who had fed their childhood upon dreams –

The playfellows of fancy, who had made

All powers of swiftness, subtlety, and strength

Their ministers, used to stir in lordly wise

Among the grandest objects of the sense,

And deal with whatsoever they found there

As if they had within some lurking right

To wield it – they too, who, of gentle mood,

Had watched all gentle motions, and to these

Had fitted their own thoughts (schemers more mild,

And in the region of their peaceful selves),

Did now find helpers to their hearts' desire

And stuff at hand plastic as they could wish,

Were called upon to exercise their skill

Not in Utopia – subterraneous fields,

Or some secreted island, heaven knows where –

But in the very world which is the world

Of all of us, the place in which, in the end,

We find our happiness, or not at all.

Why should I not confess that earth was then

To me what an inheritance new-fallen

Seems, when the first time visited, to one

Who thither comes to find in it his home?

He walks about and looks upon the place

With cordial transport – moulds it and remoulds –

And is half pleased with things that are amiss,

'Twill be such joy to see them disappear.

An active partisan, I thus convoked

From every object pleasant circumstance

To suit my ends. I moved among mankind

With genial feelings still predominant,

When erring, erring on the better side,

And in the kinder spirit – placable,

Indulgent ofttimes to the worst desires,

As, on one side, not uninformed that men

See as it hath been taught them, and that time

Gives rights to error; on the other hand

That throwing off oppression must be work

As well of licence as of liberty;

And above all (for this was more than all),

Not caring if the wind did now and then

Blow keen upon an eminence that gave

Prospect so large into futurity –

In brief, a child of Nature, as at first,

Diffusing only those affections wider

That from the cradle had grown up with me,

And losing, in no other way than light

Is lost in light, the weak in the more strong.

In the main outline, such it might be said

Was my condition, till with open war

Britain opposed the liberties of France.

This threw me first out of the pale of love,

Soured and corrupted upwards to the source,

My sentiments; was not, as hitherto,

A swallowing up of lesser things in great,

But change of them into their opposites,

And thus a way was opened for mistakes

And false conclusions of the intellect,

As gross in their degree, and in their kind

Far, far more dangerous. What had been a pride

Was now a shame, my likings and my loves

Ran in new channels, leaving old ones dry;

And thus a blow, which in maturer age

Would but have touched the judgement, struck more deep

Into sensations near the heart. Meantime,

As from the first, wild theories were afloat,

Unto the subtleties of which at least,

I had but lent a careless ear – assured

Of this, that time would soon set all things right,

Prove that the multitude had been oppressed,

And would be so no more. But when events

Brought less encouragement, and unto these

The immediate proof of principles no more

Could be entrusted – while the events themselves,

Worn out in greatness, and in novelty,

Less occupied the mind, and sentiments

Could through my understanding's natural growth

No longer justify themselves through faith

Of inward consciousness, and hope that laid

Its hand upon its object – evidence

Safer, of universal application, such

As could not be impeached, was sought elsewhere.

And now, become oppressors in their turn,

Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence

For one of conquest, losing sight of all

Which they had struggled for; and mounted up,

Openly in the view of earth and heaven,

The scale of Liberty. I read her doom,

Vexed inly somewhat, it is true, and sore,

But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame

Of a false prophet. But, rouzed up, I stuck

More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove

Their temper, strained them more; and thus, in heat

Of contest, did opinions every day

Grow into consequence, till round my mind

They clung as if they were the life of it.

This was the time when, all things tending fast

To depravation, the philosophy

That promised to abstract the hopes of man

Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth

For ever in a purer element,

Found ready welcome. Tempting region that

For zeal to enter and refresh herself,

Where passions had the privilege to work,

And never hear the sound of their own names –

But, speaking more in charity, the dream

Was flattering to the young ingenuous mind

Pleased with extremes, and not the least with that

Which makes the human reason's naked self

The object of its fervour. What delight! –

How glorious! – in self-knowledge and self-rule

To look through all the frailties of the world,

And, with a resolute mastery shaking off

The accidents of nature, time, and place,

That make up the weak being of the past,

Build social freedom on its only basis:

The freedom of the individual mind,

Which, to the blind restraint of general laws

Superior, magisterially adopts

One guide – the light of circumstances, flashed

Upon an independent intellect.

