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When Contemplation, like the night-calm felt Through earth and sky, spreads widely, and sends deep Into the soul its tranquillising power, Even then I sometimes grieve for thee, O Man, Earth's paramount Creature! not so much for woes That thou endurest; heavy though that weight be, Cloud-like it mounts, or touched with light divine Doth melt away; but for those palms achieved, Through length of time, by patient exercise Of study and hard thought; there, there, it is That sadness finds its fuel. Hitherto, In progress through this Verse, my mind hath looked Upon the speaking face of earth and heaven As her prime teacher, intercourse with man Established by the sovereign Intellect, Who through that bodily image hath diffused, As might appear to the eye of fleeting time, A deathless spirit. Thou also, man! hast wrought, For commerce of thy nature with herself, Things that aspire to unconquerable life; And yet we feel—we cannot choose but feel— That they must perish. Tremblings of the heart It gives, to think that our immortal being No more shall need such garments; and yet man, As long as he shall be the child of earth, Might almost "weep to have" what he may lose, Nor be himself extinguished, but survive, Abject, depressed, forlorn, disconsolate. A thought is with me sometimes, and I say,— Should the whole frame of earth by inward throes Be wrenched, or fire come down from far to scorch Her pleasant habitations, and dry up Old Ocean, in his bed left singed and bare, Yet would the living Presence still subsist Victorious, and composure would ensue, And kindlings like the morning—presage sure Of day returning and of life revived. But all the meditations of mankind, Yea, all the adamantine holds of truth By reason built, or passion, which itself Is highest reason in a soul sublime; The consecrated works of Bard and Sage, Sensuous or intellectual, wrought by men, Twin labourers and heirs of the same hopes; Where would they be? Oh! why hath not the Mind Some element to stamp her image on In nature somewhat nearer to her own? Why, gifted with such powers to send abroad Her spirit, must it lodge in shrines so frail? One day, when from my lips a like complaint Had fallen in presence of a studious friend, He with a smile made answer, that in truth 'Twas going far to seek disquietude; But on the front of his reproof confessed That he himself had oftentimes given way To kindred hauntings. Whereupon I told, That once in the stillness of a summer's noon, While I was seated in a rocky cave By the sea-side, perusing, so it chanced, The famous history of the errant knight Recorded by Cervantes, these same thoughts Beset me, and to height unusual rose, While listlessly I sate, and, having closed The book, had turned my eyes toward the wide sea. On poetry and geometric truth, And their high privilege of lasting life, From all internal injury exempt, I mused, upon these chiefly: and at length, My senses yielding to the sultry air, Sleep seized me, and I passed into a dream. I saw before me stretched a boundless plain Of sandy wilderness, all black and void, And as I looked around, distress and fear Came creeping over me, when at my side, Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared Upon a dromedary, mounted high. He seemed an Arab of the Bedouin tribes: A lance he bore, and underneath one arm A stone, and in the opposite hand a shell Of a surpassing brightness. At the sight Much I rejoiced, not doubting but a guide Was present, one who with unerring skill Would through the desert lead me; and while yet I looked and looked, self-questioned what this freight Which the new-comer carried through the waste Could mean, the Arab told me that the stone (To give it in the language of the dream) Was "Euclid's Elements;" and "This," said he, "Is something of more worth;" and at the word Stretched forth the shell, so beautiful in shape, In colour so resplendent, with command That I should hold it to my ear. I did so, And heard that instant in an unknown tongue, Which yet I understood, articulate sounds, A loud prophetic blast of harmony; An Ode, in passion uttered, which foretold Destruction to the children of the earth By deluge, now at hand. No sooner ceased The song, than the Arab with calm look declared That all would come to pass of which the voice Had given forewarning, and that he himself Was going then to bury those two books: The one that held acquaintance with the stars, And wedded soul to soul in purest bond Of reason, undisturbed by space or time; The other that was a god, yea many gods, Had voices more than all the winds, with power To exhilarate the spirit, and to soothe, Through every clime, the heart of human kind. While this was uttering, strange as it may seem, I wondered not, although I plainly saw The one to be a stone, the other a shell; Nor doubted once but that they both were books, Having a perfect faith in all that passed. Far stronger, now, grew the desire I felt To cleave unto this man; but when I prayed To share his enterprise, he hurried on Reckless of me: I followed, not unseen, For oftentimes he cast a backward look, Grasping his twofold treasure.