But wherefore be cast down,

Why should I grieve? – I was a chosen son.

For hither I had come with holy powers

And faculties, whether to work or feel:

To apprehend all passions and all moods

Which time, and place, and season do impress

Upon the visible universe, and work

Like changes there by force of my own mind.

I was a freeman, in the purest sense

Was free, and to majestic ends was strong –

I do not speak of learning, moral truth,

Or understanding – 'twas enough for me

To know that I was otherwise endowed.

When the first glitter of the show was passed,

And the first dazzle of the taper-light,

As if with a rebound my mind returned

Into its former self. Oft did I leave

My comrades, and the crowd, buildings and groves,

And walked along the fields, the level fields,

With heaven's blue concave reared above my head.

And now it was that through such change entire,

And this first absence from those shapes sublime

Wherewith I had been conversant, my mind

Seemed busier in itself than heretofore –

At least I more directly recognised

My powers and habits. Let me dare to speak

A higher language, say that now I felt

The strength and consolation which were mine.

As if awakened, summoned, rouzed, constrained,

I looked for universal things, perused

The common countenance of earth and heaven,

And, turning the mind in upon itself,

Pored, watched, expected, listened, spread my thoughts,

And spread them with a wider creeping, felt

Incumbences more awful, visitings

Of the upholder, of the tranquil soul,

Which underneath all passion lives secure

A steadfast life. But peace, it is enough

To notice that I was ascending now

To such community with highest truth.

A track pursuing not untrod before,

From deep analogies by thought supplied,

Or consciousnesses not to be subdued,

To every natural form, rock, fruit or flower,

Even the loose stones that cover the highway,

I gave a moral life – I saw them feel,

Or linked them to some feeling. The great mass

Lay bedded in a quickening soul, and all

That I beheld respired with inward meaning.

Thus much for the one presence, and the life

Of the great whole; suffice it here to add

That whatsoe'er of terror, or of love,

Or beauty, Nature's daily face put on

From transitory passion, unto this

I was as wakeful even as waters are

To the sky's motion, in a kindred sense

Of passion was obedient as a lute

That waits upon the touches of the wind.

So was it with me in my solitude:

So often among multitudes of men.

Unknown, unthought of, yet I was most rich,

I had a world about me – 'twas my own,

I made it; for it only lived to me,

And to the God who looked into my mind.

Such sympathies would sometimes shew themselves

By outward gestures and by visible looks –

Some called it madness; such indeed it was,

If childlike fruitfulness in passing joy,

If steady moods of thoughtfulness matured

To inspiration, sort with such a name;

If prophesy be madness; if things viewed

By poets of old time, and higher up

By the first men, earth's first inhabitants,

May in these tutored days no more be seen

With undisordered sight. But leaving this,

It was no madness; for I had an eye

Which in my strongest workings evermore

Was looking for the shades of difference

As they lie hid in all exterior forms,

Near or remote, minute or vast – an eye

Which from a stone, a tree, a withered leaf,

To the broad ocean and the azure heavens

Spangled with kindred multitudes of stars,

Could find no surface where its power might sleep,

Which spake perpetual logic to my soul,

And by an unrelenting agency

Did bind my feelings even as in a chain.

 

And here, O friend, have I retraced my life

Up to an eminence, and told a tale

Of matters which not falsely I may call

The glory of my youth. Of genius, power,

Creation, and divinity itself,

I have been speaking, for my theme has been

What passed within me. Not of outward things

Done visibly for other minds – words, signs,

Symbols or actions – but of my own heart

Have I been speaking, and my youthful mind.

O heavens, how awful is the might of souls,

And what they do within themselves while yet

The yoke of earth is new to them, the world

Nothing but a wild field where they were sown.

This is in truth heroic argument,

And genuine prowess – which I wished to touch,

With hand however weak – but in the main

It lies far hidden from the reach of words.

Points have we all of us within our souls

Where all stand single; this I feel, and make

Breathings for incommunicable powers.

Yet each man is a memory to himself,

And, therefore, now that I must quit this theme,

I am not heartless; for there's not a man

That lives who hath not had his god-like hours,

And knows not what majestic sway we have

As natural beings in the strength of Nature.

 

Enough, for now into a populous plain

We must descend. A traveller I am,

And all my tale is of myself – even so –

So be it, if the pure in heart delight

To follow me, and thou, O honored friend,

Who in my thoughts art ever at my side,

Uphold as heretofore my fainting steps.

It hath been told already how my sight

Was dazzled by the novel show, and how

Erelong I did into myself return.

So did it seem, and so in truth it was –

Yet this was but short-lived. Thereafter came

Observance less devout: I had made a change

In climate, and my nature's outward coat

Changed also, slowly and insensibly.

