TO ——,
On her first Ascent to the Summit of Helvellyn
Composed 1816.—Published 1820.
[Written at Rydal Mount. The lady was Miss Blackett, then residing with Mr. Montagu Burgoyne at Fox-Ghyll. We were tempted to remain too long upon the mountain; and I, imprudently, with the hope of shortening the way led her among the crags and down a steep slope which entangled us in difficulties that were met by her with much spirit and courage.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
Inmate of a mountain-dwelling,
Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed
From the watch-towers of Helvellyn;
Awed, delighted, and amazed!
Potent was the spell that bound thee
Not unwilling to obey:[213]
For[214] blue Ether's arms, flung round thee,
Stilled the pantings of dismay.
Lo! the dwindled woods and meadows;
What a vast abyss is there!
Lo! the clouds, the solemn shadows,
And the glistenings—heavenly fair!
And a record of commotion
Which a thousand ridges yield;
Ridge, and gulf, and distant ocean
Gleaming like a silver shield!
Maiden! now take flight;—inherit[215]
Alps or Andes—they are thine!
With the morning's roseate Spirit,
Sweep their length of snowy line;
Or survey their[216] bright dominions
In the gorgeous colours drest
Flung from off the purple pinions,
Evening spreads throughout the west![217]
Thine are all the coral[218] fountains
Warbling in each sparry vault[219]
Of the untrodden lunar mountains;
Listen to their songs!—or halt,
To Niphates' top invited,[CH]
Whither spiteful Satan steered;
Or descend where the ark alighted,
When the green earth re-appeared;
For the power of hills is on thee,
As was witnessed through thine eye
Then, when old Helvellyn won thee
To confess their majesty!
With these stanzas to Miss Blackett, compare those addressed by Wordsworth to his sister, published in 1807, under the title To a Young Lady, who had been reproached for taking Long Walks in the Country; and the poem entitled Louisa, after accompanying her on a Mountain Excursion, also referring to his sister (vol. ii. pp. 362, 365).—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[213] 1827.
ms. and 1820.
In the moment of dismay,
[214] 1832.
1820.
While . . .
[215] 1845.
ms. and 1820.
—Take thy flight;—possess, inherit
1836.
Now—take flight;—possess, inherit
[216] 1836.
1820.
. . . the . . .
ms.
. . . thy . . .
[217] 1820.
Or adopt the purple pinions
Evening spreads throughout the west,
And survey thy new dominions
In that bright reflection drest.
[218] 1832.
1820.
. . . choral . . .
[219] 1820.
ms.
. . . sparkling vault
FOOTNOTE:
[CH] A mountain in Asia, dividing Armenia from Assyria, whence the river Tigris has its source.
Satan, bowing low,
. . . . . .
Throws his steep flight in many an aery wheel,
Nor staid till on Niphates' top he lights.
Ed.
Paradise Lost, book iii. ll. 736-742.
1817
The year 1817 was not specially productive of new poems. They may be arranged thus, The Vernal Ode, The Ode to Lycoris, its Sequel, The Longest Day, The Pass of Kirkstone, Hints from the Mountains, and the Lament of Mary Queen of Scots.
VERNAL ODE[220]
Composed 1817.—Published 1820
[Composed at Rydal Mount, to place in view the immortality of succession where immortality is denied, as far as we know, to the individual creature.—I. F.][CI]
Rerum Natura tota est nusquam magis quam in minimis.
Plin. Nat. Hist.[CJ]
This Vernal Ode was first published in the volume entitled "The River Duddon, a series of Sonnets: Vaudracour and Julia: and other poems. To which is annexed, a Topographical Description of the Country of the Lakes, in the north of England." In that volume its title was Ode.—1817. In 1820 it was placed among the "Poems of the Imagination." Its title was merely Ode, and in the table of contents it was called "Beneath the Concave"; the page heading "Vernal Ode" being given to it on the last three of its six pages. In 1827, and 1832, it was transferred to the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." In 1836 it was returned to the class of "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
I
Beneath the concave of an April sky,
When all the fields with freshest green were dight,
Appeared, in presence of the[221] spiritual eye
That aids or supersedes our grosser sight,
The form and rich habiliments of One
Whose countenance bore resemblance to the sun,
When it reveals, in evening majesty,
Features half lost amid their own pure light.
Poised like a weary cloud, in middle air[222]
He hung,—then floated with angelic ease
(Softening that bright effulgence by degrees)
Till he had reached a summit sharp and bare,[223]
Where oft the venturous heifer drinks the noontide[224] breeze.
