THE Title 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 ceding, 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.
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
« 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;
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,
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;
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
To Conscience only, and the law supreme
Of that Intelligence which governs all;
I sing :- fit audience let me find though few!'
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 bad 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 subject the sensations and opinions of a Poet living in retirement. -The preparatory Poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the Author's mind to the point when he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were suffi- «So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard, ciently matured for entering upon the arduous labour Holiest of Men.—Urania, I shall need which he had proposed to himself; and the two Works Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven! so express himself, as the Ante-chapel has to the body For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink of a Gothic Church. Continuing this allusion, he may | Deep-and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds be permitted to add, that his minor Pieces, which have been long before the Public, being now properly arranged, will be found by the attentive Reader to have such connexion 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.
To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. 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 thronesI pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy-scooped out The Author would not have deemed himself justified By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances As fall upon us often when we look either unfinished, or unpublished, if he had not thought Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man, that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has My haunt, and the main region of my Song. heretofore and now laid before the Public, entitled him-Beauty-a living Presence of the earth, to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms
Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed
From earth's materials-waits upon my steps;
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, why should they be
A history only of departed things,
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.
-I, long before the blissful hour arrives,
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal versc
Of this great consummation:-and, by words
Which speak of nothing more than what we are,
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep
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
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
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;
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
Have their authentic comment,-that even these
Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn!
-Descend, prophetic Spirit! that inspir'st
The human Soul of universal earth,
Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess
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,
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 of Man
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
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
Be with me;-so shall thy unfailing love
Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!»>
A summer forenoon-The Author reaches a ruined Cottage upon a Common, and there meets with a revered Friend, the Wanderer, of whom 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, show'd 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;
Pleasant to him who on the 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. Other lot was mine;
Yet with good heart that soon I should obtain
As grateful resting-place, and livelier joy.
Across a bare wide Common I was toiling
With languid steps that by the slippery ground
Were baffled; 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 level stood a Grove,
The wish'd-for port to which my course was bound
Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom
Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms,
Appear'd a roofless Hut; four naked walls
That stared upon each other! I looked round,
And to my wish and to my hope espied
Him whom I sought; a Man of reverend age,
But stout and hale, for travel unimpair'd.
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 mark'd the day before-alone And station'd in the public way, with face Turn'd tow'rd the sun then setting, while that staff Afforded to the Figure of the Man Detain'd for contemplation or repose, Graceful support; his countenance meanwhile Was hidden from my view, and he remain'd Unrecognized; but, stricken by the sight, With slacken'd 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, Beneath the shelter of these clustering elms.
We were tried Friends: amid a pleasant vale,
In the antique market village where were pass'd
My school-days, an apartment he had own'd,
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 walk'd; he pleased me with report
Of things which he had seen; and often touch'd
Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind
Turn'd inward; or at my request would sing
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, diffused
Through a parch'd meadow-ground, in time of drought.
Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse:
How precious when in riper days I learn'd
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 favour'd Beings,
All but a scattered few, live out their time,
Husbanding that which they possess within,
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 unreveal'd and unproclaim'd,
But, as the mind was fill'd 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 dealth with-1 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, dweit;
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,
And an habitual piety, maintain'd
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 repair'd, Equipp'd 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 travell'd 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, He had perceived the presence and the power Of greatness; and deep feelings had impress'd Great objects on his mind, with portraiture And colour so distinct, that on his mind They lay like substances, and almost seem'd To haunt the bodily sense. He had received 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 attain'd
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 fix'd lineaments,
Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
Or by creative feeling overborne,
Or by predominance of thought oppress'd
Even in their fix'd and steady lineaments
He traced an ebbing and a flowing mind,
Expression ever varying!
He had small need of books; for many a Tale
Traditionary round the mountains hung,
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 recognize
The moral properties and scope of things.
But eagerly he read, and read again,
Whate'er the Minister's old Shelf supplied;
The life and death of Martyrs, who sustain'd,
With will inflexible, those fearful pangs
Triumphantly display'd 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-knee'd, 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 cherish'd 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,
Or flowing from the universal face
Of earth and sky. But he had felt the
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.