To the deep quiet and majestic thoughts

Of loneliness succeeded empty noise

And superficial pastimes, now and then

Forced labour, and more frequently forced hopes,

And, worse than all, a treasonable growth

Of indecisive judgements that impaired

And shook the mind's simplicity. And yet

This was a gladsome time. Could I behold –

Who less insensible than sodden clay

On a sea-river's bed at ebb of tide

Could have beheld – with undelighted heart

So many happy youths, so wide and fair

A congregation in its budding-time

Of health, and hope, and beauty, all at once

So many divers samples of the growth

Of life's sweet season, could have seen unmoved

That miscellaneous garland of wild flowers

Upon the matron temples of a place

So famous through the world? To me at least

It was a goodly prospect; for, through youth,

Though I had been trained up to stand unpropped,

And independent musings pleased me so

That spells seemed on me when I was alone,

Yet could I only cleave to solitude

In lonesome places – if a throng was near

That way I leaned by nature, for my heart

Was social and loved idleness and joy.

 

Not seeking those who might participate

My deeper pleasures – nay, I had not once,

Though not unused to mutter lonesome songs,

Even with myself divided such delight,

Or looked that way for aught that might be cloathed

In human language – easily I passed

From the remembrances of better things,

And slipped into the weekday works of youth,

Unburthened, unalarmed, and unprofaned.

Caverns there were within my mind which sun

Could never penetrate, yet did there not

Want store of leafy arbours where the light

Might enter in at will. Companionships,

Friendships, acquaintances, were welcome all;

We sauntered, played, we rioted, we talked

Unprofitable talk at morning hours,

Drifted about along the streets and walks,

Read lazily in lazy books, went forth

To gallop through the country in blind zeal

Of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast

Of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars

Come out, perhaps without one quiet thought.

 

Such was the tenor of the opening act

In this new life. Imagination slept,

And yet not utterly: I could not print

Ground where the grass had yielded to the steps

Of generations of illustrious men,

Unmoved; I could not always lightly pass

Through the same gateways, sleep where they had slept,

Wake where they waked, range that enclosure old,

That garden of great intellects, undisturbed.

Place also by the side of this dark sense

Of nobler feeling, that those spiritual men,

Even the great Newton's own etherial self,

Seemed humbled in these precincts, thence to be

The more beloved, invested here with tasks

Of life's plain business, as a daily garb –

Dictators at the plough – a change that left

All genuine admiration unimpaired.

 

Beside the pleasant mills of Trompington

I laughed with Chaucer; in the hawthorn shade

Heard him, while birds were warbling, tell his tales

Of amorous passion. And that gentle bard

Chosen by the Muses for their Page of State,

Sweet Spencer, moving through his clouded heaven

With the moon's beauty and the moon's soft pace –

I called him brother, Englishman, and friend.

Yea, our blind poet, who, in his later day

Stood almost single, uttering odious truth,

Darkness before, and danger's voice behind –

Soul awful, if the earth hath ever lodged

An awful soul – I seemed to see him here

Familiarly, and in his scholar's dress

Bounding before me, yet a stripling youth,

A boy, no better, with his rosy cheeks

Angelical, keen eye, courageous look,

And conscious step of purity and pride.

 

Among the band of my compeers was one,

My class-fellow at school, whose chance it was

To lodge in the apartments which had been

Time out of mind honored by Milton's name –

The very shell reputed of the abode

Which he had tenanted. O temperate bard!

One afternoon, the first time I set foot

In this thy innocent nest and oratory,

Seated with others in a festive ring

Of commonplace convention, I to thee

Poured out libations, to thy memory drank

Within my private thoughts, till my brain reeled,

Never so clouded by the fumes of wine

Before that hour, or since. Thence, forth I ran

From that assembly, through a length of streets

Ran ostrich-like to reach our chapel door

In not a desperate or opprobrious time,

Albeit long after the importunate bell

Had stopped, with wearisome Cassandra voice

No longer haunting the dark winter night.

Call back, O friend, a moment to thy mind

The place itself and fashion of the rites.

Upshouldering in a dislocated lump

With shallow ostentatious carelessness

My surplice, gloried in and yet despised,

I clove in pride through the inferior throng

Of the plain burghers, who in audience stood

On the last skirts of their permitted ground,

Beneath the pealing organ. Empty thoughts,

I am ashamed of them; and that great bard,

And thou, O friend, who in thy ample mind

Hast stationed me for reverence and love,

Ye will forgive the weakness of that hour,

In some of its unworthy vanities

Brother of many more.

 

In this mixed sort

The months passed on, remissly, not giving up

To wilful alienation from the right,

Or walks of open scandal, but in vague

And loose indifference, easy likings, aims

Of a low pitch – duty and zeal dismissed,

Yet Nature, or a happy course of things,

Not doing in their stead the needful work.

