The poetical works of William Wordsworth, ed. with a critical memoir by W.M. Rossetti

COMPLACENT Fictions were they, yet the same
Involved a history of no doubtful sense,
History that proves by inward evidence
From what a precious source of truth it came.
Ne'er could the boldest Eulogist have dared
Such deeds to paint, such characters to frame,
But for coeval sympathy prepared

To greet with instant faith their loftiest claim.
None but a noble people could have loved
Flattery in Ancient Rome's pure-minded style:
Not in like sort the Runic Scald was moved;
He, nursed 'mid savage passions that defile
Humanity, sang feats that well might call
For the blood-thirsty mead of Odin's riotous
Hall.

VI.

PLEA FOR THE HISTORIAN.

FORBEAR to deem the Chronicler unwise,
Ungentle, or untouched by seemly ruth,
Who, gathering up all that Time's envious tooth
Has spared of sound and grave realities,
Firmly rejects those dazzling flatteries,
Dear as they are to unsuspecting Youth,
That might have drawn down Clio from the skies
To vindicate the majesty of truth.

Such was her office while she walked with men,
A Muse, who, not unmindful of her Sire
All-ruling Jove, whate'er the theme might be
Revered her Mother, sage Mnemosyne,
And taught her faithful servants how the lyre
Should animate, but not mislead, the pen.

VII.

AT ROME.

THEY-who have seen the noble Roman's scorn
Break forth at thought of laying down his head,
When the blank day is over, garreted
In his ancestral palace, where, from morn
To night, the desecrated floors are worn
By feet of purse-proud strangers; they-who
have read

In one meek smile, beneath a peasant's shed,
How patiently the weight of wrong is borne;
They who have heard some learned Patriot

treat

Of freedom, with mind grasping the whole theme

From ancient Rome, downwards through that bright dream

Of Commonwealths, each city a starlike seat
Of rival glory; they-fallen Italy-
Nor must, nor will, nor can, despair of Thee!

With monuments decayed or overthrown, For all that tottering stands or prostrate lies, Than for like scenes in moral vision shown, Ruin perceived for keener sympathies ;

FOR action born, existing to be tried,
Powers manifold we have that intervene
To stir the heart that would too closely screen
Her peace from images to pain allied.
What wonder if at midnight, by the side
Of Sanguinetto or broad Thrasymene,
The clang of arms is heard, and phantoms glide,
Unhappy ghosts in troops by moonlight seen;
And singly thine, O vanquished Chief! whose

corse,

Unburied, lay hid under heaps of slain :
But who is He?-the Conqueror. Would he

force

His way to Rome? Ah, no,-round hill and plain

Wandering, he haunts, at fancy's strong command,

This spot-his shadowy death-cup in his hand.

While allured

For this unthought-of greeting!
From vale to hill, from hill to vale led on,
We have pursued, through various lands, a
long

And pleasant course; flower after flower has
blown,

Embellishing the ground that gave them birth
With aspects novel to my sight; but still
Most fair, most welcome, when they drank the

dew

In a sweet fellowship with kinds beloved,
For old remembrance sake. And oft-where
Spring

Display'd her richest blossoms among files
Of orange-trees bedecked with glowing fruit
Ripe for the hand, or under a thick shade
Of Ilex, or, if better suited to the hour,
The lightsome Olive's twinkling canopy-
Oft have I heard the Nightingale and Thrush
Blending as in a common English grove
Their love-songs; but, where'er my feet might

roam,

Whate'er assemblages of new and old,
Strange and familiar, might beguile the way,
A gratulation from that vagrant Voice
Was wanting;-and most happily till now.

For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed Pile,
High on the brink of that precipitous rock,
Implanted like a Fortress, as in truth
It is, a Christian Fortress, garrisoned
In faith and hope, and dutiful obedience,
By a few Monks, a stern society,

Dead to the world and scorning earth-born
joys,

Nay-though the hopes that drew, the fears

that drove,

St Francis, far from Man's resort, to abide
Among these sterile heights of Apennine,
Bound him, nor, since he raised yon House,
have ceased

To bind his spiritual Progeny, with rules
Stringent as flesh can tolerate and live;
His milder Genius (thanks to the good God
That made us) over those severe restraints
Of mind, that dread heart-freezing discipline,
Doth sometimes here predominate, and works
By unsought means for gracious purposes:
For earth through heaven, for heaven, by
changeful earth,

Illustrated, and mutually endeared.

