TO THE SAME
Composed 1817.—Published 1820
[This, as well as the preceding and the two that follow,[CR] were composed in front of Rydal Mount, and during my walks in the neighbourhood. Nine-tenths of my verses have been murmured out in the open air: and here let me repeat what I believe has already appeared in print. One day a stranger having walked round the garden and grounds of Rydal Mount asked one of the female servants, who happened to be at the door, permission to see her master's study. "This," said she, leading him forward, "is my master's library where he keeps his books, but his study is out of doors." After a long absence from home it has more than once happened that some one of my cottage neighbours has said—"Well, there he is; we are glad to hear him booing about again." Once more in excuse for so much egotism let me say, these notes are written for my familiar friends, and at their earnest request. Another time a gentleman whom James had conducted through the grounds asked him what kind of plants throve best there: after a little consideration he answered—"Laurels." "That is," said the stranger, "as it should be; don't you know that the laurel is the emblem of poetry, and that poets used on public occasions to be crowned with it?" James stared when the question was first put, but was doubtless much pleased with the information.—I.F.]
One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.
Enough of climbing toil!—Ambition treads
Here, as 'mid[252] busier scenes, ground steep and rough,
Or slippery even to peril![253] and each step,
As we for most uncertain recompence
Mount toward the empire of the fickle clouds,
Each weary step, dwarfing the world below,[254]
Induces, for its old familiar sights,
Unacceptable feelings of contempt,
With wonder mixed—that Man could e'er be tied,
In anxious bondage, to such nice array
And formal fellowship of pretty things!
—Oh! 'tis the heart that magnifies this life,
Making a truth and beauty of her own;
And moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades,
And gurgling rills, assist her in the work
More efficaciously than realms outspread,
As in a map, before the adventurer's gaze—
Ocean and Earth contending for regard.
The umbrageous woods are left—how far beneath!
But lo! where darkness seems to guard the mouth
Of yon wild cave, whose jaggèd brows are fringed
With flaccid threads of ivy, in the still
And sultry air, depending motionless.
Yet cool the space within, and not uncheered
(As whoso enters shall ere long perceive)
By stealthy influx of the timid day
Mingling with night, such twilight to compose
As Numa loved; when, in the Egerian grot,
From the sage Nymph appearing at his wish,
He gained whate'er a regal mind might ask,
Or need, of counsel breathed through lips divine.[CS]
Long as the heat shall rage, let that dim cave
Protect us, there deciphering as we may
Diluvian records; or the sighs of Earth
Interpreting; or counting for old Time
His minutes, by reiterated drops,
Audible tears,[CT] from some invisible source
That deepens upon fancy—more and more
Drawn toward the centre whence those sighs creep forth
To awe the lightness of humanity.
Or, shutting up thyself within thyself,
There[255] let me see thee sink into a mood
Of gentler thought,[256] protracted till thine eye
Be calm as water when the winds are gone,
And no one can tell whither. Dearest Friend![CU]
We too have known such happy hours together
That, were power granted to replace them (fetched
From out the pensive shadows where they lie)
In the first warmth of their original sunshine,
Loth should I be to use it: passing sweet
Are the domains of tender memory!
The spot described in this sequel to Lycoris is, I think, the bower in the rock on Nab Scar, alluded to in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal (see note to The Waterfall and the Eglantine, vol. ii. p. 172). The description in that Journal, taken in connection with the text of this poem, warrants the suggestion that the "Friend" with whom he had "known such happy hours together" was his own sister Dorothy. The extreme probability that it was on Nab Scar that the snow patches lay, which were reflected in Rydal mere, and which his imagination transformed into the swans that carried Venus' car through heaven, adds to the likelihood of this conjecture. The following extracts from the Sister's journal may be compared with passages in the poem:—"We pushed on to the foot of the Scar. It was very grand when we looked up, very stony.... Coleridge went to search for something new. We saw him climbing up towards a rock. He called us, and we found him in a bower,—the sweetest that was ever seen. The rock on one side is very high, and all covered with ivy, which hung loosely about, and bore bunches of brown berries." With this compare—
Yon wild cave, whose jaggèd brows are fringed
With flaccid threads of ivy, in the still
And sultry air, depending motionless.
And with the following, "We looked down on the Ambleside vale, that seemed to wind away from us, the village lying under the hill," compare—
Mount toward the empire of the fickle clouds,
Each weary step, dwarfing the world below.
With the following, "It is scarce a bower, a little parlour only, not enclosed by walls, but shaped out for a resting-place by the rocks, and the ground rising about it. It had a sweet moss carpet," compare l. 14—
Moss-grown alleys, circumscribing shades.
Doubtless Wordsworth drew on his imagination, "making a truth and beauty of his own," in this, as in every other description of place, which has a local colouring in it; but to connect "the dim cave" of the Ode to Lycoris with these conversations between Coleridge and the Wordsworths—mentioned in the Grasmere Journal of the latter, and hinted at in the closing passage of the Ode—is certainly permissible.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[252] 1827.
1820.
Here, as in . . .
[253] 1827.
1820.
Oft perilous, always tiresome; . . .
[254] 1827.
As we for most uncertain gain ascend
Toward the clouds, dwarfing the world below,
[255] 1827.
. . . contending for regard!
Lo! there a dim Egerian grotto fringed
With ivy-twine, profusely from its brows
Dependant,—enter without further aim;
And . . .
[256] 1827.
1820.
Of quiet thought— . . .
FOOTNOTES:
[CR] As the Fenwick notes have no regard to chronological order, but refer to the poems as arranged by Wordsworth himself, it may be noted that the "preceding" is the Ode to Lycoris; "the two that follow" are September 1819, and its sequel entitled Upon the same Occasion.—Ed.
[CS] Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome. "He was renowned," says Niebuhr (History of Rome, I. 237), "as the author of the Roman ceremonial law. Instructed by the Camena Egeria, who led him into the assemblies of her sisters in the sacred grove, he regulated the whole hierarchy, the pontiffs, the augurs, the flamens," etc.—Ed.
[CT] Compare Walter Savage Landor's Count Julian, v. 3—
Ed.
The very tear . . . drops audible.
[CU] Possibly this refers to his sister Dorothy. Among the poems on the Tour of 1833 is one To a Friend. This friend was the poet's son, pastor at Brigham, Cockermouth. See the note appended to the present poem.—Ed.