For howsoe'er unsettled, never once

Had I thought ill of human-kind, or been

Indifferent to its welfare, but, enflamed

With thirst of a secure intelligence,

And sick of other passion, I pursued

A higher nature – wished that man should start

Out of the worm-like state in which he is,

And spread abroad the wings of Liberty,

Lord of himself, in undisturbed delight.

A noble aspiration! – yet I feel

The aspiration – but with other thoughts

And happier: for I was perplexed and sought

To accomplish the transition by such means

As did not lie in nature, sacrificed

The exactness of a comprehensive mind

To scrupulous and microscopic views

That furnished out materials for a work

Of false imagination, placed beyond

The limits of experience and of truth.

Enough, no doubt, the advocates themselves

Of ancient institutions had performed

To bring disgrace upon their very names;

Disgrace of which custom, and written law,

And sundry moral sentiments, as props

And emanations of these institutes,

Too justly bore a part. A veil had been

Uplifted. Why deceive ourselves? – 'twas so,

'Twas even so – and sorrow for the man

Who either had not eyes wherewith to see,

Or seeing hath forgotten. Let this pass,

Suffice it that a shock had then been given

To old opinions, and the minds of all men

Had felt it – that my mind was both let loose,

Let loose and goaded. After what hath been

Already said of patriotic love,

And hinted at in other sentiments,

We need not linger long upon this theme,

This only may be said, that from the first

Having two natures in me (joy the one,

The other melancholy), and withal

A happy man, and therefore bold to look

On painful things – slow, somewhat, too, and stern

In temperament – I took the knife in hand,

And, stopping not at parts less sensitive,

Endeavoured with my best of skill to probe

The living body of society

Even to the heart. I pushed without remorse

My speculations forward, yea, set foot

On Nature's holiest places.

Time may come

When some dramatic story may afford

Shapes livelier to convey to thee, my friend,

What then I learned – or think I learned – of truth,

And the errors into which I was betrayed

By present objects, and by reasonings false

From the beginning, inasmuch as drawn

Out of a heart which had been turned aside

From Nature by external accidents,

And which was thus confounded more and more,

Misguiding and misguided. Thus I fared,

Dragging all passions, notions, shapes of faith,

Like culprits to the bar, suspiciously

Calling the mind to establish in plain day

Her titles and her honours, now believing,

Now disbelieving, endlessly perplexed

With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground

Of moral obligation – what the rule,

And what the sanction – till, demanding proof,

And seeking it in every thing, I lost

All feeling of conviction, and, in fine,

Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,

Yielded up moral questions in despair,

And for my future studies, as the sole

Employment of the inquiring faculty,

Turned towards mathematics, and their clear

And solid evidence.

Ah, then it was

That thou, most precious friend, about this time

First known to me, didst lend a living help

To regulate my soul. And then it was

That the belovèd woman in whose sight

Those days were passed – now speaking in a voice

Of sudden admonition like a brook

That does but cross a lonely road; and now

Seen, heard and felt, and caught at every turn,

Companion never lost through many a league –

Maintained for me a saving intercourse

With my true self (for, though impaired, and changed

Much, as it seemed, I was no further changed

Than as a clouded, not a waning moon);

She, in the midst of all, preserved me still

A poet, made me seek beneath that name

My office upon earth, and nowhere else.

And lastly, Nature's self, by human love

Assisted, through the weary labyrinth

Conducted me again to open day,

Revived the feelings of my earlier life,

Gave me that strength and knowledge full of peace,

Enlarged, and never more to be disturbed,

Which through the steps of our degeneracy,

All degradation of this age, hath still

Upheld me, and upholds me at this day

In the catastrophe (for so they dream,

And nothing less), when, finally to close

And rivet up the gains of France, a Pope

Is summoned in to crown an Emperor –

This last opprobrium, when we see the dog

Returning to his vomit, when the sun

That rose in splendour, was alive, and moved

In exultation among living clouds,

Hath put his function and his glory off,

And, turned into a gewgaw, a machine,

Sets like an opera phantom.