Upon the apex of that lofty cone
Alighted, there the Stranger stood alone;
Fair as a gorgeous Fabric of the east
Suddenly raised by some enchanter's power,
Where nothing was; and firm as some old Tower
Of Britain's realm, whose leafy crest
Waves high, embellished by a gleaming shower!
II
Beneath the shadow of his purple wings
Rested a golden harp;—he touched the strings;
And, after prelude of unearthly sound
Poured through the echoing hills around,
He sang—
"No wintry desolations,
Scorching blight or noxious dew,
Affect my native habitations;
Buried in glory, far beyond the scope
Of man's inquiring gaze, but to his hope
Imaged, though faintly, in the hue[225]
Profound of night's ethereal blue;
And in the aspect of each radiant orb:—
Some fixed, some wandering with no timid curb:
But wandering star[226] and fixed, to mortal eye,
Blended in absolute serenity,
And free from semblance of decline;—
Fresh as if Evening brought their natal hour,
Her darkness splendour gave, her silence power,
To testify of Love and Grace divine.[227]
III[CK]
40
What if those bright fires
Shine subject to decay,
Sons haply of extinguished sires,
Themselves to lose their light, or pass away
Like clouds before the wind,
Be thanks poured out to Him whose hand bestows,
Nightly, on human kind
That vision[228] of endurance and repose.
—And though to every draught of vital breath
Renewed throughout the bounds of earth or ocean,
The melancholy gates of Death
Respond with sympathetic motion;[229]
Though all that feeds on nether air,
Howe'er magnificent or fair,
Grows but to perish, and entrust
Its ruins to their kindred dust:
Yet, by the Almighty's[230] ever-during care,
Her procreant vigils[231] Nature keeps
Amid the unfathomable deeps;
And saves the peopled[232] fields of earth
From dread[233] of emptiness or dearth.
Thus, in their stations, lifting tow'rd[234] the sky
The foliaged head in cloud-like majesty,
The shadow-casting race of trees survive:
Thus, in the train of Spring, arrive
Sweet flowers;—what living eye hath viewed
Their myriads?[235]—endlessly renewed,
Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray;
Where'er the subtle[236] waters stray;
Wherever sportive breezes[237] bend
Their course, or genial showers descend![238]
Mortals, rejoice![239] the very Angels quit
Their mansions unsusceptible of change,
Amid your pleasant bowers to sit,
And through your sweet vicissitudes to range!"
IV
75
O, nursed at happy distance from the cares
Of a too-anxious world, mild pastoral Muse!
That, to the sparkling crown Urania wears,
And to her sister Clio's laurel wreath,[CL]
Prefer'st a garland culled from purple heath,
Or blooming thicket moist with morning dews;
Was such bright Spectacle vouchsafed to me?
And was it granted to the simple ear
Of thy contented Votary
Such melody to hear!
Him rather suits it, side by side with thee,
Wrapped in a fit of[240] pleasing indolence,
While thy tired lute hangs on the hawthorn-tree,
To lie and listen—till o'er-drowsèd sense
Sinks,[241] hardly conscious of the influence—
To the soft murmur of the vagrant Bee.
—A slender sound! yet hoary Time
Doth to the Soul exalt it with the chime
Of all his years;—a company
Of ages coming, ages gone;
(Nations from before them sweeping,
Regions in destruction steeping,)
But every awful note in unison[242]
With that faint utterance, which tells
Of treasure sucked from buds and bells,
For the pure keeping of those waxen cells;[243]
Where She—a statist prudent to confer
Upon the common[244] weal; a warrior bold,
Radiant all over with unburnished gold,
And armed with living spear for mortal fight;[245]
A cunning forager
That spreads no waste; a social builder; one
In whom all busy offices unite
With all fine functions that afford delight—
Safe through the winter[246] storm in quiet dwells!
V
110
And is She brought within the power
Of vision?—o'er this tempting flower
Hovering until the petals stay
Her flight, and take its voice away!—
Observe[247] each wing!—a tiny van!
The structure of her laden thigh,
How fragile! yet of ancestry
Mysteriously remote and high;
High as the imperial front of man;
The roseate bloom on woman's cheek;
The soaring eagle's curvèd beak;
The white plumes of the floating swan;
Old as the tiger's paw, the lion's mane
Ere shaken by that mood of stern disdain
At which the desert trembles.—Humming Bee!
