The complete poetical works of William Wordsworth
Wordsworth, William, 1770-1850
^■kr ^QfdsixJori^ »'^-<. W <W flOo- CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE WORDSWORTH COLLECTION FOUNDED BY CYNTHIA MORGAN ST. JOHN THE GIFT OF VICTOR EMANUEL OF THE CLASS OF I919 ' ■^■•*:>y:>xf l,>ii1Aintii'J[Sa;jii*:t?Jtit»aAriiv J-Aif * '«^ Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924103996041 A Lonely Valley THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF VI THE EXCURSION BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY MDCCCCXI COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1911, BYHOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS EDITION IS LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED SETS OP WHICH THIS IS NO. CONTENTS Author's Note 3 Dedication — To the Earl of Lonsdale . . 21 Preface to the Edition of 1814 .... 22 Book First. The Wanderer 24 Book Second. The Solitary 64 Book Third. Despondency 101 Book Fourth. Despondency Corrected . . 141 Book Fifth. The Pastor 195 Book Sixth. The Churchyard among the Mountains 237 Book Seventh. The Churchyard among the Mountains (continued) 286 Book Eighth. The Parsonage .... 329 Book Ninth. Discourse of the Wanderer, and AN Evening Visit to the Lake . . . 354 NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS A Lonely Valley Frontispiece "The fragrant air its coolness still retains; The herds and flocks are yet abroad to crop The dewy grass." {Page 198) The Herdsman Page 33 "A Herdsman on the lonely mountain-tops." Frequently the shepherd finds a sheep with a brok- en leg or otherwise hurt. It is carried home and tended with great care. Sometimes the broken limb is set on the spot. The Lane 69 "Pleasant as roses in the thickets blown." The Home of the Solitary 90 "This is my domain, my cell, My hermitage, my cabin, what you will." A Westmoreland Farm near Fairfield . . 212 "How gay the habitations that bedeck This fertile valley! Not a house but seems To give assurance of content within." [ vii] NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATIONS The Churchyard among the Mountains . . 238 "And 0, ye swelling hills, and spacious plains Besprent from shore to shore with steeple-towers. And spires whose ' silent finger points to heaven.'" A view of Kentmere Church. Autumn 244 "Such universal change as autumn makes In the fair body of a leafy grove." THE EXCURSION THE EXCURSION 1795-1814 1814 Something must now be said of this poem, but chiefly, as has been done through the whole of these notes, with reference to my personal friends, and especially to her who has perse- veringly taken them down from my dictation. Towards the close of the first book stand the lines that were first written, beginning, "Nine tedious years," and ending, "Last human tenant of these ruined walls." These were composed in '95 at Racedown; and for several passages describing the employ- ment and demeanour of Margaret during her affliction, I was indebted to observations made in Dorsetshire, and after- wards at Alfoxden in Somersetshire, where I resided in *97 and '98. The lines towards the conclusion of the fourth book — beginning, "For, the man, who, in this spirit," to the words " intellectual soul " — were in order of time composed the next, either at Racedown or Alfoxden, I do not remember which. The rest of the poem was written in the vale of Grasmere, chiefly during our residence at Allan Bank. The long poem on my own education was, together with many minor poems, composed while we lived at the cottage at Town-end. Per- haps my purpose of giving an additional interest to these my poems in the eyes of my nearest and dearest friends may be promoted by saying a few words upon the character of the Wanderer, the Solitary, and the Pastor, and some other of the persons introduced. And first, of the principal one, the Wanderer. My lamented friend Southey (for this is written a month after his decease) used to say that had he been born a Papist, the course of life which would in all probability have [3] THE EXCURSION been his was the one for which he was most fitted and most to his mind, — that of a Benedictine monk in a convent, fur- nished, as many once were and some still are, with an inex- haustible library. Books, as appears from many passages in his writings, and as was evident to those who had opportun- ities of observing his daily life, were in fact his passion; and wandering, I can with truth affirm, was mine; but this pro- pensity in me was happily counteracted by inability from want of fortune to fulfil my wishes. But, had I been born in a class which would have deprived me of what is called a liberal education, it is not unlikely that, being strong in body, I should have taken to a way of life such as that in which my Pedlar passed the greater part of his days. At all events, I am here called upon freely to acknowledge that the character I have represented in his person is chiefly an idea of what I fancied my own character might have become in his circumstances. Nevertheless, much of what he says and does had an external existence that fell under my own youth- ful and subsequent observation. An individual named Patrick, by birth and education a Scotchman, followed this humble occupation for many years, and afterwards settled in the town of Kendal. He married a kinswoman of my wife's, and her sister Sarah was brought up from her ninth year under this good man's roof. Nicholson of Cateaton Street, who at that time, when I had not many acquaintances in London, used often to invite me to dine with him on Sundays; and I took that opportunity (Mr. N. being a dissenter) of going