—Lance in rest, He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now He, to my fancy, had become the knight Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight, But was an Arab of the desert too; Of these was neither, and was both at once. His countenance, meanwhile, grew more disturbed; And, looking backwards when he looked, mine eyes Saw, over half the wilderness diffused, A bed of glittering light: I asked the cause: "It is," said he, "the waters of the deep Gathering upon us;" quickening then the pace Of the unwieldy creature he bestrode, He left me: I called after him aloud; He heeded not; but, with his twofold charge Still in his grasp, before me, full in view, Went hurrying o'er the illimitable waste, With the fleet waters of a drowning world In chase of him; whereat I waked in terror, And saw the sea before me, and the book, In which I had been reading, at my side. Full often, taking from the world of sleep This Arab phantom, which I thus beheld, This semi-Quixote, I to him have given A substance, fancied him a living man, A gentle dweller in the desert, crazed By love and feeling, and internal thought Protracted among endless solitudes; Have shaped him wandering upon this quest! Nor have I pitied him; but rather felt Reverence was due to a being thus employed; And thought that, in the blind and awful lair Of such a madness, reason did lie couched. Enow there are on earth to take in charge Their wives, their children, and their virgin loves, Or whatsoever else the heart holds dear; Enow to stir for these; yea, will I say, Contemplating in soberness the approach Of an event so dire, by signs in earth Or heaven made manifest, that I could share That maniac's fond anxiety, and go Upon like errand. Oftentimes at least Me hath such strong enhancement overcome, When I have held a volume in my hand, Poor earthly casket of immortal verse, Shakespeare, or Milton, labourers divine! Great and benign, indeed, must be the power Of living nature, which could thus so long Detain me from the best of other guides And dearest helpers, left unthanked, unpraised, Even in the time of lisping infancy; And later down, in prattling childhood even, While I was travelling back among those days, How could I ever play an ingrate's part? Once more should I have made those bowers resound, By intermingling strains of thankfulness With their own thoughtless melodies; at least It might have well beseemed me to repeat Some simply fashioned tale, to tell again, In slender accents of sweet verse, some tale That did bewitch me then, and soothes me now. O Friend! O Poet! brother of my soul, Think not that I could pass along untouched By these remembrances. Yet wherefore speak? Why call upon a few weak words to say What is already written in the hearts Of all that breathe?—what in the path of all Drops daily from the tongue of every child, Wherever man is found? The trickling tear Upon the cheek of listening Infancy Proclaims it, and the insuperable look That drinks as if it never could be full. That portion of my story I shall leave There registered: whatever else of power Or pleasure sown, or fostered thus, may be Peculiar to myself, let that remain Where still it works, though hidden from all search Among the depths of time. Yet is it just That here, in memory of all books which lay Their sure foundations in the heart of man, Whether by native prose, or numerous verse, That in the name of all inspirèd souls— From Homer the great Thunderer, from the voice That roars along the bed of Jewish song, And that more varied and elaborate, Those trumpet-tones of harmony that shake Our shores in England,—from those loftiest notes Down to the low and wren-like warblings, made For cottagers and spinners at the wheel, And sun-burnt travellers resting their tired limbs, Stretched under wayside hedge-rows, ballad tunes, Food for the hungry ears of little ones, And of old men who have survived their joys— 'Tis just that in behalf of these, the works, And of the men that framed them, whether known, Or sleeping nameless in their scattered graves, That I should here assert their rights, attest Their honours, and should, once for all, pronounce Their benediction; speak of them as Powers For ever to be hallowed; only less, For what we are and what we may become, Than Nature's self, which is the breath of God, Or His pure Word by miracle revealed. Rarely and with reluctance would I stoop To transitory themes; yet I rejoice, And, by these thoughts admonished, will pour out Thanks with uplifted heart, that I was reared Safe from an evil which these days have laid Upon the children of the land, a pest That might have dried me up, body and soul. This verse is dedicate to Nature's self, And things that teach as Nature teaches: then, Oh! where had been