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
Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He look'd-
Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth
And ocean's liquid mass, beneath him lay
In gladness and deep joy. The clouds were touch'd,
And in their silent faces did he read
Unutterable love. Sound needed none,
Nor any voice of joy; his spirit drank
The spectacle: sensation, soul, and form
All melted into him; they swallow'd up
His animal being; in them did he live,
And by them did he live; they were his life.
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
The imperfect offices of prayer and praise,
His mind was a thanksgiving to the power
That made him; it was blessedness and love!
A Herdsman on the lonely mountain tops, Such intercourse was his, and in this sort Was his existence oftentimes possess'd. O then how beautiful, how bright appear'd The written Promise! Early had he learn'd To reverence the Volume that displays The mystery, the life which cannot die; But in the mountains did he feel his faith. Responsive to the writing, all things there Breathed immortality, revolving life, And greatness still revolving; infinite; There littleness was not; the least of things Seem'd infinite; and there his spirit shaped Her prospects, nor did he believe,-he saw. What wonder if his being thus became Sublime and comprehensive! Low desires, Low thoughts had there no place; yet was his heart Lowly; for he was meek in gratitude,
Oft as he call'd those ecstacies to mind,
And whence they flow'd; and from them he acquired Wisdom, which works thro' patience; thence he learn'd In oft-recurring hours of sober thought
To look on Nature with a humble heart,
Self-question'd where it did not understand, And with a superstitious eye of love.
So pass'd the time; yet to the nearest town
He duly went with what small overplus
His earnings might supply, and brought away
The Book that most had tempted his desires
While at the Stall he read. Among the hills
He gazed upon that mighty Orb of Song,
The divine Milton. Lore of different kind,
The annual savings of a toilsome life,
His School-master supplied; books that explain
The purer clements of truth involved
In lines and numbers, and, by charm severe,
(Especially perceived where Nature droops
And feeling is suppress'd) preserve the mind
Busy in solitude and poverty.
These occupations oftentimes deceived
The listless hours, while in the hollow vale,
Hollow and green, he lay on the green turf
In pensive idleness. What could he do,
Thus daily thirsting, in that lonesome life,
With blind endeavours? Yet, still uppermost,
Nature was at his heart as if he felt,
Though yet he knew not how, a wasting power
In all things that from her sweet influence
Might tend to wean him. Therefore with her hues,
Her forms, and with the spirit of her forms,
He clothed the nakedness of austere truth.
While yet he linger'd in the rudiments
Of science, and among her simplest laws,
His triangles-they were the stars of heaven,
The silent stars! Oft did he take delight
To measure th' altitude of some tall crag
That is the eagle's birth-place, or some peak
Familiar with forgotten years, that shows
Inscribed, as with the silence of the thought,
Upon its bleak and visionary sides,
The history of many a winter storm,
Or obscure records of the path of fire.
And thus, before his eighteenth year was told, Accumulated feelings press'd his heart With still increasing weight; he was o'erpower'd By Nature, by the turbulence subdued Of his own mind; by mystery and hope, And the first virgin passion of a soul Communing with the glorious Universe. Full often wish'd he that the winds might rage When they were silent; far more fondly now Than in his earlier season did he love Tempestuous nights-the conflict and the sounds That live in darkness:-from his intellect And from the stillness of abstracted thought He ask'd repose; and, failing oft to win The peace required, he scann'd the laws of light Amid the roar of torrents, where they send From hollow clefts up to the clearer air A cloud of mist that, smitten by the sun, Varies its rainbow hues. But vainly thus, And vainly by all other means, he strove To mitigate the fever of his heart.
In dreams, in study, and in ardent thought, Thus was he rear'd; much wanting to assist The growth of intellect, yet gaining more,
And every moral feeling of his soul
Strengthen'd and braced, by breathing in content
The keen, the wholesome air of
poverty,
And drinking from the well of homely life.
-But, from past liberty, and tried restraints,
Hle now was summon'd to select the course
Of humble industry that promised best
To yield him no unworthy maintenance.
Urged by his Mother, he essay'd to teach
A Village-school-but wandering thoughts were then
A misery to him; and the Youth resign'd
A task he was unable to perform.
That stern yet kindly Spirit, who constrains
The Savoyard to quit his naked rocks,
The free-born Swiss to leave his narrow vales,
Spirit attach'd to regions mountainous
Like their own stedfast clouds) did now impel
His restless Mind to look abroad with hope.