to hear Fawcett, who was an able and eloquent man. He published a poem on war, which had a good deal of merit, and made me think more about him than I should otherwise have done. But his Christianity was probably never very deeply rooted; and, like many others in those times of like showy talents, he had not strength of character to withstand the effects of the French Revolution, and of the wild and lax opinions which had done so much towards producing it, and far more in carrying it forward in its extremes. Poor Fawcett, I have been told, became pretty [5 ] THE EXCURSION much such a person as I have described; and early disappeared from the stage, having fallen into habits of intemperance, which I have heard (though I will not answer for the fact) hastened his death. Of him I need say no more: there were many like him at that time, which the world will never be without, but which were more numerous then for reasons too obvious to be dwelt upon. To what is said of the Pastor in the poem I have little to add, but what may be deemed superfluous. It has ever ap- peared to me highly favourable to the beneficial influence of the Church of England upon all gradations and classes of society, that the patronage of its benefices is in numerous instances attached to the estates of noble families of ancient gentry; and accordingly I am gratified by the opportunity aflPorded me in the "Excursion," to pourtray the character of a country clergyman of more than ordinary talents, born and bred in the upper ranks of society so as to partake of their refinements, and at the same time brought by his pas- toral oflfice and his love of rural life into intimate connection with the peasantry of his native district. To illustrate the relation which in my mind this Pastor bore to the Wanderer, and the resemblance between them, or rather the points of community in their nature, I likened one to an oak and the other to a sycamore; and, having here referred to this com- parison, I need only add, I had no one individual in my mind, wishing rather to embody this idea than to break in upon the simplicity of it, by traits of individual character or of any peculiarity of opinion. And now for a few words upon the scene where these in- terviews and conversations are supposed to occur. The scene of the first book of the poem is, I must own, laid in a tract of country not suflSciently near to that which soon comes into view in the second book, to agree with the fact. All that relates to Margaret and the ruined cottage, etc., was taken [6] THE EXCURSION from observations made in the southwest of England, and certainly it would require more than seven-league boots to stretch in one morning from a common in Somersetshire or Dorsetshire to the heights of Furness Fells and the deep valleys they embosom. For thus dealing with space I need make, I trust, no apology, but my friends may be amused by the truth. In the poem, I suppose that the Pedlar and I ascended from a plain country up the vale of Langdale, and struck off a good way above the chapel to the western side of the vale. We ascended the hill and thence looked down upon the circular recess in which lies Blea-Tarn, chosen by the Solitary for his retreat. After we quit his cottage, passing over a low ridge we descend into another vale, that of Little Langdale, towards the head of which stands, embowered or partly shaded by yews and other trees, something between a cottage and a mansion or gentleman's house such as they once were in this country. This I convert into the Parsonage, and at the same time, and as by the waving of a magic wand, I turn the com- paratively confined vale of Langdale, its Tarn, and the rude chapel which once adorned the valley, into the stately and comparatively spacious vale of Grasmere, its Lake, and its ancient Parish Church; and upon the side of Loughrigg Fell, at the foot of the Lake, and looking down upon it and the whole vale and its encompassing mountains, the Pastor is sup- posed by me to stand, when at sunset he addresses his com- panions in words which I hope my readers will remember, or I should not have taken the trouble of giving so much in detail the materials on which my mind actually worked. Now for a few particulars of fact respecting the persons whose sto- ries are told or characters are described by the different speak- ers. To Margaret I have already alluded. I will add here, that the lines beginning, "She was a woman of a steady mind," faithfully delineate, as far as they go, the character possessed in common by many women whom it has been my happiness [7] THE EXCURSION to know in humble life; and that several of the most touching thmgs which she is represented as saying and doing are taken from actual observation of the distresses and trials under which different persons were suffering, some of them strang- ers to me, and others daily under my notice. The glorious appearance disclosed above and among the mountains was described partly from what my friend Mr. Luff, who then lived in Paterdale, witnessed upon that melan- choly occasion, and partly from what Mrs. Wordsworth and I had seen in company with Sir George and Lady Beaumont above Hartshope Hall on our way from Paterdale to Amble- side. And now for a few words upon the Church, its Monuments, and the Deceased who are spoken of as lying in the sur- rounding churchyard. But first for the one picture, given by the Pastor and the Wanderer, of the Living. In this nothing is introduced but what was taken from Nature and real life. [8] THE EXCURSION The cottage is called Racket, and stands as described on the southern extremity of the ridge which