the Man, the Poet where, Where had we been, we two, beloved Friend! If in the season of unperilous choice, In lieu of wandering, as we did, through vales Rich with indigenous produce, open ground Of Fancy, happy pastures ranged at will, We had been followed, hourly watched, and noosed, Each in his several melancholy walk Stringed like a poor man's heifer at its feed, Led through the lanes in forlorn servitude; Or rather like a stalled ox debarred From touch of growing grass, that may not taste A flower till it have yielded up its sweets A prelibation to the mower's scythe. Behold the parent hen amid her brood, Though fledged and feathered, and well pleased to part And straggle from her presence, still a brood, And she herself from the maternal bond Still undischarged; yet doth she little more Than move with them in tenderness and love, A centre to the circle which they make; And now and then, alike from need of theirs And call of her own natural appetites, She scratches, ransacks up the earth for food, Which they partake at pleasure. Early died My honoured Mother, she who was the heart And hinge of all our learnings and our loves: She left us destitute, and, as we might, Trooping together. Little suits it me To break upon the sabbath of her rest With any thought that looks at others' blame; Nor would I praise her but in perfect love. Hence am I checked: but let me boldly say, In gratitude, and for the sake of truth, Unheard by her, that she, not falsely taught, Fetching her goodness rather from times past, Than shaping novelties for times to come, Had no presumption, no such jealousy, Nor did by habit of her thoughts mistrust Our nature, but had virtual faith that He Who fills the mother's breast with innocent milk, Doth also for our nobler part provide, Under His great correction and control, As innocent instincts, and as innocent food; Or draws for minds that are left free to trust In the simplicities of opening life Sweet honey out of spurned or dreaded weeds. This was her creed, and therefore she was pure From anxious fear of error or mishap, And evil, overweeningly so called; Was not puffed up by false unnatural hopes, Nor selfish with unnecessary cares, Nor with impatience from the season asked More than its timely produce; rather loved The hours for what they are, than from regard Glanced on their promises in restless pride. Such was she—not from faculties more strong Than others have, but from the times, perhaps, And spot in which she lived, and through a grace Of modest meekness, simple-mindedness, A heart that found benignity and hope, Being itself benign. My drift I fear Is scarcely obvious; but, that common sense May try this modern system by its fruits, Leave let me take to place before her sight A specimen pourtrayed with faithful hand. Full early trained to worship seemliness, This model of a child is never known To mix in quarrels; that were far beneath Its dignity; with gifts he bubbles o'er As generous as a fountain; selfishness May not come near him, nor the little throng Of flitting pleasures tempt him from his path; The wandering beggars propagate his name, Dumb creatures find him tender as a nun, And natural or supernatural fear, Unless it leap upon him in a dream, Touches him not. To enhance the wonder, see How arch his notices, how nice his sense Of the ridiculous; not blind is he To the broad follies of the licensed world, Yet innocent himself withal, though shrewd, And can read lectures upon innocence; A miracle of scientific lore, Ships he can guide across the pathless sea, And tell you all their cunning; he can read The inside of the earth, and spell the stars; He knows the policies of foreign lands; Can string you names of districts, cities, towns, The whole world over, tight as beads of dew Upon a gossamer thread; he sifts, he weighs; All things are put to question; he must live Knowing that he grows wiser every day Or else not live at all, and seeing too Each little drop of wisdom as it falls Into the dimpling cistern of his heart: For this unnatural growth the trainer blame, Pity the tree.—Poor human vanity, Wert thou extinguished, little would be left Which he could truly love; but how escape? For, ever as a thought of purer, birth Rises to lead him toward a better clime, Some intermeddler still is on the watch To drive him back, and pound him, like a stray, Within the pinfold of his own conceit. Meanwhile old grandame earth is grieved to find The playthings, which her love designed for him, Unthought of: in their woodland beds the flowers Weep, and the river sides are all forlorn. Oh! give us once again the wishing cap Of Fortunatus, and the invisible coat Of Jack the Giant-killer, Robin Hood, And Sabra in the forest with St. George! The child, whose love is here, at least, doth reap One precious gain, that he forgets himself. These mighty workmen of our later age, Who, with a broad highway, have overbridged The froward chaos of futurity, Tamed to their bidding; they who have the skill To manage books, and things, and make them act On infant minds as surely as the sun Deals with a flower; the keepers of our time, The guides and wardens of our faculties, Sages who in their prescience would control All accidents, and to the very road Which they have fashioned would confine us down, Like engines; when will their presumption learn, That in the unreasoning progress of the world A wiser spirit is at work for us, A better eye than theirs, most prodigal Of blessings, and most studious of our good, Even in what seem our most unfruitful hours? There was a Boy: ye knew him well, ye cliffs And islands of Winander!