To the open fields I told

A prophesy; poetic numbers came

Spontaneously, and clothed in priestly robe

My spirit, thus singled out, as it might seem,

For holy services. Great hopes were mine:

My own voice cheared me, and, far more, the mind's

Internal echo of the imperfect sound –

To both I listened, drawing from them both

A chearful confidence in things to come.

 

Whereat, being not unwilling now to give

A respite to this passion, I paced on

Gently, with careless steps, and came erelong

To a green shady place where down I sate

Beneath a tree, slackening my thoughts by choice

And settling into gentler happiness.

'Twas autumn, and a calm and placid day

With warmth as much as needed from a sun

Two hours declined towards the west, a day

With silver clouds and sunshine on the grass,

And, in the sheltered grove where I was couched,

A perfect stillness. On the ground I lay

Passing through many thoughts, yet mainly such

As to myself pertained. I made a choice

Of one sweet vale whither my steps should turn,

And saw, methought, the very house and fields

Present before my eyes; nor did I fail

To add meanwhile assurance of some work

Of glory there forthwith to be begun –

Perhaps too there performed. Thus long I lay

Cheared by the genial pillow of the earth

Beneath my head, soothed by a sense of touch

From the warm ground, that balanced me, else lost

Entirely, seeing nought, nought hearing, save

When here and there about the grove of oaks

Where was my bed, an acorn from the trees

Fell audibly, and with a startling sound.

 

Thus occupied in mind I lingered here

Contented, nor rose up until the sun

Had almost touched the horizon; bidding then

A farewell to the city left behind,

Even with the chance equipment of that hour

I journeyed towards the vale which I had chosen.

It was a splendid evening, and my soul

Did once again make trial of the strength

Restored to her afresh; nor did she want

Eolian visitations – but the harp

Was soon defrauded, and the banded host

Of harmony dispersed in straggling sounds,

And lastly utter silence. »Be it so,

It is an injury«, said I, »to this day

To think of any thing but present joy.«

So, like a peasant, I pursued my road

Beneath the evening sun, nor had one wish

Again to bend the sabbath of that time

To a servile yoke. What need of many words? –

A pleasant loitering journey, through two days

Continued, brought me to my hermitage.

 

I spare to speak, my friend, of what ensued –

The admiration and the love, the life

In common things, the endless store of things

Rare, or at least so seeming, every day

Found all about me in one neighbourhood,

The self-congratulation, the complete

Composure, and the happiness entire.

But speedily a longing in me rose

To brace myself to some determined aim,

Reading or thinking, either to lay up

New stores, or rescue from decay the old

By timely interference. I had hopes

Still higher, that with a frame of outward life

I might endue, might fix in a visible home,

Some portion of those phantoms of conceit,

That had been floating loose about so long,

And to such beings temperately deal forth

The many feelings that oppressed my heart.

But I have been discouraged: gleams of light

Flash often from the east, then disappear,

And mock me with a sky that ripens not

Into a steady morning. If my mind,

Remembering the sweet promise of the past,

Would gladly grapple with some noble theme,

Vain is her wish – where'er she turns she finds

Impediments from day to day renewed.

 

And now it would content me to yield up

Those lofty hopes awhile for present gifts

Of humbler industry. But, O dear friend,

The poet, gentle creature as he is,

Hath like the lover his unruly times –

His fits when he is neither sick nor well,

Though no distress be near him but his own

Unmanageable thoughts. The mind itself,

The meditative mind, best pleased perhaps

While she as duteous as the mother dove

Sits brooding, lives not always to that end,

But hath less quiet instincts – goadings on

That drive her as in trouble through the groves.

With me is now such passion, which I blame

No otherwise than as it lasts too long.

 

When, as becomes a man who would prepare

For such a glorious work, I through myself

Make rigorous inquisition, the report

Is often chearing; for I neither seem

To lack that first great gift, the vital soul,

Nor general truths which are themselves a sort

Of elements and agents, under-powers,

Subordinate helpers of the living mind.

Nor am I naked in external things,

Forms, images, nor numerous other aids

Of less regard, though won perhaps with toil,

And needful to build up a poet's praise.

Time, place, and manners, these I seek, and these

I find in plenteous store, but nowhere such

As may be singled out with steady choice –

No little band of yet remembered names

Whom I, in perfect confidence, might hope

To summon back from lonesome banishment

And make them inmates in the hearts of men

Now living, or to live in times to come.