separates the two Lang- dales: the pair who inhabited it were called Jonathan and Betty Yewdale. Once when our children were ill, of whooping- cough I think, we took them for change of air to this cottage, and were in the habit of going there to drink tea upon fine summer afternoons, so that we became intimately acquainted with the characters, habits, and lives of these good, and, let me say, in the main, wise people. The matron had, in her early youth, been a servant in a house at Hawkshead, where several boys boarded, while I was a schoolboy there. I did not remember her as having served in that capacity; but we had many little anecdotes to tell to each other of remarkable boys, incidents and adventures which had made a noise in their day in that small town. These two persons afterwards settled at Rydal, where they both died. The church, as already noticed, is that of Grasmere. The interior of it has been improved lately — made warmer by under-drawing the roof and raising the floor — but the rude and antique majesty of its former appearance has been im- paired by painting the rafters; and the oak benches, with a simple rail at the back dividing them from each other, have given way to seats that have more the appearance of pews. It is remarkable that, excepting only the pew belonging to Rydal Hall, that to Rydal Mount, the one to the Parsonage, and I believe another, the men and women still continue, as used to be the custom in Wales, to sit separate from each other. Is this practice as old as the Reformation? and when and how did it originate? In the Jewish synagogues and in Lady Hunt- ingdon's chapels the sexes are divided in the same way. In the adjoining churchyard greater changes have taken place. It is now not a little crowded with tombstones; and near the school-house which stands in the churchyard is an ugly struc- ture, built to receive the hearse, which is recently come into [9] THE EXCURSION use. It would not be worth while to allude to this building or the hearse-vehicle it contains, but that the latter has been the means of introducing a change much to be lamented in the mode of conducting funerals among the mountains. Now, the cofl&n is lodged in the hearse at the door of the house of the deceased, and the corpse is so conveyed to the church- yard gate: all the solemnity which formerly attended its progress, as described in the poem, is put an end to. So much do I regret this, that I beg to be excused for giving utterance here to a wish that, should it befall me to die at Rydal Mount, my own body may be carried to Grasmere church after the manner in which, till lately, that of every one was borne to that place of sepulture, namely, on the shoulders of neighbours, no house being passed without some words of a funeral psalm being sung at the time by the attendants. When I put into the mouth of the Wanderer, **Many precious rites and customs of our rural ancestry are gone or stealing from us; this I hope will last for ever," and what follows, little did I foresee that the ob- servance and mode of proceeding, which had often affected me so much, would so soon be superseded. Having said much of the injury done to this churchyard, let me add that one is at liberty to look forward to a time when, by the growth of the yew-trees, thriving there, a solemnity will be spread over the place that will in some degree make amends for the old simple character which has already been so much encroached upon, and will be still more every year. I will here set down, more at length, what has been mentioned in a previous note, that my friend Sir George Beaumont, having long ago purchased the beautiful piece of water called Loughrigg Tarn, on the banks of which he intended to build, I told him that a person in Kendal who was attached to the place wished to purchase it. And now for the persons that are selected as lying in the churchyard. But first for the individual whose grave is pre- pared to receive him. His story is here truly related: he was a school-fellow of mine for some years. He came to us when he was at least seventeen years of age, very tall, robust, and full- grown. This prevented him from falling into the amusements and games of the school: consequently he gave more time to books. He was not remarkably bright or quick, but by indus- try he made a progress more than respectable. His parents not being wealthy enough to send him to college, when he left Hawkshead he became a schoolmaster, with a view to pre- pare himself for holy orders. About this time he fell in love as related in the poem, and everything followed as there de- scribed, except that I do not know when and where he died. The number of youths that came to Hawkshead school, from the families of the humble yeomanry, to be educated to a cer- tain degree of scholarship as a preparation for the Church, was considerable, and the fortunes of these persons in after [ 11 ] THE EXCURSION life various of course, and of some not a little remarkable. I have now one of this class in my eye who became an usher in a preparatory school and ended in making a large fortune. His manners when he came to Hawkshead were as uncouth as well could be; but he had good abilities, with skill to turn them to account; and when the master of the school, to which he was usher, died, he stept into his place and became pro- prietor of the establishment. He contrived to manage it with such address, and so much to the taste of what is called high society and the fashionable world, that no school of the kind, even till he retired, was in such high request. Ministers of state, the wealthiest gentry, and nobility of the first