COMPOSED WHEN A PROBABILITY EXISTED OF OUR BEING OBLIGED TO QUIT RYDAL MOUNT AS A RESIDENCE
The following lines were written by Wordsworth in 1826. He never published them. They were the result of a slight disagreement between the Wordsworth family and the Le Flemings, which led the former to fear that they might have to “quit Rydal Mount as a residence.” It was an insignificant difference, and the Wordsworths did not leave their home. The only thing worthy of record, in connection with the matter, is that the fear of being dispossessed led the poet to write what follows.—Ed.
The doubt to which a wavering hope had clung
Is fled; we must depart, willing or not;
Sky-piercing Hills! must bid farewell to you
And all that ye look down upon with pride,
With tenderness, embosom; to your paths, 5
And pleasant dwellings, to familiar trees
And wild-flowers known as well as if our hands
Had tended them: and O pellucid Spring!
Unheard of, save in one small hamlet, here
Not undistinguished, for of wells that ooze 10
Or founts that gurgle from yon craggy steep,
Their common sire, thou only bear’st his name.
Insensibly the foretaste of this parting
Hath ruled my steps, and seals me to thy side,
Mindful that thou (ah! wherefore by my Muse 15
So long unthanked) hast cheered a simple board
With beverage pure as ever fixed the choice
Of hermit, dubious where to scoop his cell;
Which Persian kings might envy; and thy meek
And gentle aspect oft has ministered 20
To finer uses. They for me must cease;
Days will pass on, the year, if years be given,
Fade,—and the moralising mind derive
No lessons from the presence of a Power
By the inconstant nature we inherit 25
Unmatched in delicate beneficence;
For neither unremitting rains avail
To swell thee into voice; nor longest drought
Thy bounty stints, nor can thy beauty mar,
Beauty not therefore wanting change to stir 30
The fancy pleased by spectacles unlooked for.
Nor yet, perchance, translucent Spring, had tolled
The Norman curfew bell when human hands
First offered help that the deficient rock
Might overarch thee, from pernicious heat 35
Defended, and appropriate to man’s need.
Such ties will not be severed: but, when we
Are gone, what summer loiterer will regard,
Inquisitive, thy countenance, will peruse,
Pleased to detect the dimpling stir of life, 40
The breathing faculty with which thou yield’st
(Tho’ a mere goblet to the careless eye)
Boons inexhaustible? Who, hurrying on
With a step quickened by November’s cold,
Shall pause, the skill admiring that can work 45
Upon thy chance-defilements—withered twigs
That, lodged within thy crystal depths, seem bright,
As if they from a silver tree had fallen—
And oaken leaves that, driven by whirling blasts,
Sunk down, and lay immersed in dead repose 50
For Time’s invisible tooth to prey upon
Unsightly objects and uncoveted,
Till thou with crystal bead-drops didst encrust
Their skeletons, turned to brilliant ornaments.
But, from thy bosom, should some venturous[396] hand 55
Abstract those gleaming relics, and uplift them,
However gently, toward the vulgar air,
At once their tender brightness disappears,
Leaving the intermeddler to upbraid
His folly. Thus (I feel it while I speak), 60
Thus, with the fibres of these thoughts it fares;
And oh! how much, of all that love creates
Or beautifies, like changes undergo,
Suffers like loss when drawn out of the soul,
Its silent laboratory! Words should say 65
(Could they depict the marvels of thy cell)
How often I have marked a plumy fern
From the live rock with grace inimitable
Bending its apex toward a paler self
Reflected all in perfect lineaments— 70
Shadow and substance kissing point to point
In mutual stillness; or, if some faint breeze
Entering the cell gave restlessness to one,
The other, glassed in thy unruffled breast,
Partook of every motion, met, retired, 75
And met again. Such playful sympathy,
Such delicate caress as in the shape
Of this green plant had aptly recompensed
For baffled lips and disappointed arms
And hopeless pangs, the spirit of that youth, 80
The fair Narcissus by some pitying God
Changed to a crimson flower; when he, whose pride
Provoked a retribution too severe,
Had pined; upon his watery duplicate
Wasting that love the nymphs implored in vain. 85
Thus while my Fancy wanders, thou, clear Spring,
Moved (shall I say?) like a dear friend who meets
A parting moment with her loveliest look,
And seemingly her happiest, look so fair
It frustrates its own purpose, and recalls 90
The grieved one whom it meant to send away—
Dost tempt me by disclosures exquisite
To linger, bending over thee: for now,
What witchcraft, mild enchantress, may with thee
Compare! thy earthly bed a moment past 95
Palpable to sight as the dry ground,
Eludes perception, not by rippling air
Concealed, nor through effect of some impure
Upstirring; but, abstracted by a charm
Of my own cunning, earth mysteriously 100
From under thee hath vanished, and slant beams
The silent inquest of a western sun,
Assisting, lucid well-spring! Thou revealest
Communion without check of herbs and flowers,
And the vault’s hoary sides to which they cling, 105
Imaged in downward show; the flower, the Herbs,[397]
These not of earthly texture, and the vault
Not there diminutive, but through a scale
Of vision less and less distinct, descending
To gloom imperishable. So (if truths 110
The highest condescend to be set forth
By processes minute), even so—when thought
Wins help from something greater than herself—
Is the firm basis of habitual sense
Supplanted, not for treacherous vacancy 115
And blank dissociation from a world
We love, but that the residues of flesh,
Mirrored, yet not too strictly, may refine
To Spirit; for the idealising Soul
Time wears the features of Eternity; 120
And Nature deepens into Nature’s God.