—many a time At evening, when the earliest stars began To move along the edges of the hills, Rising or setting, would he stand alone Beneath the trees or by the glimmering lake, And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth Uplifted, he, as through an instrument, Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls, That they might answer him; and they would shout Across the watery vale, and shout again, Responsive to his call, with quivering peals, And long halloos and screams, and echoes loud, Redoubled and redoubled, concourse wild Of jocund din; and, when a lengthened pause Of silence came and baffled his best skill, Then sometimes, in that silence while he hung Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise Has carried far into his heart the voice Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene Would enter unawares into his mind, With all its solemn imagery, its rocks, Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received Into the bosom of the steady lake. This Boy was taken from his mates, and died In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old. Fair is the spot, most beautiful the vale Where he was born; the grassy churchyard hangs Upon a slope above the village school, And through that churchyard when my way has led On summer evenings, I believe that there A long half hour together I have stood Mute, looking at the grave in which he lies! Even now appears before the mind's clear eye That self-same village church; I see her sit (The thronèd Lady whom erewhile we hailed) On her green hill, forgetful of this Boy Who slumbers at her feet,—forgetful, too, Of all her silent neighbourhood of graves, And listening only to the gladsome sounds That, from the rural school ascending, play Beneath her and about her. May she long Behold a race of young ones like to those With whom I herded!—(easily, indeed, We might have fed upon a fatter soil Of arts and letters—but be that forgiven)— A race of real children; not too wise, Too learned, or too good; but wanton, fresh, And bandied up and down by love and hate; Not unresentful where self-justified; Fierce, moody, patient, venturous, modest, shy; Mad at their sports like withered leaves in winds; Though doing wrong and suffering, and full oft Bending beneath our life's mysterious weight Of pain, and doubt, and fear, yet yielding not In happiness to the happiest upon earth. Simplicity in habit, truth in speech, Be these the daily strengtheners of their minds; May books and Nature be their early joy! And knowledge, rightly honoured with that name— Knowledge not purchased by the loss of power! Well do I call to mind the very week When I was first intrusted to the care Of that sweet Valley; when its paths, its shores, And brooks were like a dream of novelty To my half-infant thoughts; that very week, While I was roving up and down alone, Seeking I knew not what, I chanced to cross One of those open fields, which, shaped like ears, Make green peninsulas on Esthwaite's Lake: Twilight was coming on, yet through the gloom Appeared distinctly on the opposite shore A heap of garments, as if left by one Who might have there been bathing. Long I watched, But no one owned them; meanwhile the calm lake Grew dark with all the shadows on its breast, And, now and then, a fish up-leaping snapped The breathless stillness. The succeeding day, Those unclaimed garments telling a plain tale Drew to the spot an anxious crowd; some looked In passive expectation from the shore, While from a boat others hung o'er the deep, Sounding with grappling irons and long poles. At last, the dead man, 'mid that beauteous scene Of trees and hills and water, bolt upright Rose, with his ghastly face, a spectre shape Of terror; yet no soul-debasing fear, Young as I was, a child not nine years old, Possessed me, for my inner eye had seen Such sights before, among the shining streams Of faëry land, the forest of romance. Their spirit hallowed the sad spectacle With decoration of ideal grace; A dignity, a smoothness, like the works Of Grecian art, and purest poesy. A precious treasure had I long possessed, A little yellow, canvas-covered book, A slender abstract of the Arabian tales; And, from companions in a new abode, When first I learnt, that this dear prize of mine Was but a block hewn from a mighty quarry— That there were four