Rapt though He were above the power of

sense,

Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart
Of that once sinful Being overflowed
On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements,
And every shape of creature they sustain,
Divine affections; and with beast and bird
(Stilled from afar-such marvel story tells--
By casual outbreak of his passionate words,
And from their own pursuits in field or grove
Drawn to his side by look or act of love
Humane, and virtue of his innocent life)
He wont to hold companionship so free,
So pure, so fraught with knowledge and delight,
As to be likened in his Followers' minds
To that which our first Parents, ere the fall
From their high state darkened the Earth with

fear,

Held with all Kinds in Eden's blissful bowers.

Then question not that, 'mid the austere Band,

Who breathe the air he breathed, tread where he trod,

Some true Partakers of his loving spirit
Do still survive, and, with those gentle hearts
Consorted, Others, in the power, the faith,
Of a baptized imagination, prompt
To catch from Nature's humblest monitors
Whate'er they bring of impulses sublime.
Thus sensitive must be the Monk, though
pale

With fasts, with vigils worn, depressed by

years,

Whom in a sunny glade I chanced to see
Upon a pine-tree's storm-uprooted trunk,
Seated alone, with forehead sky-ward raised,
Hands clasped above the crucifix he wore
Appended to his bosom, and lips closed
By the joint pressure of his musing mood
And habit of his vow. That ancient Man-
Nor haply less the Brother whom I marked,
As we approached the Convent gate, aloft
Looking far forth from his aerial cell,
A young Ascetic-Poet, Hero, Sage,
He might have been, Lover belike he was-
If they received into a conscious ear
The notes whose first faint greeting startled me,
Whose sedulous iteration thrilled with joy
My heart-may have been moved like me to
think,

Ah! not like me who walk in the world's ways,

On the great Prophet, styled the Voice of One
Crying amid the wilderness, and given,
Now that their snows must melt, their herbs

and flowers

Revive, their obstinate winter pass away,
That awful name to Thee, thee, simple Cuckoo,
Wandering in solitude, and evermore
Foretelling and proclaiming, ere thou leave
This thy last haunt beneath Italian skies
To carry thy glad tidings over heights
Still loftier, and to climes more near the Pole.

Voice of the Desert, fare-thee-well; sweet
Bird!

If that substantial title please thee more,
Farewell!-but go thy way, no need hast thou
Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower
To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear,
Thee gentle breezes waft-or airs that meet
Thy course and sport around thee softly fan-
Till Night, descending upon hill and vale,
Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence,
And folds thy pinions up in blest repose.

XV.

AT THE CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI. GRIEVE for the Man who hither came bereft, And seeking consolation from above; Nor grieve the less that skill to him was left To paint this picture of his lady-love: Can she, a blessed saint, the work approve? And O, good Brethren of the cowl, a thing So fair, to which with peril he must cling, Destroy in pity, or with care remove. That bloom-those eyes-can they assist to bind

Thoughts that would stray from Heaven? The dream must cease

To be; by Faith, not sight, his soul must live ; Else will the enamoured Monk too surely find How wide a space can part from inward peace The most profound repose his cell can give.

XVI. CONTINUED.

THE world forsaken, all its busy cares
And stirring interests shunned with desperate
flight,

All trust abandoned in the healing might
Of virtuous action; all that courage dares,
Labour accomplishes, or patience bears-
Those helps rejected, they, whose minds per-
ceive

How subtly works man's weakness, sighs may heave

For such a One beset with cloistral snares.
Father of Mercy! rectify his view,
If with his vows this object ill agree;
Shed over it thy grace, and thus subdue
Imperious passion in a heart set free :-
That earthly love may to herself be true,
Give him a soul that cleaveth unto thee.