Thy sting was needless then, perchance unknown,
The seeds of malice were not sown;
All creatures met in peace, from fierceness free,
And no pride blended with their dignity.[248]
—Tears had not broken from their source;
Nor Anguish strayed from her Tartarean den;
The golden years maintained a course
Not undiversified though smooth and even;
We were not mocked with glimpse and shadow then,
Bright Seraphs mixed familiarly with men;
And earth and stars composed a universal heaven!
A MS. copy of this Ode commences with the following stanza, and goes on to "And what if his presiding breath," stanza iii. text of 1820.—Ed.
Forsake me not, Urania, but when Ev'n
Fades into night, resume the enraptur'd song
That shadowed forth the immensity of Heav'n
In music—uttered surely without wrong
(For 'twas thy work) though here the Listener lay
Couch'd on green herbage 'mid the warmth of May
—A parting promise makes a bright farewell:
Empow'r'd to wait for thy return
Voice of the Heav'ns I will not mourn;
Content that holy peace and mute remembrance dwell
Within the bosom of the chorded shell
Tuned 'mid those seats of love and joy, concealed
By day, by night imperfectly revealed;
Thy native mansions that endure
Beyond their present seeming—pure
From taint of dissolution or decay.
—No blights, no wintry desolations,
Affect those blissful habitations,
Built such as hope might gather from the hue
Profound of the celestial blue,
And from the aspect of each radiant orb,
Some fix'd, some wandering, with no timid curb,
Yet both permitted to proclaim
Their Maker's glory with unaltered frame. Ed.
VARIANTS:
[220] 1827.
ODE.—1817. 1820.
1st Edition.
1820. ODE.
2nd Edition.
[221] 1836.
1820.
. . . that . . .
[222] 1827.
1820.
Poised in the middle region of the air
[223] 1827.
1820.
Until he reached a rock, of summit bare,
[224] 1827.
1820.
. . . summer . . .
[225] 1836.
Of man's enquiring gaze, and imaged to his hope
(Alas, how faintly!) in the hue
1827.
. . . but . . .
[226] 1827.
1820.
. . . orb . . .
[227] 1827.
. . . of decline;—
So wills eternal Love, with Power divine.
[228] 1840.
1836.
—That image . . .
[229] 1827.
. . . divine.
And what if his presiding breath
Impart a sympathetic motion
Unto the gates of life and death,
Throughout the bounds of earth and ocean;
[230] 1820.
ms.
Yet by this . . .
[231] 1820.
ms.
. . . cradle . . .
[232] 1820.
ms.
. . . changeful . . .
[233] 1820.
ms.
. . . fear . . .
[234] 1820.
ms.
. . . tow'rds . . .
[235] 1820.
ms.
. . . numbers? . . .
[236] 1827.
ms. and 1820.
. . . joyous . . .
[237] 1836.
ms. and 1820.
. . . zephyrs . . .
[238] The stanza ends here. ms.
[239] 1827.
1820.
Rejoice, O men! . . .
[240] 1820.
. . . morning dews;
Oft side by side with some lov'd Votary
Wrapp'd like thyself in . . .
[241] 1820.
. . . hung on the hawthorn tree
Hast thou sate listening till o'er-drowsèd sense
Sank . . .
[242] 1820.
. . . ages gone,
{Yet}
{But} each and all in unison
[243] 1820.
. . . buds and bells
And stored with frugal care in waxen cells.
(end of stanza)
[244] 1832.
1820.
. . . public . . .
[245] 1820.
. . . buds and bells,
To travel through the pathless air,
Or who consigned with frugal care
To the pure keeping of those waxen cells,
Where, She—a valiant soldier if need were—
[246] 1820.
ms.
. . . wintry . . .
[247] 1820.
. . . by this tempting flower
Observe . . .
[248] 1820.
ms.
. . . majesty.
FOOTNOTES:
[CI] Compare George Eliot's "O may I join the choir invisible" (Poems, p. 240).—Ed.
[CJ] See Pliny's Historia Naturalis, book xi. chap. 1.—Ed.
[CK] The first eight lines of stanza iii. were added in the edition of 1836; and in that of 1832 stanzas ii. and iii. were included in a single one. They were again separated in 1836.—Ed.
[CL] Urania (the heavenly muse) was usually represented as crowned with stars, and holding a globe in her hand; while Clio was crowned with laurel.—Ed.