large volumes, laden all With kindred matter, 'twas to me, in truth, A promise scarcely earthly. Instantly, With one not richer than myself, I made A covenant that each should lay aside The moneys he possessed, and hoard up more, Till our joint savings had amassed enough To make this book our own. Through several months, In spite of all temptation, we preserved Religiously that vow; but firmness failed, Nor were we ever masters of our wish. And when thereafter to my father's house The holidays returned me, there to find That golden store of books which I had left, What joy was mine! How often in the course Of those glad respites, though a soft west wind Ruffled the waters to the angler's wish For a whole day together, have I lain Down by thy side, O Derwent! murmuring stream, On the hot stones, and in the glaring sun, And there have read, devouring as I read, Defrauding the day's glory, desperate! Till with a sudden bound of smart reproach, Such as an idler deals with in his shame, I to the sport betook myself again. A gracious spirit o'er this earth presides, And o'er the heart of man: invisibly It comes, to works of unreproved delight, And tendency benign, directing those Who care not, know not, think not what they do. The tales that charm away the wakeful night In Araby, romances; legends penned For solace by dim light of monkish lamps; Fictions, for ladies of their love, devised By youthful squires; adventures endless, spun By the dismantled warrior in old age, Out of the bowels of those very schemes In which his youth did first extravagate; These spread like day, and something in the shape Of these will live till man shall be no more. Dumb yearnings, hidden appetites, are ours, And they must have their food. Our childhood sits, Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne That hath more power than all the elements. I guess not what this tells of Being past, Nor what it augurs of the life to come; But so it is, and, in that dubious hour, That twilight when we first begin to see This dawning earth, to recognise, expect, And in the long probation that ensues, The time of trial, ere we learn to live In reconcilement with our stinted powers; To endure this state of meagre vassalage, Unwilling to forego, confess, submit, Uneasy and unsettled, yoke-fellows To custom, mettlesome, and not yet tamed And humbled down; oh! then we feel, we feel, We know where we have friends. Ye dreamers, then, Forgers of daring tales! we bless you then, Impostors, drivellers, dotards, as the ape Philosophy will call you: then we feel With what, and how great might ye are in league, Who make our wish, our power, our thought a deed, An empire, a possession,—ye whom time And seasons serve; all Faculties to whom Earth crouches, the elements are potter's clay, Space like a heaven filled up with northern lights, Here, nowhere, there, and everywhere at once. Relinquishing this lofty eminence For ground, though humbler, not the less a tract Of the same isthmus, which our spirits cross In progress from their native continent To earth and human life, the Song might dwell On that delightful time of growing youth, When craving for the marvellous gives way To strengthening love for things that we have seen; When sober truth and steady sympathies, Offered to notice by less daring pens, Take firmer hold of us, and words themselves Move us with conscious pleasure. I am sad At thought of raptures now for ever flown; Almost to tears I sometimes could be sad To think of, to read over, many a page, Poems withal of name, which at that time Did never fail to entrance me, and are now Dead in my eyes, dead as a theatre Fresh emptied of spectators. Twice five years Or less I might have seen, when first my mind With conscious pleasure opened to the charm Of words in tuneful order, found them sweet For their own sakes, a passion, and a power; And phrases pleased me chosen for delight, For pomp, or love. Oft, in the public roads Yet unfrequented, while the morning light Was yellowing the hill tops, I went abroad With a dear friend, and for the better part Of two delightful hours we strolled along By the still borders of the misty lake, Repeating favourite verses with one voice, Or conning more, as happy as the birds That round us chaunted. Well might we be glad, Lifted above the ground by airy fancies, More bright than madness or the dreams of wine; And, though full oft the objects of our love Were false, and in their splendour overwrought, Yet was there surely then no vulgar power Working within us,—nothing less, in truth, Than that most noble attribute of man, Though yet untutored and inordinate, That wish for something loftier, more adorned, Than is the common aspect, daily garb, Of human life. What wonder, then, if sounds Of exultation echoed through the groves! For, images, and sentiments, and words, And everything encountered or pursued In that delicious world of poesy, Kept holiday, a never-ending show, With music, incense, festival, and