XVII.

AT THE EREMITE OR UPPER CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI.

eyes,

WHAT aim had they, the Pair of Monks, in size
By panting steers up to this convent gate?
Enormous, dragged, while side by side they sate,
How, with empurpled cheeks and pampered
Dare they confront the lean austerities
Of Brethren who, here fixed, on Jesu wait
In sackcloth, and God's anger deprecate
Through all that humbles flesh and mortifies?
Where mingle, as for mockery combined,
Strange contrast !-verily the world of dreams,
Things in their very essences at strife,
Shows not a sight incongruous as the extremes
That everywhere, before the thoughtful mind,
Meet on the solid ground of waking life.

POEMS OF THE IMAGINATION.

In the flower-besprent meadows his genius we

trace

Turned to humbler delights, in which youth might confide,

That would yield him fit help while prefiguring that Place

Where, if Sin had not entered, Love never had died.

When with life lengthened out came a desolate time,

And darkness and danger had compassed him round,

With a thought he would flee to these haunts
of his prime,

And here once again a kind shelter be found.
And let me believe that when nightly the Muse
Did waft him to Sion, the glorified hill,
Here also, on some favoured height, he would

choose

To wander, and drink inspiration at will
Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page
Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my
mind

Had a musical charm, which the winter of age
And the changes it brings had no power to
unbind.

And now, ye Miltonian shades! under you
I repose, nor am forced from sweet fancy to
While your leaves I behold and the brooks
they will strew,

part,

And the realised vision is clasped to my heart.
Even so, and unblamed, we rejoice as we may
In Forms that must perish, frail objects of

sense;

Unblamed-if the Soul be intent on the day
When the Being of Beings shall summon her
hence.

For he and he only with wisdom is blest
Who, gathering true pleasures wherever they
grow,

Looks up in all places, for joy or for rest,
To the Fountain whence Time and Eternity
flow.

XIX.

AT FLORENCE.

UNDER the shadow of a stately Pile,
The dome of Florence, pensive and alone,
Nor giving heed to aught that passed the
while,

I stood, and gazed upon a marble stone,
The laurell'd Dante's favourite seat. A throne,
In just esteem, it rivals; though no style
Be there of decoration to beguile

The mind, depressed by thought of greatness
flown.

As a true man, who long had served the lyre,
I gazed with earnestness, and dared no more.
But in his breast the mighty Poet bore
A Patriot's heart, warm with undying fire.
Bold with the thought, in reverence I sate
down,

And, for a moment, filled that empty Throne.

XX.

BEFORE THE PICTURE OF THE BAPTIST,
BY RAPHAEL, IN THE GALLERY AT FLORENCE.
THE Baptist might have been ordain'd to cry
Forth from the towers of that huge Pile,
wherein

His Father served Jehovah; but how win
Due audience, how for aught but scorn defy
Of the Jerusalem below, her sin
The obstinate pride and wanton revelry
Drown not at once mandate and prophecy?
And folly, if they with united din
Therefore the Voice spake from the Desert,

thence

Silence, and holiness, and innocence,
To Her, as to her opposite in peace,
Crying with earnestness that might not cease,
To Her and to all Lands its warning sent,
"Make straight a highway for the Lord-re-
pent!

XXI.

AT FLORENCE.-FROM MICHAEL ANGELO.

Hers in whose sway alone my heart delights,
RAPT above earth by power of one fair face,
I mingle with the blest on those pure heights
Where Man, yet mortal, rarely finds a place.
With Him who made the Work that Work
accords

So well, that by its help and through his grace
I raise my thoughts, inform my deeds and
words,
soul's embrace.
Clasping her beauty in
Thus, if from two fair eyes mine cannot turn,
I feel how in their presence doth abide
And, kindling at their lustre, if I burn,
Light which to God is both the way and guide;
That through the realms of glory shines for
My noble fire emits the joyful ray

aye.

XXII.

AT FLORENCE.-FROM M. ANGELO.

