Part 3

[Footnote J: In a subsequent letter (August 29th) he corrects this, and calls it "that celestial splendour of the mist going off."--ED.]

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G., ETC. ETC.

Oft, through thy fair domains,[K] 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.[L] --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.

RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND, _July_ 29, 1814.

PREFACE TO THE 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 natural 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 earnest 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 mountains, 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,[A] 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 subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.--The preparatory poem[M] is biographical, and conducts the history of the Author's mind to the point when he was emboldened 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,[N] 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 unfinished, 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 endeavours to please and, he would hope, to benefit his countrymen.--Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of _The Recluse_ will consist chiefly of meditations in the Author's own person; and that in the intermediate part (_The Excursion_) the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

It is not the Author's intention formally to announce a system: 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 mean time the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of _The Recluse_, may be acceptable as a kind of _Prospectus_ of the design and scope of the whole Poem.

"On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life, Musing in solitude, I oft perceive Fair trains of imagery before me rise, Accompanied by feelings of delight Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed; 5 And I am conscious of affecting thoughts And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes Or elevates the Mind, intent to weigh The good and evil of our mortal state. --To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come, 10 Whether from breath of outward circumstance, Or from the Soul--an impulse to herself-- I would give utterance in numerous verse. Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope, And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith; 15 Of blessed consolations in distress; Of moral strength, and intellectual Power; Of joy in widest commonalty spread; Of the individual Mind that keeps her own Inviolate retirement, subject there 20 To Conscience only, and the law supreme Of that Intelligence which governs all-- I sing:--'fit audience let me find though few!'[O]

"So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard-- In holiest mood.[1] Urania,[P] I shall need 25 Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven! For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink Deep--and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. 30 All strength--all terror, single or in bands, That ever was put forth in personal form-- Jehovah--with his thunder, and the choir Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones-- I pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not 35 The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out By help of dreams--can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man-- 40 My haunt, and the main region of my song. --Beauty--a living Presence of the earth, Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed From earth's materials--waits upon my steps; 45 Pitches her tents before me as I move, An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves Elysian, Fortunate Fields--like those of old Sought in the Atlantic Main[Q]--why should they be A history only of departed things, 50 Or a mere fiction of what never was? For the discerning intellect of Man, When wedded to this goodly universe In love and holy passion, shall find these A simple produce of the common day. 55 --I, long before the blissful hour arrives, Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse Of this great consummation:--and, by words Which speak of nothing more than what we are, Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep 60 Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims How exquisitely the individual Mind (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to the external World 65 Is fitted:--and how exquisitely, too-- Theme this but little heard of among men-- The external World is fitted to the Mind; And the creation (by no lower name Can it be called) which they with blended might 70 Accomplish:--this is our high argument. --Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft Must turn elsewhere--to travel near the tribes And fellowships of men, and see ill sights Of madding passions mutually inflamed; 75 Must hear Humanity in fields and groves Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang Brooding above the fierce confederate storm Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore Within the walls of cities--may these sounds 80 Have their authentic comment; that even these Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn!-- Descend, prophetic Spirit![2] that inspir'st The human Soul of universal earth, Dreaming on things to come;[R] and dost possess 85 A metropolitan temple in the hearts Of mighty Poets: upon me bestow A gift of genuine insight; that my Song With star-like virtue in its place may shine, Shedding benignant influence, and secure, 90 Itself, from all malevolent effect Of those mutations that extend their sway Throughout the nether sphere!--And if with this I mix more lowly matter; with the thing Contemplated, describe the Mind and Man 95 Contemplating; and who, and what he was-- The transitory Being that beheld This Vision; when and where, and how he lived;-- Be not this labour useless. If such theme May sort with highest objects, then--dread Power! Whose gracious favour is the primal source 101 Of all illumination--may my Life Express the image of a better time, More wise desires, and simpler manners;--nurse My Heart in genuine freedom:--all pure thoughts 105 Be with me;--so shall thy unfailing love Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!"

VARIANTS:

[Footnote 1: 1845.

Holiest of Men.-- ... 1814. ]

[Footnote 2: 1827.

--Come thou prophetic Spirit, ... 1814. ]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote K: The grounds of Lowther Castle. Compare the sonnet in "Poems, composed or suggested during a Tour, in the Summer of 1833," beginning--

Lowther! in thy majestic Pile are seen. ED. ]

[Footnote L: The Lowther stream, rising among the Shap Fells, joins the Emont at Brougham Castle.--ED.]

[Footnote M: _The Prelude_.--ED.]

[Footnote N: As they were--according to their Author's somewhat arbitrary classification--in the editions of 1815 and subsequent years.--ED.]

[Footnote O: See _Paradise Lost_, book vii. l. 31.--ED.]

[Footnote P: "Daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne. She was regarded as the Muse of Astronomy, and was represented with a celestial globe, to which she points with a little staff" (Hirt. _Mythol. Bilderb._ p. 210).--ED.]

