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!'
So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the BardIn holiest mood.1 Urania,* I shall need
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. 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 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- 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;
* "One of the Muses, daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne (Hesiod, Theog., 78; Ovid, Fast. v. 55). 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.
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 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 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
Compare The Prelude, Vol. III. p. 136, notes * and †; Strabo, 1; Pliny, 6, c. 31 and 32; Horace, Odes IV., 8, v. 27; Plutarch, Sertorius.—ED.
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 and 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 whose education and course of life he gives an account1-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;* 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 3 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,
From many a brooding cloud; far as the sight Could reach, these many shadows lay in spots
Pleasant to him who on the soft cool moss
Compare the Evening Walk (Vol I. p. 7)—
"When, in the south, the wan moon, brooding still,
Breathed a pale steam around the glaring hill."
Compare the Evening Walk (Vol. I. p. 8)—
"And its own twilight softens the whole scene."
With side-long eye looks out upon the scene,* 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.1 Across a bare wide Common I was toiling With languid steps that by the slippery turf 2 Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse The host of insects gathering round my face, And ever with me as I paced along.3
Though with good hope to cheer the sultry hour That under shade as grateful I should soon
The host of insects gathered round my face,
And ever with me as I paced along.
Now with eyes turned towards the far-distant hills, Now towards a grove that from the wide-spread moor Rose up the port to which my course was bound.
Compare the Sonnet composed in early boyhood (Vol. IV. p. 23).
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