rank, vied with each other in bespeaking a place for their sons in the seminary of this fortunate teacher. In the solitude of Grasmere, while living as a married man in a cottage of eight pounds per annum rent, I often used to smile at the tales which reached me of his brilliant career. Not two hundred yards from the cottage in Grasmere, just mentioned, to which I retired, this gentleman, who many years afterwards pur- chased a small estate in the neighbourhood, is now erecting a boat-house, with an upper story, to be resorted to as an entertaining-room when he and his associates may feel inclined to take their pastime on the lake. Every passenger will be disgusted with the sight of this edifice, not merely as a taste- less thing in itself, but as utterly out of place, and peculiarly fitted, as far as it is observed (and it obtrudes itself on notice at every point of view), to mar the beauty and destroy the pastoral simplicity of the vale. For my own part and that of my household it is our utter detestation, standing by a shore to which, before the highroad was made to pass that way, we used daily and hourly to repair for seclusion and for the shelter of a grove under which I composed many of my poems, "The Brothers" especially, and for this reason we gave the grove that name. [ 12] THE EXCURSION " That which each man loved And prized in his peculiar nook of earth Dies with him, or is changed." So much for my old school-fellow and his exploits. I will only add that the foundation has twice failed, from the lake no doubt being intolerant of the intrusion. The Miner, next described as having found his treasure after twice ten years of labour, lived in Paterdale, and the story is true to the letter. It seems to me, however, rather remarkable that the strength of mind which had supported him through this long unrewarded labour did not enable him to bear its successful issue. Several times in the course of my life I have heard of sudden influxes of great wealth being followed by derangement, and in one instance the shock of good fortune was so great as to produce absolute idiocy: but these all happened where there had been little or no pre- vious effort to acquire the riches, and therefore such a con- sequence might the more naturally be expected than in the case of the solitary Miner. In reviewing his story, one can- not but regret that such perseverance was not sustained by a worthier object. Archimedes leapt out of his bath and ran about the streets proclaiming his discovery in a transport of joy, but we are not told that he lost either his life or his senses in consequence. The next character, to whom the Priest is led by contrast with the resoluteness displayed by the fore- going, is taken from a person born and bred in Grasmere, by name Dawson; and whose talents, disposition, and way of life were such as are here delineated. I did not know him, but all was fresh in memory when we settled at Grasmere in the beginning of the century. From this point, the conversation leads to the mention of two individuals who, by their several fortunes, were, at different times, driven to take refuge at the small and obscure town of Hawkshead on the skirt of these mountains. Their stories I had from the dear old dame [ 13 ] THE EXCURSION with whom, as a schoolboy and afterwards, I lodged for nearly the space of ten years. The elder, the Jacobite, was named Drummond, and was of a high family in Scotland: the Hanoverian Whig bore the name of Vandeput, and might perhaps be a descendant of some Dutchman who had come over in the train of King William. So much was this region considered out of the way till a late period, that persons who had fled from justice used often to resort hither for concealment; and some were so bold as to, not infrequently, make excursions from the place of their re- treat, for the purpose of committing fresh offences. Such was particularly the case with two brothers of the name of Weston who took up their abode at Old Brathay, I think about seventy years ago. They were highwaymen, and lived there some time without being discovered, though it was known that they often disappeared in a way and upon errands which could not be accounted for. Their horses were noticed as being of a choice breed, and I have heard from the Relph family, one of whom was a saddler in the town of Kendal, that they were curious in their saddles and housings and accoutrements of their horses. They, as I have heard, and as was universally believed, were in the end both taken and hanged. "Tall was her stature; her complexion dark And saturnine." This person lived at Town-end, and was almost our next neigh- bour. I have little to notice concerning her beyond what is said in the poem. She was a most striking instance how far a woman may surpass in talent, in knowledge, and culture of [ 14] THE EXCURSION mind, those with and among whom she lives, and yet fall below them in Christian virtues of the heart and spirit. It seemed almost, and I say it with grief, that in proportion as she excelled in the one, she failed in the other. How fre- quently has one to observe in both sexes the same thing, and how mortifying is the reflection! "As, on a sunny bank, a tender lamb Lurks in safe shelter from the winds of March." The story that follows was told to Mrs. Wordsworth and my Sister by the sister of this unhappy young woman; and every particular was exactly as I have related. The party was not known to me, though she lived at Hawkshead, but it was after I left school. The clergyman, who administered comfort to her in her distress, I knew well. Her sister who told the story was the wife of a leading