Sometimes, mistaking vainly, as I fear,

Proud spring-tide swellings for a regular sea,

I settle on some British theme, some old

Romantic tale by Milton left unsung;

More often resting at some gentle place

Within the groves of chivalry I pipe

Among the shepherds, with reposing knights

Sit by a fountain-side and hear their tales.

Sometimes, more sternly moved, I would relate

How vanquished Mithridates northward passed

And, hidden in the cloud of years, became

That Odin, father of a race by whom

Perished the Roman Empire; how the friends

And followers of Sertorius, out of Spain

Flying, found shelter in the Fortunate Isles,

And left their usages, their arts and laws,

To disappear by a slow gradual death,

To dwindle and to perish one by one,

Starved in those narrow bounds – but not the soul

Of liberty, which fifteen hundred years

Survived, and, when the European came

With skill and power that could not be withstood,

Did like a pestilence maintain its hold,

And wasted down by glorious death that race

Of natural heroes. Or I would record

How in tyrannic times, some unknown man,

Unheard of in the chronicles of kings,

Suffered in silence for the love of truth;

How that one Frenchman, through continued force

Of meditation on the inhuman deeds

Of the first conquerors of the Indian Isles,

Went single in his ministry across

The ocean, not to comfort the oppressed,

But like a thirsty wind to roam about

Withering the oppressor; how Gustavus found

Help at his need in Dalecarlia's mines;

How Wallace fought for Scotland, left the name

Of Wallace to be found like a wild flower

All over his dear country, left the deeds

Of Wallace like a family of ghosts

To people the steep rocks and river-banks,

Her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul

Of independence and stern liberty.

Sometimes it suits me better to shape out

Some tale from my own heart, more near akin

To my own passions and habitual thoughts,

Some variegated story, in the main

Lofty, with interchange of gentler things.

But deadening admonitions will succeed,

And the whole beauteous fabric seems to lack

Foundation, and withal appears throughout

Shadowy and unsubstantial.

 

Then, last wish –

My last and favorite aspiration – then

I yearn towards some philosophic song

Of truth that cherishes our daily life,

With meditations passionate from deep

Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse

Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre;

But from this awful burthen I full soon

Take refuge, and beguile myself with trust

That mellower years will bring a riper mind

And clearer insight. Thus from day to day

I live a mockery of the brotherhood

Of vice and virtue, with no skill to part

Vague longing that is bred by want of power,

From paramount impulse not to be withstood;

A timorous capacity, from prudence;

From circumspection, infinite delay.

Humility and modest awe themselves

Betray me, serving often for a cloak

To a more subtle selfishness, that now

Doth lock my functions up in blank reserve,

Now dupes me by an over-anxious eye

That with a false activity beats off

Simplicity and self-presented truth.

Ah, better far than this to stray about

Voluptuously through fields and rural walks

And ask no record of the hours given up

To vacant musing, unreproved neglect

Of all things, and deliberate holiday.

Far better never to have heard the name

Of zeal and just ambition than to live

Thus baffled by a mind that every hour

Turns recreant to her task, takes heart again,

Then feels immediately some hollow thought

Hang like an interdict upon her hopes.

This is my lot; for either still I find

Some imperfection in the chosen theme,

Or see of absolute accomplishment

Much wanting – so much wanting – in myself

That I recoil and droop, and seek repose

In indolence from vain perplexity,

Unprofitably travelling towards the grave,

Like a false steward who hath much received

And renders nothing back.

 

Was it for this

That one, the fairest of all rivers, loved

To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,

And from his alder shades and rocky falls,

And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice

That flowed along my dreams? For this didst thou,

O Derwent, travelling over the green plains

Near my ›sweet birthplace‹, didst thou, beauteous stream,

Make ceaseless music through the night and day,

Which with its steady cadence tempering

Our human waywardness, composed my thoughts

To more than infant softness, giving me

Among the fretful dwellings of mankind,

A knowledge, a dim earnest, of the calm

Which Nature breathes among the hills and groves?

When, having left his mountains, to the towers

Of Cockermouth that beauteous river came,

Behind my father's house he passed, close by,

Along the margin of our terrace walk.