flowers! Here must we pause: this only let me add, From heart-experience, and in humblest sense Of modesty, that he, who in his youth A daily wanderer among woods and fields With living Nature hath been intimate, Not only in that raw unpractised time Is stirred to extasy, as others are, By glittering verse; but further, doth receive, In measure only dealt out to himself, Knowledge and increase of enduring joy From the great Nature that exists in works Of mighty Poets. Visionary power Attends the motions of the viewless winds, Embodied in the mystery of words: There, darkness makes abode, and all the host Of shadowy things work endless changes,—there, As in a mansion like their proper home, Even forms and substances are circumfused By that transparent veil with light divine, And, through the turnings intricate of verse, Present themselves as objects recognised, In flashes, and with glory not their own. [Contents—The Prelude] [Main Contents] | [A] [B] [C] [D] [E] [F] [G] [H] [I] [K] [L] [M] [N] [O] [P] [Q] [R] [S] [T] [U] | 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150 155 160 165 170 175 180 185 190 195 200 205 210 215 220 225 230 235 240 245 250 255 260 265 270 275 280 285 290 295 300 305 310 315 320 325 330 335 340 345 350 355 360 365 370 375 380 385 390 395 400 405 410 415 420 425 430 435 440 445 450 455 460 465 470 475 480 485 490 495 500 505 510 515 520 525 530 535 540 545 550 555 560 565 570 575 580 585 590 595 600 605 |
[Footnote A:] This quotation I am unable to trace.—Ed.
[return to footnote mark]
[Footnote B:] Compare Emily Bronte's statement of the same, in the last verse she wrote:
'Though Earth and Man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.
There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that His might could render void;
Thou—Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.'
"Because she would then become farther and farther removed from the source of essential life and being, diffused instead of concentrated."
(William Davies).—Ed.
[return]
[Footnote D:] Mr. A. J. Duffield, the translator of Don Quixote, wrote me the following letter on Wordsworth and Cervantes, which I transcribe in full.
"So far as I can learn Wordsworth had not read any critical work on Don Quixote before he wrote the fifth book of The Prelude[a], nor for that matter had any criticism of the master-piece of Cervantes then appeared. Yet Wordsworth,
'by patient exercise
Of study and hard thought,'has given us not only a most poetical insight into the real nature of the 'Illustrious Hidalgo of La Mancha'; he has shown us that it was a nature compacted of the madman and the poet, and this in language so appropriate, that the consideration of it cannot fail to give pleasure to all who have found a reason for weighing Wordsworth's words.
"He demands'Oh! why hath not the Mind
Some element to stamp her image on?'then falls asleep, 'his senses yielding to the sultry air,' and he sees before him
'stretched a boundless plain
Of sandy wilderness, all black and void,
And as I looked around, distress and fear
Came creeping over me, when at my side,
Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared
Upon a dromedary, mounted high.
He seemed an Arab ...'Here we have the plains of Montiel, and the poet realising all that Don Quixote felt on that day of July, 'the hottest of the year,' when he first set out on his quest and met with nothing worth recording.
'The uncouth shape'
is of course the Don himself,
the 'dromedary'
is Rozinante, and
the 'Arab'
doubtless is Cid Hamete Benengeli.
"Taking such an one for the guide,'who with unerring skill
Would through the desert lead me,'is a most sweet play of humour like to the lambent flame of his whose satire was as a summer breath, and who smiled all the time he wrote, although he wrote chiefly in a prison.
'The loud prophetic blast of harmony'
is doubtless a continuation of this humour, down to the lines
'Nor doubted once but that they both were books,
Having a perfect faith in all that passed.'"Our poet now becomes positive,
'Lance in rest,
He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now
He, to my fancy, had become the knight
Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight
But was an Arab of the desert too,
Of these was neither, and was both at once.'This is absolutely true, and was one of the earliest complaints made a century and a half ago, when Spaniards began to criticise their one great book. They could not tell at times whether Don Quixote was speaking, or Cervantes, or Cid Hamete Benengeli.
'A bed of glittering light'
is a delightful description of the attitude of Don Quixote's mind towards external nature while passing through the desert.
'It is,' said he, 'the waters of the deep
Gathering upon us.'"It was, of course, only the mirage; but this he changed to suit his own purpose into the 'waters of the deep,' as he changed the row of Castilian wind-mills into giants, and the roar of the fulling mills into the din of war.