yeoman in the vale of Grasmere, and they were an affectionate pair and greatly respected by every one who knew them. Neither lived to be old; and their es- tate — which was perhaps the most considerable then in the vale, and was endeared to them by many remembrances of a salutary character not easily understood, or sympathised with, by those who are born to great aflfluence — passed to their eldest son, according to the practice of these vales, who died soon after he came into possession. He was an amiable and promising youth, but was succeeded by an only brother, a good-natured man, who fell into habits of drinking, by which he gradually reduced his property; and the other day the last acre of it was sold, and his wife and children and he himself, still surviving, have very little left to live upon, which it would not perhaps have been worth while to record here but that, through all trials, this woman has proved a model of patience, meekness, affectionate forbearance, and forgiveness. The clergyman and his family described at the beginning of the seventh book were, during many years, our principal associates in the vale of Grasmere, unless I were to except our very nearest neighbours. I have entered so particularly into the main points of their history, that I will barely testify in prose that — with the single exception of the particulars of their journey to Grasmere, which, however, was exactly copied from in another instance — the whole that I have said of them is as faithful to the truth as words can make it. There was much talent in the family : the eldest son was distinguished for poetical talent, of which a specimen is given in my notes to the sonnets to the Duddon. Once, when in our cottage at Town-end I was talking with him about poetry, in the course of conversation I presumed to find fault with the versifica- tion of Pope, of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer: he defended him with a warmth that indicated much irritation: nevertheless I would not abandon my point, and said, "In compass and variety of sound your own versification surpasses his." Never shall I forget the change in his countenance and tone of voice: the storm was laid in a moment; he no longer disputed my judgment, and I passed immediately in his mind, no doubt, for as great a critic as ever lived. I ought to add, he was a clergyman and a well-educated man, and his verbal memory was the most remarkable of any individual I have known, except a Mr. Archer, an Irishman, who lived several years in this neighbourhood, and who, in this faculty, was a prodigy; he afterwards became deranged, and I fear continues so, if alive. Then follows the character of Robert Walker, for which see notes to the Duddon. Then that of the deaf man, whose epitaph may be seen in the churchyard at the head of Haweswater, and whose qualities of mind and heart, and their benign influence in conjunction with his privation, [ 16] THE EXCURSION I had from his relatives on the spot. The blind man, next com- memorated, was John Gough, of Kendal, a man known, far beyond his neighbourhood, for his talents and attainments in natural history and science. " A volley thrice repeated o'er the corse Let down into the hollow of that grave." This young volunteer bore the name of Dawson, and was younger brother, if I am not mistaken, to the prodigal of whose character and fortunes an account is given toward the begin- ning of the preceding book. The father of the family I knew well; he was a man of literary education and of experience in society much beyond what was common among the inhabit- ants of the vale. He had lived a good while in the Highlands of Scotland, as a manager of iron-works at Bunaw, and had acted as clerk to one of my predecessors in the office of Dis- tributor of Stamps, when he used to travel round the country collecting and bringing home the money due to Government, in gold, which, it may be worth while to mention for the sake of my friends, was deposited in the cell or iron closet under the west window of the long room at Rydal Mount, which still exists with the iron doors that guarded the property. This of course was before the time of Bills and Notes. The two sons of this person had no doubt been led by the know- ledge of their father to take more delight in scholarship, and had been accustomed in their own minds to take a wider view of social interests than was usual among their associates. The premature death of this gallant young man was much la- mented, and, as an attendant at the funeral, I myself witnessed the ceremony and the effect of it as described in the poem. [ 17 ] THE EXCURSION "Tradition tells That, in Eliza's golden days, a Knight Came on a war-horse." "The house is gone." The pillars of the gateway in front of the mansion remained when we first took up our abode at Grasmere. Two or fliree cottages still remain, which are called Knott-houses tiom the name of the gentleman (I have called him a knight) concerning whom these traditions survive. He was the an- cestor of the Knott family, formerly considerable proprietors in the district. What follows in the discourse of the Wanderer upon the changes he had witnessed in rural life, by the intro- duction of machinery, is truly described from what I myself saw during my boyhood and early youth, and from what was often told me by persons of this humble calling. Happily, most happily, for these mountains, the mischief was diverted from the banks of their beautiful streams, and trans- ferred to open and flat countries abounding in coal, where the agency of steam was found much more effectual for carrying on those demoralising