He was a playmate whom we dearly loved:

Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child,

A naked boy, in one delightful rill,

A little mill-race severed from his stream,

Made one long bathing of a summer's day,

Basked in the sun, and plunged, and basked again,

Alternate, all a summer's day, or coursed

Over the sandy fields, leaping through groves

Of yellow grunsel; or, when crag and hill,

The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height,

Were bronzed with a deep radiance, stood alone

Beneath the sky, as if I had been born

On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut

Had run abroad in wantonness to sport,

A naked savage, in the thunder-shower.

 

Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grew up

Fostered alike by beauty and by fear,

Much favored in my birthplace, and no less

In that beloved vale to which erelong

I was transplanted. Well I call to mind –

'Twas at an early age, ere I had seen

Nine summers – when upon the mountain slope

The frost and breath of frosty wind had snapped

The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy

To wander half the night among the cliffs

And the smooth hollows where the woodcocks ran

Along the open turf. In thought and wish

That time, my shoulder all with springes hung,

I was a fell destroyer. On the heights

Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied

My anxious visitation, hurrying on,

Still hurrying, hurrying onward. Moon and stars

Were shining o'er my head; I was alone,

And seemed to be a trouble to the peace

That was among them. Sometimes it befel

In these night-wanderings, that a strong desire

O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird

Which was the captive of another's toils

Became my prey; and when the deed was done

I heard among the solitary hills

Low breathings coming after me, and sounds

Of undistinguishable motion, steps

Almost as silent as the turf they trod.

 

Nor less in springtime, when on southern banks

The shining sun had from her knot of leaves

Decoyed the primrose flower, and when the vales

And woods were warm, was I a plunderer then

In the high places, on the lonesome peaks,

Where'er among the mountains and the winds

The mother-bird had built her lodge. Though mean

My object and inglorious, yet the end

Was not ignoble. Oh, when I have hung

Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass

And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock

But ill sustained, and almost, as it seemed,

Suspended by the blast which blew amain,

Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time

While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,

With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind

Blow through my ears; the sky seemed not a sky

Of earth, and with what motion moved the clouds!

 

The mind of man is framed even like the breath

And harmony of music. There is a dark

Invisible workmanship that reconciles

Discordant elements, and makes them move

In one society. Ah me, that all

The terrors, all the early miseries,

Regrets, vexations, lassitudes, that all

The thoughts and feelings which have been infused

Into my mind, should ever have made up

The calm existence that is mine when I

Am worthy of myself. Praise to the end,

Thanks likewise for the means! But I believe

That Nature, oftentimes, when she would frame

A favored being, from his earliest dawn

Of infancy doth open out the clouds

As at the touch of lightning, seeking him

With gentlest visitation; not the less,

Though haply aiming at the self-same end,

Does it delight her sometimes to employ

Severer interventions, ministry

More palpable – and so she dealt with me.

 

One evening – surely I was led by her –

I went alone into a shepherd's boat,

A skiff that to a willow-tree was tied

Within a rocky cave, its usual home.

'Twas by the shores of Patterdale, a vale

Wherein I was a stranger, thither come

A schoolboy traveller at the holidays.

Forth rambled from the village inn alone,

No sooner had I sight of this small skiff,

Discovered thus by unexpected chance,

Than I unloosed her tether and embarked.

The moon was up, the lake was shining clear

Among the hoary mountains; from the shore

I pushed, and struck the oars, and struck again

In cadence, and my little boat moved on

Even like a man who moves with stately step

Though bent on speed. It was an act of stealth

And troubled pleasure. Nor without the voice

Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on,

Leaving behind her still on either side

Small circles glittering idly in the moon,

Until they melted all into one track

Of sparkling light. A rocky steep uprose

Above the cavern of the willow-tree,

And now, as suited one who proudly rowed

With his best skill, I fixed a steady view

Upon the top of that same craggy ridge,

The bound of the horizon – for behind

Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky.

She was an elfin pinnace; lustily

I dipped my oars into the silent lake,

And as I rose upon the stroke my boat

Went heaving through the water like a swan –

When from behind that craggy steep, till then

The bound of the horizon, a huge cliff,

As if with voluntary power instinct,

Upreared its head. I struck, and struck again,

And, growing still in stature, the huge cliff

Rose up between me and the stars, and still

With measured motion, like a living thing

Strode after me. With trembling hands I turned

And through the silent water stole my way

Back to the cavern of the willow-tree.

There, in her mooring-place, I left my bark

And through the meadows homeward went with grave

And serious thoughts; and after I had seen

That spectacle, for many days my brain

Worked with a dim and undetermined sense

Of unknown modes of being.