O joy when the girdle of England appears!
What moment in life is so conscious of love,
Of love in the heart made more happy by tears?[546]
Wordsworth and his friends did not visit any of the places mentioned in the first two stanzas, but recrossed the Alps by the Simplon route after their brief visit to the Italian Lakes. Mrs. Wordsworth writes thus of their walk from Domo d'Ossola to the Simplon Hospice:—"Sunday, Sept. 20.—... We had great pleasure in discovering traces of a more difficult ascent (in one instance, with the remains of an oratory), down which William and Jones came thirty years ago. William pointed out to us an ancient, high, many windowed edifice, by the roadside, as the Hospital where they had lodged; a wild and solemn harbour! On the opposite side of the road, a neat little church, as clean as any English chapel, standing in its tiny enclosure of burial ground; below, the Tusa; but its murmur, or rather raving, could not be heard for the riotous din of a torrent, tumbling from the stupendous mountain above, a tumultuous sound, distinctly remembered by William, an unchangeable object! Bonaparte's words, 'Be thou fettered,' would have been of no avail here.... As we advance, Pines climbing up to the skies, in some places clothing the very pinnacles of the highest rocks. The road cut and carried through masses of the solid rock.... Symptoms of desolation as we advance. Mountains crumbling gradually, or brought down by force of waters. Blasted pines standing or torn up, and lying in a decaying state, in the torrent's bed. In the midst of such scenes to come in view of one of those lovely green Prairies is an enlivening sight, with its little cottage.... Watching as we did all the way snatches of the old road, we traced it as we thought across the river and up the ascent on the other side; and afterwards Wm. told us that there was the very point where he and Jones had committed the same mistake, had taken that road (as recorded in his poem) and had to retrace their steps—and bend downwards with the stream, under a sort of depression from the feeling that 'he had crossed the Alps.'..."
Compare The Prelude, book vi. 1. 562, etc.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[541] 1827.
1822.
. . . Semplon Pass.