The memory languidly revolved, the heart

Reposed in noontide rest, the inner pulse

Of contemplation almost failed to beat.

Rotted as by a charm, my life became

A floating island, an amphibious thing,

Unsound, of spungy texture, yet withal

Not wanting a fair face of water-weeds

And pleasant flowers. The thirst of living praise,

A reverence for the glorious dead, the sight

Of those long vistos, catacombs in which

Perennial minds lie visibly entombed,

Have often stirred the heart of youth, and bred

A fervent love of rigorous discipline.

Alas, such high commotion touched not me;

No look was in these walls to put to shame

My easy spirits, and discountenance

Their light composure – far less to instil

A calm resolve of mind, firmly addressed

To puissant efforts. Nor was this the blame

Of others, but my own; I should in truth,

As far as doth concern my single self,

Misdeem most widely, lodging it elsewhere.

For I, bred up in Nature's lap, was even

As a spoiled child; and, rambling like the wind

As I had done in daily intercourse

With those delicious rivers, solemn heights,

And mountains, ranging like a fowl of the air,

I was ill-tutored for captivity –

To quit my pleasure, and from month to month

Take up a station calmly on the perch

Of sedentary peace. Those lovely forms

Had also left less space within my mind,

Which, wrought upon instinctively, had found

A freshness in those objects of its love,

A winning power beyond all other power.

Not that I slighted books – that were to lack

All sense – but other passions had been mine,

More fervent, making me less prompt perhaps

To indoor study than was wise or well,

Or suited to my years. Yet I could shape

The image of a place which – soothed and lulled

As I had been, trained up in paradise

Among sweet garlands and delightful sounds,

Accustomed in my loneliness to walk

With Nature magisterially – yet I

Methinks could shape the image of a place

Which with its aspect should have bent me down

To instantaneous service, should at once

Have made me pay to science and to arts

And written lore, acknowledged my liege lord,

A homage frankly offered up like that

Which I had paid to Nature. Toil and pains

In this recess which I have bodied forth

Should spread from heart to heart; and stately groves,

Majestic edifices, should not want

A corresponding dignity within.

The congregating temper which pervades

Our unripe years, not wasted, should be made

To minister to works of high attempt,

Which the enthusiast would perform with love.

Youth should be awed, possessed, as with a sense

Religious, of what holy joy there is

In knowledge if it be sincerely sought

For its own sake – in glory, and in praise,

If but by labour won, and to endure.

The passing day should learn to put aside

Her trappings here, should strip them off abashed

Before antiquity and stedfast truth,

And strong book-mindedness; and over all

Should be a healthy sound simplicity,

A seemly plainness – name it as you will,

Republican or pious.

 

If these thoughts

Be a gratuitous emblazonry

That does but mock this recreant age, at least

Let Folly and False-seeming (we might say)

Be free to affect whatever formal gait

Of moral or scholastic discipline

Shall raise them highest in their own esteem;

Let them parade among the schools at will,

But spare the house of God. Was ever known

The witless shepherd who would drive his flock

With serious repetition to a pool

Of which 'tis plain to sight they never taste?

A weight must surely hang on days begun

And ended with worst mockery. Be wise,

Ye Presidents and Deans, and to your bells

Give seasonable rest, for 'tis a sound

Hollow as ever vexed the tranquil air,

And your officious doings bring disgrace

On the plain steeples of our English Church,

Whose worship, 'mid remotest village trees,

Suffers for this. Even science too, at hand

In daily sight of such irreverence,

Is smitten thence with an unnatural taint,

Loses her just authority, falls beneath

Collateral suspicion, else unknown.

This obvious truth did not escape me then,

Unthinking as I was, and I confess

That – having in my native hills given loose

To a schoolboy's dreaming – I had raised a pile

Upon the basis of the coming time

Which now before me melted fast away,

Which could not live, scarcely had life enough

To mock the builder. Oh, what joy it were

To see a sanctuary for our country's youth

With such a spirit in it as might be

Protection for itself, a virgin grove,

Primaeval in its purity and depth –

Where, though the shades were filled with chearfulness,

Nor indigent of songs warbled from crowds

In under-coverts, yet the countenance

Of the whole place should wear a stamp of awe –

A habitation sober and demure

For ruminating creatures, a domain

For quiet things to wander in, a haunt

In which the heron might delight to feed

By the shy rivers, and the pelican

Upon the cypress-spire in lonely thought

Might sit and sun himself. Alas, alas,

In vain for such solemnity we look;

Our eyes are crossed by butterflies, our ears

Hear chattering popinjays – the inner heart

Is trivial, and the impresses without

Are of a gaudy region.