works. Had it not been for this in- vention, long before the present time every torrent and river in this district would have had its factory, large and populous in proportion to the power of the water that could there have been commanded. Parliament has interfered to prevent the night-work which was once carried on in these mills as actively as during the daytime, and by necessity still more perniciously — a sad disgrace to the proprietors, and to the nation which could so long tolerate such unnatural proceedings. Reviewing at this late period, 1843, what I put into the mouths of my in- terlocutors a few years after the commencement of the century, I grieve that so little progress has been made in diminish- ing the evils deplored, or promoting the benefits of education which the Wanderer anticipates. Such is my own confidence, a confidence I share with many others of my most valued friends, in the superior advantages, both religious and social, which attend a course of instruction presided over and guided by the clergy of the Church of Eng- land, that I have no doubt that, if but once its members, lay and clerical, were duly sensible of those benefits, their church would daily gain ground, and rapidly, upon every shape and fashion of Dissent : and in that case, a great majority in Parlia- ment being sensible of these benefits, the Ministers of the country might be emboldened, were it necessary, to apply funds of the State to the support of education on Church principles. Before I conclude, I cannot forbear noticing the strenuous efforts made at this time in Parliament, by so many persons, to extend manufacturing and commercial industry at the expense of agricultural, though we have recently had abundant proofs that the apprehensions expressed by the Wanderer were not groundless. ** I spake of mischief by the wise diflFused With gladness, thinking that the more it spreads The healthier, the securer, we become — Delusion which a moment may destroy!" [ 19] THE EXCURSION The Chartists are well aware of this possibility, and cling to it with an ardour and perseverance which nothing but wiser and more brotherly dealing towards the many, on the part of the wealthy few, can moderate or remove. *' While, from the grassy mountain's open side. We gazed, in silence hushed." The point here fixed upon in my imagination is half-way up the northern side of Loughrigg Fell, from which the Pastor and his companions were supposed to look upwards to the sky and mountain-tops, and round the vale, with the lake lying immediately beneath them. ** But turned not without welcome promise made, That he would share the pleasures and pursuits Of yet another summer's day, consumed In wandering with us." When I reported this promise of the Solitary, and long after, it was my wish, and I might say intention, that we should resume our wanderings, and pass the Borders into his native country, where, as I hoped, he might witness, in the society of the Wanderer, some religious ceremony — a sacrament, say, in the open fields, or a preaching among the mountains — which, by recalling to his mind the days of his early child- hood, when he had been present on such occasions in com- pany with his parents and nearest kindred, might have dis- solved his heart into tenderness, and so have done more towards restoring the Christian faith in which he had been educated, and, with that, contentedness and even cheerfulness of mind, than all that the Wanderer and Pastor, by their sev- eral effusions and addresses, had been able to effect. An issue like this was in my intentions. But, alas ! "'Mid the wreck of is and was. Things incomplete and purposes betrayed Make sadder transits o'er thought's optic glass Than noblest objects utterly decayed!" [ 20 ] THE EXCURSION To THE Right Hon. WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G. ETC., ETC. Opt, through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer! In youth I roamed, on youthful pleasures bent; And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent. Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear. — Now, by thy care befriended, I appear Before thee, Lonsdale, and this Work present, A token (may it prove a monument!) Of high respect and gratitude sincere. Gladly would I have waited till my task Had reached its close; but Life is insecure. And Hope full oft fallacious as a dream: Therefore, for what is here produced, I ask Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem The offering, though imperfect, premature. William Wordsworth. Btdal Mount, Westmobeland, July 29, 1814. [21 ] THE EXCURSION PREFACE TO TBDE EDITION OF 1814 The Title-page announces that this is only a portion of a poem; and the Reader must be here apprised that it belongs to the second part of a long and laborious Work, which is to consist of three parts. — The Author will candidly acknowledge that, if the first of these had been completed, and in such a manner as to satisfy his own mind, he should have preferred the natu- ral order of publication, and have given that to the world first; but, as the second division of the Work was designed to refer more to passing events, and to an existing state of things, than the others were meant to do, more continuous exertion was naturally bestowed upon it, and greater progress made here than in the rest of the poem; and as this part does not depend upon the preceding to a degree which will materially injure its own peculiar interest, the Author, complying with the ear- nest entreaties of some valued Friends, presents the following pages to the Public. It may be proper to state whence the poem, of which "The