Thus, O friend,

Through times of honour, and through times of shame,

Have I descended, tracing faithfully

The workings of a youthful mind, beneath

The breath of great events – its hopes no less

Than universal, and its boundless love –

A story destined for thy ear, who now,

Among the basest and the lowest fallen

Of all the race of men, dost make abode

Where Etna looketh down on Syracuse,

The city of Timoleon. Living God,

How are the mighty prostrated! – they first,

They first of all that breathe, should have awaked

When the great voice was heard out of the tombs

Of ancient heroes. If for France I have grieved,

Who in the judgement of no few hath been

A trifler only, in her proudest day –

Have been distressed to think of what she once

Promised, now is – a far more sober cause

Thine eyes must see of sorrow in a land

Strewed with the wreck of loftiest years, a land

Glorious indeed, substantially renowned

Of simple virtue once, and manly praise,

Now without one memorial hope, not even

A hope to be deferred – for that would serve

To chear the heart in such entire decay.

But indignation works where hope is not,

And thou, O friend, wilt be refreshed. There is

One great society alone on earth:

The noble living and the noble dead.

Thy consolation shall be there, and time

And Nature shall before thee spread in store

Imperishable thoughts, the place itself

Be conscious of thy presence, and the dull

Sirocco air of its degeneracy

Turn as thou mov'st into a healthful breeze

To cherish and invigorate thy frame.

Thine be those motions strong and sanative,

A ladder for thy spirit to reascend

To health and joy and pure contentedness:

To me the grief confined that thou art gone

From this last spot of earth where Freedom now

Stands single in her only sanctuary –

A lonely wanderer art gone, by pain

Compelled and sickness, at this latter day,

This heavy time of change for all mankind.

I feel for thee, must utter what I feel;

The sympathies, erewhile in part discharged,

Gather afresh, and will have vent again.

My own delights do scarcely seem to me

My own delights: the lordly Alps themselves,

Those rosy peaks from which the morning looks

Abroad on many nations, are not now

Since thy migration and departure, friend,

The gladsome image in my memory

Which they were used to be. To kindred scenes,

On errand – at a time how different –

Thou tak'st thy way, carrying a heart more ripe

For all divine enjoyment, with the soul

Which Nature gives to poets, now by thought

Matured, and in the summer of its strength.

Oh, wrap him in your shades, ye giant woods,

On Etna's side, and thou, O flowery vale

Of Enna, is there not some nook of thine

From the first playtime of the infant earth

Kept sacred to restorative delight?

Child of the mountains, among shepherds reared,

Even from my earliest schoolday time, I loved

To dream of Sicily; and now a sweet

And gladsome promise wafted from that land

Comes o'er my heart. There's not a single name

Of note belonging to that honored isle,

Philosopher or bard, Empedocles,

Or Archimedes – deep and tranquil soul –

That is not like a comfort to my grief.

And, O Theocritus, so far have some

Prevailed among the powers of heaven and earth

By force of graces which were theirs, that they

Have had, as thou reportest, miracles

Wrought for them in old time: yea, not unmoved,

When thinking on my own belovèd friend,

I hear thee tell how bees with honey fed

Divine Comates, by his tyrant lord

Within a chest imprisoned impiously –

How with their honey from the fields they came

And fed him there, alive, from month to month,

Because the goatherd, blessèd man, had lips

Wet with the Muse's nectar.

Thus I soothe

The pensive moments by this calm fireside,

And find a thousand fancied images

That chear the thoughts of those I love, and mine.

Our prayers have been accepted: thou wilt stand

Not as an exile but a visitant

On Etna's top; by pastoral Arethuse –

Or if that fountain be indeed no more,

Then near some other spring which by the name

Thou gratulatest, willingly deceived –

Shalt linger as a gladsome votary,

And not a captive pining for his home.

Book Eleventh

Imagination, How Impaired and Restored

Long time hath man's unhappiness and guilt

Detained us: with what dismal sights beset

For the outward view, and inwardly oppressed

With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,

Confusion of the judgement, zeal decayed –

And lastly, utter loss of hope itself

And things to hope for. Not with these began

Our song, and not with these our song must end.