"Wordsworth is now awake from his dream, but turning all he saw in it into a reality, as only the poet can, he feels that'Reverence was due to a being thus employed;
And thought that, in the blind and awful lair
Of such a madness, reason did lie couched.'Here again is a most profound description of the creation of Cervantes. Don Quixote was mad, but his was a madness that proceeded from that 'blind and awful lair,' a disordered stomach, rather than from an injured brain. Had Don Quixote not forsaken the exercise of the chase and early rising, if he had not taken to eating chestnuts at night, cold spiced meat, together with onions and 'ollas podridas', then proceeding to read exciting, unnatural tales of love and war, he would not have gone mad.
"But his reason only lay 'couched,' not overthrown. Only give him a dose of the balsam of Fierabras, his reason shall spring out of its lair, like a lion from out its hiding-place, as indeed it did; and you then have that wonderful piece of rhetoric, which describes the army of Alifanfaron in the eighteenth chapter, Part I.
"There are many other things worthy of note, such as'crazed
By love and feeling, and internal thought
Protracted among endless solitudes,'all of which are 'fit epithets blessed in the marriage of pure words,' which the author of The Prelude, without any special learning, or personal knowledge of Spain, has given us, and are so striking as to compel us once again to go to Wordsworth and say, 'we do not all understand thee yet, not all that thou hast given us.'
Very truly yours, A. J. Duffield."
'by patient exercise
Of study and hard thought,'
'Oh! why hath not the Mind
Some element to stamp her image on?'
'stretched a boundless plain
Of sandy wilderness, all black and void,
And as I looked around, distress and fear
Came creeping over me, when at my side,
Close at my side, an uncouth shape appeared
Upon a dromedary, mounted high.
He seemed an Arab ...'
'The uncouth shape'
the 'dromedary'
the 'Arab'
'who with unerring skill
Would through the desert lead me,'
'The loud prophetic blast of harmony'
'Nor doubted once but that they both were books,
Having a perfect faith in all that passed.'
'Lance in rest,
He rode, I keeping pace with him; and now
He, to my fancy, had become the knight
Whose tale Cervantes tells; yet not the knight
But was an Arab of the desert too,
Of these was neither, and was both at once.'
'A bed of glittering light'
'It is,' said he, 'the waters of the deep
Gathering upon us.'
'Reverence was due to a being thus employed;
And thought that, in the blind and awful lair
Of such a madness, reason did lie couched.'
'crazed
By love and feeling, and internal thought
Protracted among endless solitudes,'
Ed.
[return]
[Footnote E:] Compare Paradise Lost, v. 1. 150:
'In prose or numerous verse.'
Ed.
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[Footnote F:] Wordsworth's earliest teachers, before he was sent to Hawkshead School, were his mother and the Rev. Mr. Gilbanks at Cockermouth, and Mrs. Anne Birkett at Penrith. His mother and Dame Birkett taught him to read, and trained his infant memory. Mr. Gilbanks also gave him elementary instruction; while his father made him commit to memory portions of the English poets. At Hawkshead he read English literature, learned Latin and Mathematics, and wrote both English and Latin verse. There was little or no method, and no mechanical or artificial drill in his early education. Though he was taught both languages and mathematics he was left as free to range the "happy pastures" of literature, as to range the Hawkshead woods on autumn nights in pursuit of woodcocks. It is likely that the reference in the above passage is to his education both in childhood and in youth, although specially to the former. In his Autobiographical Memoranda, Wordsworth says,
"Of my earliest days at School I have little to say, but that they were very happy ones, chiefly because I was left at liberty, then and in the vacations, to read whatever books I liked. For example, I read all Fielding's works, Don Quixote, Gil Blas, and any part of Swift that I liked; Gulliver's Travels and the Tale of a Tub being both much to my taste."
As Wordsworth alludes to Coleridge's education, along with his own, "in the season of unperilous choice," the reference is probably to Coleridge's early time at the vicarage of Ottery St. Mary's, Devonshire, and at the Grammar School there, as well as at Christ's Hospital in London, where (with Charles Lamb as school-companion) he was as enthusiastic in his exploits in the New River, as he was an eager student of books.—Ed.