And loosened from the world, I turn to Thee;
ETERNAL Lord! eased of a cumbrous load,
Shun, like a shattered bark, the storm, and flee
The crown of thorns, hands pierced upon the
To thy protection for a safe abode.
tree,

To a sincere repentance promise grace,
The meek, benign, and lacerated face,
To the sad soul give hope of pardon free.
With justice mark not Thou, O Light divine,
My fault, nor hear it with thy sacred ear;
Neither put forth that way thy arm severe :
Wash with thy blood my sins; thereto incline
More readily the more my years require
Help, and forgiveness speedy and entire.

XXIII.

AMONG THE RUINS OF A CONVENT IN THE
APENNINES.

YE Trees! whose slender roots entwine
Altars that piety neglects;
Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine
Which no devotion now respects;
If not a straggler from the herd
Here ruminate, nor shrouded bird,
Chanting her low-voiced hymn, take pride
In aught that ye would grace or hide-
How sadly is your love misplaced,
Fair Trees, your bounty run to waste!
Ye, too, wild Flowers! that no one heeds,
And ye-full often spurned as weeds-
In beauty clothed, or breathing sweetness
From fractured arch and mouldering wall-..

Do but more touchingly recal
Man's headstrong violence and Time's fleetness,
Making the precincts ye adorn
Appear to sight still more forlorn

XXIV.

IN LOMBARDY.

SEE, where his difficult way that Old Man wins
Bent by a load of Mulberry leaves!-most hard
Appears his lot, to the small Worm's compared,
For whom his toil with early day begins.
Acknowledging no task-master, at will
(As if her labour and her ease were twins)
She seems to work, at pleasure to lie still;-
And softly sleeps within the thread she spins.
So fare they-the Man serving as her Slave.
Ere long their fates do each to each conform:
Both pass into new being,-but the Worm,
Transfigured, sinks into a hopeless grave;
His volant Spirit will, he trusts, ascend
To bliss unbounded, glory without end.

As indignation mastered grief, my tongue
Spake bitter words; words that did ill agree
With those rich stores of Nature's imagery,
And divine Art, that fast to memory clung-
Thy gifts, magnificent Region, ever young
In the sun's eye, and in his sister's sight
How beautiful! how worthy to be sung
In strains of rapture, or subdued delight!
I feign not; witness that unwelcome shock
That followed the first sound of German speech,
Caught the far-winding barrier Alps among.
In that announcement, greeting seemed to mock
Parting; the casual word had power to reach
My heart, and filled that heart with conflict
strong.

THE PILLAR OF TRAJAN. WHERE towers are crushed, and unforbidden weeds

O'er mutilated arches shed their seeds;
And temples, doomed to milder change, unfold
A new magnificence that vies with old;
Firm in its pristine majesty hath stood
A votive Column, spared by fire and flood:-
And, though the passions of man's fretful race
Have never ceased to eddy round its base,
Not injured more by touch of meddling hands
Than a lone obelisk, 'mid Nubian sands,
Or aught in Syrian deserts left to save
From death the memory of the good and brave.
Historic figures round the shaft embost
Ascend, with lineaments in air not lost:
Still as he turns, the charmed spectator sees
Group winding after group with dream-like ease;
Triumphs in sun bright gratitude displayed,
Or softly stealing into modest shade.

-So, pleased with purple clusters to entwine Some lofty elm-tree, mounts the daring vine; The woodbine so, with spiral grace, and breathes Wide spreading odours from her flowery

wreaths.

Things that recoil from language; that, if shown
By apter pencil, from the light had flown.
A Pontiff, Trajan here the Gods implores,
There greets an Embassy from Indian shores;
Lo! he harangues his cohorts-there the storm
Of battle meets him in authentic form!
Unharnessed, naked, troops of Moorish horse
Sweep to the charge; more high, the Dacian

force,

To hoof and finger mailed ;-yet, high or low,
None bleed, and none lie prostrate but the foe;
In every Roman, through all turns of fate,
Is Roman dignity inviolate;

Spirit in him pre-eminent, who guides,

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The poetical works of William Wordsworth, ed. with a critical memoir by W.M ...