Ye motions of delight, that through the fields

Stir gently, breezes and soft airs that breathe

The breath of paradise, and find your way

To the recesses of the soul; ye brooks

Muttering along the stones, a busy noise

By day, a quiet one in silent night;

And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is

To interpose the covert of your shades,

Even as a sleep, betwixt the heart of man

And the uneasy world – 'twixt man himself,

Not seldom, and his own unquiet heart –

Oh, that I had a music and a voice

Harmonious as your own, that I might tell

What ye have done for me. The morning shines,

Nor heedeth man's perverseness; spring returns –

I saw the spring return, when I was dead

To deeper hope, yet had I joy for her

And welcomed her benevolence, rejoiced

In common with the children of her love,

Plants, insects, beasts in field, and birds in bower.

So neither were complacency, nor peace,

Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good

Through those distracted times: in Nature still

Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her,

Which, when the spirit of evil was at height,

Maintained for me a secret happiness.

Her I resorted to, and loved so much

I seemed to love as much as heretofore –

And yet this passion, fervent as it was,

Had suffered change; how could there fail to be

Some change, if merely hence, that years of life

Were going on, and with them loss or gain

Inevitable, sure alternative?

This history, my friend, hath chiefly told

Of intellectual power from stage to stage

Advancing hand in hand with love and joy,

And of imagination teaching truth

Until that natural graciousness of mind

Gave way to over-pressure of the times

And their disastrous issues. What availed,

When spells forbade the voyager to land,

The fragrance which did ever and anon

Give notice of the shore, from arbours breathed

Of blessèd sentiment and fearless love?

What did such sweet remembrances avail –

Perfidious then, as seemed – what served they then?

My business was upon the barren seas,

My errand was to sail to other coasts.

Shall I avow that I had hope to see

(I mean that future times would surely see)

The man to come parted as by a gulph

From him who had been? – that I could no more

Trust the elevation which had made me one

With the great family that here and there

Is scattered through the abyss of ages past,

Sage, patriot, lover, hero; for it seemed

That their best virtues were not free from taint

Of something false and weak, which could not stand

The open eye of reason. Then I said,

»Go to the poets, they will speak to thee

More perfectly of purer creatures – yet

If reason be nobility in man,

Can aught be more ignoble than the man

Whom they describe, would fasten if they may

Upon our love by sympathies of truth?«

Thus strangely did I war against myself;

A bigot to a new idolatry,

Did like a monk who hath forsworn the world

Zealously labour to cut off my heart

From all the sources of her former strength;

And, as by simple waving of a wand,

The wizard instantaneously dissolves

Palace or grove, even so did I unsoul

As readily by syllogistic words

(Some charm of logic, ever within reach)

Those mysteries of passion which have made,

And shall continue evermore to make –

In spite of all that reason hath performed,

And shall perform, to exalt and to refine –

One brotherhood of all the human race,

Through all the habitations of past years,

And those to come: and hence an emptiness

Fell on the historian's page, and even on that

Of poets, pregnant with more absolute truth.

The works of both withered in my esteem,

Their sentence was, I thought, pronounced – their rights

Seemed mortal, and their empire passed away.

What then remained in such eclipse, what light

To guide or chear? The laws of things which lie

Beyond the reach of human will or power,

The life of Nature, by the God of love

Inspired – celestial presence ever pure –

These left, the soul of youth must needs be rich

Whatever else be lost; and these were mine,

Not a deaf echo merely of the thought

(Bewildered recollections, solitary),

But living sounds. Yet in despite of this –

This feeling, which howe'er impaired or damped,

Yet having been once born can never die –

'Tis true that earth with all her appanage

Of elements and organs, storm and sunshine,

With its pure forms and colours, pomp of clouds,

Rivers, and mountains, objects among which

It might be thought that no dislike or blame,

No sense of weakness or infirmity

Or aught amiss, could possibly have come,

Yea, even the visible universe was scanned

With something of a kindred spirit, fell

Beneath the domination of a taste

Less elevated, which did in my mind

With its more noble influence interfere,

Its animation and its deeper sway.

There comes (if need be now to speak of this

After such long detail of our mistakes),

There comes a time when reason – not the grand

And simple reason, but that humbler power

Which carries on its no inglorious work

By logic and minute analysis –

Is of all idols that which pleases most

The growing mind.