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[Footnote G:] Mrs. Wordsworth died at Penrith, in the year 1778, the poet's eighth year.—Ed.
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[Footnote H:] Compare, in [Volume 1 link: [Expostulation and Reply]] (vol. i. p. 273),
'Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum
Of things for ever speaking,
That nothing of itself will come,
But we must still be seeking?'
Ed.
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[Footnote I:] See the Fenwick note to the poem, [Volume 2 link: [There was a Boy]], vol. ii. p. 57, and Wordsworth's reference to his schoolfellow William Raincock.—Ed.
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[Footnote K:] Hawkshead Grammar School.—Ed.
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[Footnote L:] Lines 364-97 were first published in "Lyrical Ballads," 1800, and appeared in all the subsequent collective editions of the poems, standing first in the group of "Poems of the Imagination."
The grave of this "immortal boy" cannot be identified. His name, and everything about him except what is here recorded, is unknown; but he was, in all likelihood, a school companion of Wordsworth's at Hawkshead.
'And through that churchyard when my way has led
On summer evenings.'
One may localize the above description almost anywhere at Hawkshead—Ed.
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[Footnote M:] Hawkshead School, in which Wordsworth was taught for eight years—from 1778 to 1786—was founded by Archbishop Sandys of York, in 1585, and the building is still very much as it was in Wordsworth's time. The main school-room is on the ground floor. One small chamber on the first floor was used, in the end of last century, by the head master, as a private class-room, for teaching a few advanced pupils. In another is a small library, formed in part by the donations of the scholars; it having been a custom for each pupil to present a volume on leaving the school, or to send one afterwards. Very probably one of the volumes now in the library was presented by Wordsworth. There are several which were presented by his school-fellows, during the years in which Wordsworth was at Hawkshead. The master, in 1877, promised me that he would search through his somewhat musty treasures, to see if he could discover a book with the poet's autograph; but I never heard of his success. On the wall of the room containing the library is a tablet, recording the names of several masters. There also, in an old oak chest, is kept the original charter of the school. The oak benches downstairs are covered with the names or initials of the boys, deeply cut; and, amongst them, the name of William Wordsworth—but not those of his brothers Richard, John, or Christopher—may be seen. For further details as to the Hawkshead School, see the Life of the Poet in this edition. Towards the close of last century, when Wordsworth and his three brothers were educated there, the school was one of the best educational institutions in the north of England.—Ed.
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[Footnote N:] Compare in the lines beginning ["She was a Phantom of delight"] p. 2:
'Creature not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food.'
Ed.
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[Footnote O:] Compare [book iv.] ll. 50 and 383, with relative notes—Ed.
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[Footnote P:] Compare in [Fidelity], p. 45:
'There sometimes doth a leaping fish
Send through the tarn a lonely cheer.'
Ed.
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[Footnote Q:] Compare the Ode, Intimations of Immortality, stanza v.—Ed.
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[Footnote R:] Compare, in [Volume 2 link: [Tintern Abbey]], vol. ii. p.54:
'That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures.'
And in the Ode, Intimations of Immortality, vol. viii.:
'What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight.'
Ed.
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[Footnote S:] This friend of his boyhood, with whom Wordsworth spent these "delightful hours," is as unknown as is the immortal Boy of Windermere, who blew "mimic hootings to the silent owls," and who sleeps in the churchyard "above the village school" of Hawkshead, and the Lucy of the Goslar poems. Compare, however, p. 163. Wordsworth may refer to John Fleming of Rayrigg, with whom he used to take morning walks round Esthwaite:
'... five miles
Of pleasant wandering ...'
Ed.
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[Footnote T:] Esthwaite.—Ed.
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[Footnote U:] Probably they were passages from Goldsmith, or Pope, or writers of their school. The verses which he wrote upon the completion of the second century of the foundation of the school were, as he himself tells us, "a tame imitation of Pope's versification, and a little in his style."—Ed.
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[Sub-Footnote a:] Wordsworth studied Spanish during the winter he spent at Orleans (1792). Don Quixote was one of the books he had read when at the Hawkshead school.—Ed.
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[Contents—The Prelude]
[Main Contents]