"A LITTLE ONWARD LEND THY GUIDING HAND"
Composed 1816.—Published 1820
[The complaint in my eyes, which gave occasion to this address to my daughter, first showed itself as a consequence of inflammation, caught at the top of Kirkstone, when I was over-heated by having carried up the ascent my eldest son, a lusty infant. Frequently has the disease recurred since, leaving my eyes in a state which has often prevented my reading for months, and makes me at this day incapable of bearing without injury any strong light by day or night. My acquaintance with books has therefore been far short of my wishes; and on this account, to acknowledge the services daily and hourly done me by my family and friends, this note is written.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
"A little onward lend thy guiding hand
To these dark steps, a little further on!"[CD]
—What trick of memory to my voice hath brought
This mournful iteration? For though Time,
The Conqueror, crowns the Conquered, on this brow
Planting his favourite silver diadem,
Nor he, nor minister of his—intent
To run before him, hath enrolled me yet,
Though not unmenaced, among those who lean
Upon a living staff, with borrowed sight.
—O my own Dora, my belovèd child![209][CE]
Should that day come—but hark! the birds salute
The cheerful dawn, brightening for me the east;
For me, thy natural leader, once again
Impatient to conduct thee, not as erst
A tottering infant, with compliant stoop
From flower to flower supported; but to curb
Thy nymph-like step swift bounding o'er the lawn,[CF]
Along the loose rocks, or the slippery verge
Of foaming torrents.[210]—From thy orisons
Come forth; and, while the morning air is yet
Transparent as the soul of innocent youth,
Let me, thy happy guide, now point thy way,
And now precede thee, winding to and fro,
Till we by perseverance gain the top
Of some smooth ridge, whose brink precipitous
Kindles intense desire for powers withheld
From this corporeal frame; whereon who stands,
Is seized with strong incitement to push forth
His arms, as swimmers use, and plunge—dread thought,
For pastime plunge—into the "abrupt abyss,"[CG]
Where ravens spread their plumy vans, at ease!
And yet more gladly thee would I conduct
Through woods and spacious forests,—to behold
There, how the Original of human art,
Heaven-prompted Nature, measures and erects
Her temples, fearless for the stately work,
Though waves, to every breeze,[211] its high-arched roof,
And storms the pillars rock. But we such schools
Of reverential awe will chiefly seek
In the still summer noon, while beams of light,
Reposing here, and in the aisles beyond
Traceably gliding through the dusk, recal
To mind the living presences of nuns;
A gentle, pensive, white-robed sisterhood,
Whose saintly radiance mitigates the gloom
Of those terrestrial fabrics, where they serve,
To Christ, the Sun of righteousness, espoused.
Now also shall the page of classic lore,
To these glad eyes from bondage freed, again
Lie open; and the book of Holy Writ,
Again unfolded, passage clear shall yield
To heights more glorious still, and into shades
More awful, where, advancing hand in hand,
We may be taught, O Darling of my care!
To calm the affections, elevate the soul,
And consecrate our lives to truth and love.[212]
VARIANTS:
[209] 1850.
1820.
—O my Antigone, beloved child!
[210] 1837.
1827.
. . . torrent . . .
[211] 1837.
1820.
Though waves in every breeze . . .
[212] 1827.
Re-open now thy everlasting gates,
Thou Fane of Holy Writ! ye classic Domes,
To these glad orbs from darksome bondage freed,
Unfold again your portals! Passage lies
Through you to heights more glorious still, and shades
More awful, where this Darling of my care,
Advancing with me hand in hand, may learn,
Without forsaking a too earnest world,
To calm the affections, elevate the soul,
And consecrate her life to truth and love.
FOOTNOTES:
[CD] The opening lines of Milton's Samson Agonistes. Compare also The Wanderings of Cain (canto ii. l. 1), by S. T. Coleridge: "A little farther, O my father, yet a little farther, and we shall come into the open moonlight." ... "Lead on, my child!" said Cain; "guide me, little child!"—Ed.
[CE] Dora Wordsworth died in 1847, a loss which cast a gloom over her father's remaining years; and it is not without interest that in the last revision of the text of his poems, in the year of his own death, he substituted
O my own Dora, my belovèd child!
for the earlier reading,
Ed.
O my Antigone, beloved child!
[CF] Compare in the lines on Lucy, beginning, "Three years she grew in sun and shower" (vol. ii. p. 81)—
She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs.
[CG] Compare Paradise Lost, book ii. l. 409.—Ed.