-An irksome drudgery seems it to plod on,
Through hot and dusty ways, or pelting storm,
A vagrant Merchant bent beneath his load!
Yet do such Travellers find their own delight;
And their hard service, deem'd debasing now,
Gained merited respect in simpler times;
That made him turn aside from wretchedness
With coward fears. He could afford to suffer
With those whom he saw suffer. Hence it came
That in our best experience he was rich,
And in the wisdom of our daily life.
For hence, minutely, in his various rounds,
He had observed the progress and decay
Of many minds, of minds and bodies too;
The History of many Families;
How they had prosper'd; how they were o'erthrown
By passion or mischance; or such misrule
Among the unthinking masters of the earth
As makes the nations groan.-This active course
He follow'd till provision for his wants
Had been obtain'd;-the Wanderer then resolved
To pass the remnant of his days-untask'd
With neediess services-from hardship free.
His Calling laid aside, he lived at ease:
But still he loved to pace the public roads
And the wild paths; and, by the summer's warmth
Invited, often would he leave his home
And journey far, revisiting the scenes
That to his memory were most endear'd.
Vigorous in health, of hopeful spirits, undamp'd
By worldly-mindedness, or anxious care;
When Squire, and Priest, and they who round them Observant, studious, thoughtful, and refresh'd
In rustic sequestration-all dependent
Upon the PEDLAB's toil-supplied their wants,
Or pleased their fancies, with the wares he brought.
Not ignorant was the Youth that still no few
Of his adventurous Countrymen were led
By perseverance in this Track of life
To competence and ease;-for him it bore
Attractions manifold;-and this he chose.
His Parents on the enterprise bestow'd
Their farewell benediction, but with hearts
Foreboding evil. From his native hills
He wander'd far; much did he see of Men,
Their manners, their enjoyments, and pursuits,
Their passions, and their feelings; chiefly those
Essential and eternal in the heart,
That, mid the simpler forms of rural life,
Exist more simple in their elements,
And speak a plainer language. In the woods,
A lone Enthusiast, and among the fields,
Itinerant in this labour, he had pass'd
The better portion of his time; and there
Spontaneously had his affections thriven
Amid the bounties of the year, the
peace,
And liberty of Nature; there he kept
In solitude and solitary thought
His mind in a just equipoise of love.
Serene it was, unclouded by the cares
Of ordinary life; unvex'd, unwarp'd
By partial bondage. In his steady course,
No piteous revolutions had he felt,
No wild varieties of joy and grief.
Unoccupied by sorrow of its own,
Bis heart lay open; and by Nature tuned
And constant disposition of his thoughts
To sympathy with Man, he was alive
To all that was enjoy'd where'er he went;
And all that was endured; for in himself
Happy, and quiet in his cheerfulness,
He had no painful pressure from witho it
By knowledge gathered up from day to day;—
Thus had he lived a long and innocent life.
The Scottish Church, both on himself and those
With whom from childhood he grew up, had held
The strong hand of her purity; and still
Had watch'd him with an unrelenting eye.
This he remember'd in his riper age
With gratitude, and reverential thoughts.
But by the native vigour of his mind,
By his habitual wanderings out of doors,
By loneliness, and goodness, and kind works,
Whate'er, in docile childhood or in youth,
He had imbibed or fear or darker thought,
Was melted all away: so true was this,
That sometimes his religion seem'd to me
Self-taught, as of a dreamer in the woods;
Who to the model of his own pure heart
Shaped his belief as grace divine inspired,
Or human reason dictated with awe.
-And surely never did there live on earth
A Man of kindlier nature. The rough sports
And teasing ways of Children vex'd not him;
Indulgent listener was he to the tongue
Of garrulous age; nor did the sick man's tale,
To his fraternal sympathy address'd,
Obtain reluctant hearing.
Such as might suit a rustic sire, prepared
For sabbath duties; yet he was a Man
Whom no one could have pass'd without remark.
Active and nervous was his gait; his limbs
And his whole figure breathed intelligence
Time had compress'd the freshness of his cheek
Into a narrower circle of deep red,
But had not tamed his eve; that, under brows
Shaggy and grey, had meanings which it brought
From years of youth; which, like a Being made
Of many Beings, he had wond'rous skill
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