Millions of kneeling Hindoos at this day
Bow to the watery element, adored
In their vast stream, and if an age hath been
(As books and haply votive altars vouch) 125
When British floods were worshipped, some faint trace
Of that idolatry, through monkish rites
Transmitted far as living memory,
Might wait on thee, a silent monitor,
On thee, bright Spring, a bashful little one, 130
Yet to the measure of thy promises
True, as the mightiest; upon thee, sequestered
For meditation, nor inopportune
For social interest such as I have shared.
Peace to the sober matron who shall dip 135
Her pitcher here at early dawn, by me
No longer greeted—to the tottering sire,
For whom like service, now and then his choice,
Relieves the tedious holiday of age—
Thoughts raised above the Earth while here he sits 140
Feeding on sunshine—to the blushing girl
Who here forgets her errand, nothing loth
To be waylaid by her betrothed, peace
And pleasure sobered down to happiness!
But should these hills be ranged by one whose soul 145
Scorning love-whispers shrinks from love itself
As Fancy’s snare for female vanity,
Here may the aspirant find a trysting-place
For loftier intercourse. The Muses crowned
With wreaths that have not faded to this hour 150
Sprung from high Jove, of sage Mnemosyne
Enamoured, so the fable runs; but they
Certes were self-taught damsels, scattered births
Of many a Grecian vale, who sought not praise,
And, heedless even of listeners, warbled out 155
Their own emotions given to mountain air
In notes which mountain echoes would take up
Boldly and bear away to softer life;
Hence deified as sisters they were bound
Together in a never-dying choir; 160
Who with their Hippocrene and grottoed fount
Of Castaly, attest that Woman’s heart
Was in the limpid age of this stained world
The most assured seat of [ ]
And new-born waters, deemed the happiest source 165
Of inspiration for the conscious lyre.
Lured by the crystal element in times
Stormy and fierce, the Maid of Arc withdrew
From human converse to frequent alone
The Fountain of the Fairies. What to her, 170
Smooth summer dreams, old favours of the place.
Pageant and revels of blithe elves—to her
Whose country groan’d under a foreign scourge?
She pondered murmurs that attuned her ear
For the reception of far other sounds 175
Than their too happy minstrelsy,—a Voice
Reached her with supernatural mandate charged
More awful than the chambers of dark earth
Have virtue to send forth. Upon the marge
Of the benignant fountain, while she stood 180
Gazing intensely, the translucent lymph
Darkened beneath the shadow of her thoughts
As if swift clouds swept o’er it, or caught
War’s tincture, ’mid the forest green and still,
Turned into blood before her heart-sick eye. 185
Erelong, forsaking all her natural haunts,
All her accustomed offices and cares
Relinquishing, but treasuring every law
And grace of feminine humanity,
The chosen Rustic urged a warlike steed 190
Toward the beleaguered city, in the might
Of prophecy, accoutred to fulfil,
At the sword’s point, visions conceived in love.
The cloud of rooks descending thro’ mid air
Softens its evening uproar towards a close[398] 195
Near and more near; for this protracted strain
A warning not unwelcome. Fare thee well!
Emblem of equanimity and truth,
Farewell!—if thy composure be not ours,
Yet as thou still, when we are gone, wilt keep 200
Thy living chaplet of fresh flowers and fern,
Cherished in shade tho’ peeped at[399] by the sun;
So shall our bosoms feel a covert growth
Of grateful recollections, tribute due
To thy obscure and modest attributes 205
To thee, dear Spring,[400] and all-sustaining Heaven!
[396] The MS. has a second reading, “covetous hand.”—Ed.
[397] In MS. also “its herbs.”—Ed.
… to a close
From a MS. copied at Rydal by Professor Reed in 1854.
… pecked at …
From a MS. copied at Rydal by Professor Reed in 1854.
… clear Spring …
From a MS. copied at Rydal by Professor Reed in 1854.