Excursion" is a part, derives its Title of "The Recluse." — Several years ago, when the Author retired to his native moun- tains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary Work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far Nature and Education had qualified him for such employment. As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. That Work, addressed to a dear Friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the Author's Intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it was a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled, "The Recluse"; as having for its principal sub- ject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement. — The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the [ 22 ] THE EXCURSION history of the Author's mind to the point when he was em- boldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two Works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the ante- chapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor Pieces, which have been long before the Public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive Reader to have such connection with the main Work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices. The Author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances either un- finished or unpublished, if he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the Public entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his en- deavours to please and, he would hope, to benefit his country- men. — Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of *'The Recluse" will consist chiefly of medi- tations in the Author's own person; and that in the inter- mediate part (**The Excursion") the intervention of charac- ters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted. It is not the Author's intention formally to announce a sys- tem; it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the Reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the meantime the following passage, taken from the con- clusion of the first book of "The Recluse," may be acceptable as a kind of Prospectus of the design and scope of the whole Poem. [See **The Recluse," vol. ii, pp. 244 (1. 10) to 248, for the Prospectus.] [ 23 ] THE EXCURSION BOOK FIRST THE WANDERER ARGUMENT A summer forenoon — The Author reaches a ruined Cot- tage upon a Common, and there meets with a revered Friend, the Wanderer, of whose education and course of life he gives an account — The Wanderer, while resting under the shade of the Trees that surround the Cottage, relates the History of its last Inhabitant. 'T WAS summer, and the sun had mounted high; Southward the landscape indistinctly glared Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs, In clearest air ascending, showed far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots Determined and unmoved, with steady beams Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed; To him most pleasant who on soft cool moss Extends his careless limbs along the front Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts A twilight of its own, an ample shade. Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man, Half conscious of the soothing melody, With side-long eye looks out upon the scene, By power of that impending covert, thrown To finer distance. Mine was at that hour [ 24 ] THE WANDERER Far other lot, yet with good hope that soon Under a shade as grateful I should find Rest, and be welcomed there to livelier joy. Across a bare wide Common I was toiling With languid steps that by the slippery turf Were baflfled; nor could my weak arm disperse The host of insects gathering round my face, And ever with me as I paced along. Upon that open moorland stood a grove. The wished-for port to which my course was bound. Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms, Appeared a roofless Hut; four naked walls That stared upon each other ! — I looked round, And to my wish and to my hope espied The Friend I sought; a Man of reverend age, But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired. There was he seen upon the cottage-bench. Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep; An iron-pointed staff lay at his side. Him had I marked the day before — alone And stationed in the public way, with face Turned toward the sun then setting, while that staff Afforded, to the figure of the man [25 ] THE EXCURSION Detained for contemplation or repose, Graceful support; his countenance as he stood Was hidden from my view, and he remained Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight. With slackened footsteps I advanced, and soon A glad congratulation we exchanged At such unthought-of meeting. — For the night We parted, nothing willingly; and now He by appointment waited for me here. Under the covert of these clustering elms. We were tried Friends : amid a pleasant vale. In the antique market-village where was passed My school-time, an apartment he had owned. To which at intervals the Wanderer drew. And found a kind of home or harbour there. He loved me; from a swarm of rosy boys Singled out me, as he in sport would say. For my grave looks, too thoughtful for my years. As I grew up, it was my best delight To be his chosen comrade. Many a time. On holidays, we rambled through the woods : We sate — we walked; he pleased me with report Of things which he had seen; and often touched Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind Turned inward; or at my request would sing [26] THE WANDERER Old songs, the product of his native hills; A skilful distribution of sweet sounds. Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed As cool refreshing water, by the care Of the industrious husbandman, difiFused Through a parched meadow-ground, in time of drought. Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse; How precious, when in riper days I learned To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice In the plain presence of his dignity ! Oh ! many are the Poets that are sown By Nature; men endowed with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, (Which, in the docile season of their youth. It was denied them to acquire, through lack Of culture and the inspiring aid of books, Or haply by a temper too severe. Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame,) Nor having e'er, as life advanced, been led By circumstance to take unto the height The measure of themselves, these favoured Beings, All but a scattered few, live out their time, Husbanding that which they possess within, [ 27 1 THE EXCURSION And go to the grave, unthought of. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least; else surely this Man had not left His graces unrevealed and unproclaimed. But, as the mind was filled with inward light, So not without distinction had he lived, Beloved and honoured — far as he was known. And some small portion of his eloquent speech. And something that may serve to set in view The feeling pleasures of his loneliness. His observations, and the thoughts his mind Had dealt with — I will here record in verse; Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink Or rise as venerable Nature leads, The high and tender Muses shall accept With gracious smile, deliberately pleased, And listening Time reward with sacred praise. Among the hills of Athol he was born; Where, on a small hereditary farm. An unproductive slip of rugged ground. His Parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt; A virtuous household, though exceeding poor! Pure livers were they all, austere and grave. And fearing God; the very children taught Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word, [ 28 ] THE WANDERER And an habitual piety, maintained With strictness scarcely known on English ground. From his sixth year, the Boy of whom I speak. In summer, tended cattle on the hills; But, through the inclement and the perilous days Of long-continuing winter, he repaired, Equipped with satchel, to a school, that stood Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge. Remote from view of city spire, or sound Of minster clock ! From that bleak tenement He, many an evening, to his distant home In solitude returning, saw the hills Grow larger in the darkness; all alone Beheld the stars come out above his head, And travelled through the wood, with no one near To whom he might confess the things he saw. So the foundations of his mind were laid. In such communion, not from terror free. While yet a child, and long before his time. Had he perceived the presence and the power Of greatness; and deep feelings had impressed So vividly great objects that they lay Upon his mind like substances, whose presence Perplexed the bodily sense. He had received [29 ] THE EXCURSION A precious gift; for, as he grew in years, With these impressions would he still compare All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms; And, being still unsatisfied with aught Of dimmer character, he thence attained An active power to fasten images Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines Intensely brooded, even till they acquired The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail. While yet a child, with a child's eagerness Incessantly to turn his ear and eye On all things which the moving seasons brought To feed such appetite — nor this alone Appeased his yearning: — in the after-day Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn, And 'mid the hollow depths of naked crags He sate, and even in their fixed lineaments, Or from the power of a peculiar eye. Or by creative feeling overborne, Or by predominance of thought oppressed. Even in their fixed and steady lineaments He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind. Expression ever varying! Thus informed. He had small need of books; for many a tale Traditionary, round the moimtains hung, [ 30 ] THE WANDERER And many a legend, peopling the dark woods, Nourished Imagination in her growth, And gave the Mind that apprehensive power By which she is made quick to recognise The moral properties and scope of things. But eagerly he read, and read again. Whatever the minister's old shelf supplied; The life and death of martyrs, who sustained, With will inflexible, those fearful pangs Triumphantly displayed in records left Of persecution, and the Covenant — times Whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour! And there, by lucky hap, had been preserved A straggling volume, torn and incomplete, That left half -told the preternatural tale, Romance of giants, chronicle of fiends. Profuse in garniture of wooden cuts Strange and uncouth; dire faces, figures dire, Sharp-kneed, sharp-elbowed, and lean-ankled too, With long and ghostly shanks — forms which once seen Could never be forgotten! In his heart. Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant, Was wanting yet the pure delight of love By sound diffused, or by the breathing air, Or by the silent looks of happy things, [31 ] THE EXCURSION Or flowing from the universal face Of earth and sky. But he had felt the power Of Nature, and already was prepared, By his intense conceptions, to receive Deeply the lesson deep of love which he, Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught To feel intensely, cannot but receive. 