[Footnote Q: Compare _The Prelude_, book i. l. 191 (see vol. iii. p. 138, notes * and ☨); Strabo, 1; Pliny, 6, c. 31 and 32; Horace, _Odes_ IV., 8, v. 27; Plutarch, _The Life of Sertorius_.--ED.]

[Footnote R: See Wordsworth's note (p. 383).--ED.]

Book First

THE WANDERER[S]

ARGUMENT

_A summer forenoon--The Author reaches a ruined Cottage upon a Common, and there meets with a revered Friend, the Wanderer, of whose education and course of life he gives an account[3]--The Wanderer, while resting under the shade of the Trees that surround the Cottage, relates the History of its last Inhabitant._

'Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high: Southward the landscape indistinctly glared Through a pale steam;[T] but all the northern downs, In clearest air ascending, showed far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung 5 From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots[4] Determined and unmoved, with steady beams Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed; To him most pleasant who on soft cool moss[5] Extends his careless limbs along the front 10 Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts A twilight of its own,[U] 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,[V] 15 By power of that impending covert, thrown, To finer distance. Mine was at that hour 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.[6] 20 Across a bare wide Common I was toiling With languid steps that by the slippery turf[7] Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse The host of insects gathering round my face, And ever with me as I paced along.[8] 25

Upon that open moorland stood a grove, The wished-for port to which my course was bound.[9] Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms,[W] Appeared a roofless Hut; four naked walls 30 That stared upon each other!--I looked round, And to my wish and to my hope espied The Friend I sought;[10] a Man of reverend age, But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired. There was he seen upon the cottage-bench, 35 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[11] 41 Detained for contemplation or repose, Graceful support; his countenance as he stood Was hidden from my view, and he remained[12] Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight, 45 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, 50 Under the covert[13] of these clustering elms.

We were tried Friends: amid a pleasant vale, In the antique market-village where was passed My school-time,[W1] an apartment he had owned, To which at intervals the Wanderer drew,[14] 55 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 60 To be his chosen comrade. Many a time, On holidays, we rambled through the woods: We sate--we walked; he pleased me with report[15] Of things which he had seen; and often touched Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind 65 Turned inward; or at my request would sing[16] Old songs, the product of his native hills;[17] A skilful distribution of sweet sounds, Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed As cool refreshing water, by the care 70 Of the industrious husbandman, diffused 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 75 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;[X] Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, 80 (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) 85 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, 90 And go to the grave, unthought of. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least;[Y] else surely this Man had not left[Z] His graces unrevealed and unproclaimed. But, as the mind was filled with inward light,[AA] 95 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, 100 His observations, and the thoughts his mind[18] 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 105 With gracious smile, deliberately pleased, And listening Time reward with sacred praise.

Among the hills of Athol he was born; Where,[19] on a small hereditary farm, An unproductive slip of rugged ground, 110 His Parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt;[20] A virtuous household, though exceeding poor! Pure livers were they all, austere and grave, And fearing God;[AB] the very children taught Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word, 115 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 120 Of long-continuing winter, he repaired, Equipped with satchel, to a school, that stood[21] Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge, Remote from view[22] of city spire, or sound Of minster clock! From that bleak tenement 125 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. 131

So the foundations of his mind were laid. In such communion, not from terror free,[AC] While yet a child, and long before his time, Had he[23] perceived the presence and the power 135 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[24] [25]A precious gift; for, as he grew in years, 140 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 145 Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines Intensely brooded, even till they acquired The liveliness of dreams.[AD] Nor did he fail, While yet a child, with a child's eagerness Incessantly to turn his ear and eye 150 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 155 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 160 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 mountains hung, And many a legend, peopling the dark woods, 165 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, 170 Whate'er 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 175 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[AE] the preternatural tale, Romance of giants, chronicle of fiends, 180 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, 185 Where Fear sate thus, a cherished visitant, Was wanting yet the pure delight of love By sound diffused, or by the breathing air,[AF] Or by the silent looks of happy things,[AG] Or flowing from the universal face 190 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 195 To feel intensely, cannot but receive.

Such was the Boy--but for the growing Youth What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun[26] Rise up, and bathe the world in light![AH] He looked-- Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth 201 And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay Beneath him[AI]:--Far and wide the clouds were touched, And in their silent faces could he read[27] Unutterable love. Sound needed none, 205 Nor any voice of joy;[AJ] his spirit drank The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form. All melted into him; they swallowed up His animal being; in them did he live, And by them did he live; they were his life. 210 In such access of mind, in such high hour Of visitation from the living God, Thought was not; in enjoyment it expired. No thanks he breathed, he proffered no request; Rapt into still communion that transcends 215 The imperfect offices of prayer and praise, His mind was a thanksgiving to the power That made him; it was blessedness and love!