Such is the affectionate tribute which Wordsworth pays to her memory. And if the reader be anxious to know all the small and large delights which the poet felt in renewing his acquaintance with the scenes of his childhood, I must refer him to the “Prelude.” He will there read how the old dame led him—he “willing, nay, wishing to be led,” through the village and its neighbourhood. How each face of the ancient neighbours was like a volume to him; how he hailed the labourers at their work “with half the length of a long field between,” how he shook hands with his quondam schoolfellows; proud and yet ashamed of his fine Cambridge clothes, doing everything in the way of recognition, in short, which a kind generous, and loving heart could dictate. The brook in the garden, which had been imprisoned there until it had lost its voice—he hailed also, with the delight of many remembrances, and much present pleasure. And then how his heart overflows at the sight of his favourite dog—the rough terrier of the hills—an inmate of the dame’s cottage by ancient right!—a brave fellow, that could hunt the badger, or unearth the fox—making no bones about either business. The poet slept, too, during this visit, in his old sleeping room;
“That lowly bed, where I had heard the wind
Roar, and the rain beat hard, where I so oft
Had lain awake on summer nights to watch
The moon in splendour couched among the leaves
Of a tall ash that near our cottage stood;
Had watch’d her with fixed eyes, while to and fro
In the dark summit of the waving tree
She rock’d with every impulse of the breeze.”
The poet then describes the refreshing influence which Nature spread, like a new element of life, over his spirit, and quotes even the time and place—viz., one evening at sunset, when taking his first walk, these long months, round the lake of Esthwaite, when his soul
“Put off her veil, and self-transmuted, stood
Naked in the presence of her God;”
whilst a comfort seemed to “touch a heart that had not been disconsolate;” and “strength came where weakness was not known to be—at least not felt.” Then he took the balance, and weighed himself:
“Conversed with promises, had glimmering views
How life pervades the undecaying mind;
How the immortal soul, with godlike power
Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep
That time can lay upon her; how on earth
Man, if he do but live within the light
Of high endeavours, daily spreads abroad,
His being armed with strength that cannot fail.”
Here was evidence that the soul of the poet was settling down, if we may say so, to something like repose, preparatory to the grand aim and purpose of his life. He begins to see that idleness and pleasure will not last—will not serve any end in the world; and that man must be a worker, with high endeavours, if he is indeed to be or do anything worthy of a man.—And this light breaking in upon him, through the twilight of Nature and his own soul, is soothing, consolatory, and hopeful to him. He begins, likewise, to take a fresh interest in the daily occupations of the people around him; read the opinions and thoughts of these plain living people, “now observed with clearer knowledge;” and saw “with another eye” “the quiet woodman in the woods,” and the shepherd roaming over the hills. His love for the grey-headed old dame returns to him again and again in these latter pages of the “Prelude,” and he pictures her as a dear object in the landscape, as she goes to church,
——“Equipped in monumental trim;
Short velvet cloak, (her bonnet of the like,)
A mantle, such as cavaliers
Wore in old time.”
And then her
——“smooth domestic life,
Affectionate, without disquietude,
Her talk, her business pleased me, and no less
Her clear, though shallow stream of piety,
That ran on Sabbath days a fresher course;
With thoughts unfelt till now, I saw her read
Her Bible on hot Sunday afternoons,
And loved the book, when she had dropped asleep,
And made of it a pillow for her head.”