Bight Hon. William, Earl of Lonsdale, K.G., &c. &c. OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer! In youth I roamed, on youthful pleasures bent; Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear. A token (may it prove a monument !) RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. PREFACE. THE reader must be apprised that this poem belongs to the second part of a long and laborious work ("The Recluse "), 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. 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 sufficiently matured for entering upon the ar duous 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 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 was It is not the author's intention formally to announce a system. 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 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 : (269) "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, an! Hope, And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith; Of blessed consolations in distress; Of moral strength, and intellectual power; Of joy in widest comonalty 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 Bard, Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such For I must tread on shadowv ground, must sink 21 294 Deep and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds 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. Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves Or a mere fiction of what never was? I, long before the blissful hour arrives, Is fitted :-and how exquisitely, too, (Theme this but little heard of among men), And the creation (by no lower name Can it be called) which they with blended migh Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft Within the walls of cities; may these sounds Come thou, prophetic Spirit, that inspirest Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess Of mighty poets: upon me bestow A gift of genuine insight; that my song Of those mutations that extend their sway 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, Express the image of a better time, More wise desires, and simpler manners; nurse Be with me; so shall Thy unfailing love A summer forenoon-The Author reaches a ruined cottage upon a common, and there meets with a reverend 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. 'TWAS summer, and the sun had mounted high: Where the wren warbles; while the dreaming man, Upon that open level stood a grove, The wished-for port to which my steps were bound. Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms Appeared a roofless hut; four naked walls That stared upon each other! I looked round. Him whom I sought; a man of reverend age, But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired. Him had I marked the day before-alone Turned towards the sun then setting, while that staff Graceful support; the countenance of the man At such unthought-of meeting. For the night We were tried friends: I from my childhood up Had known him. In a little town obscure, A market-village, seated in a tract Of mountains, where my school-day time was passed, He loved me; from a swarm of rosy boys To be his chosen comrade. Many a time, On holidays, we wandered through the woods, A pair of random travellers we sate We walked; he pleased me with his sweet discourse Through a parched meadow-ground in time of drought. How precious when in riper days I learned To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice O many are the poets that are sown By Nature! men endowed with highest gifts- |