Of undistinguishable motion, steps Almost as silent as the turf they trod.
Nor less when spring had warmed the cultured Vale,
Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird Had in high places built her lodge; though mean Our object and inglorious, yet the end
Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock But ill-sustained, and almost (so it seemed) Suspended by the blast that blew amain, Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time While on the perilous ridge I hung alone,
With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky Of earth, and with what motion moved the clouds !
Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, make them cling together In one society. How strange that all The terrors, pains, and early miseries, Regrets, vexations, lassitudes infused Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part, And that a needful part, in making up
The calm existence that is mine when I
Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end!
Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ ;
Whether her fearless visitings, or those
That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use Severer interventions, ministry
More palpable, as best might suit her aim.
One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow tree
Within a rocky cave, its usual home.
Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on; Leaving behind her still, on either side, Small circles glittering idly in the moon, Until they melted all into one track
Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows, Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point With an unswerving line, I fixed my
Upon the summit of a craggy ridge,
The horizon's utmost boundary; far above Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky. She was an elfin pinnace; lustily
I dipped my oars into the silent lake, And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat Went heaving through the water like a swan When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge, As if with voluntary power instinct
Upreared its head. I struck and struck again, And growing still in stature the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still, For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing, Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned, And through the silent water stole my way Back to the covert of the willow tree; There in her mooring-place I left my bark, And through the meadows homeward went, in grave And serious mood; but after I had seen
That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts There hung a darkness, call it solitude Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes Remained, no pleasant images of trees, Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields; But huge and mighty forms, that do not live
Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams.
Wisdom and spirit of the universe! Thou soul that art the eternity of thought, That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain
By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man, But with high objects; with enduring things, With life and nature, purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying, by such discipline, Both pain and fear, until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapours rolling down the valley made A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods, At noon and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine; Mine was it in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long.
And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile
The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom, I heeded not their summons: happy time
It was indeed for all of us, for me
It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud
The village clock tolled six. I wheeled about,
Proud and exulting like an untried horse
That cares not for his home. All shod with steel, We hissed along the polished ice in games Confederate, imitative of the chase
And woodland pleasures, the resounding horn,
The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star
That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs. Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round!
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.
Ye presences of Nature in the sky
And on the earth! Ye visions of the hills! And Souls of lonely places! can I think A vulgar hope was yours when ye employed Such ministry, when ye through many a year Haunting me thus among my boyish sports, On caves and trees, upon the woods and hills, Impressed upon all forms the characters Of danger or desire; and thus did make The surface of the universal earth
With triumph and delight, with hope and fear, Work like a sea?
We were a noisy crew; the sun in heaven Beheld not vales more beautiful than ours; Nor saw a band in happiness and joy Richer, or worthier of the ground they trod. I could record with no reluctant voice
The woods of autumn, and their hazel bowers With milk-white clusters hung; the rod and line, True symbol of hope's foolishness, whose strong And unreproved enchantment led us on By rocks and pools shut out from every star, All the green summer, to forlorn cascades Among the windings hid of mountain brooks.
Nor, sedulous as I have been to trace How Nature by extrinsic passion first Peopled the mind with forms sublime or fair, And made me love them, may I here omit How other pleasures have been mine, and joys Of subtler origin; how I have felt,
Not seldom even in that tempestuous time, Those hallowed and pure motions of the sense Which seem, in their simplicity, to own An intellectual charm; that calm delight Which, if I err not, surely must belong To those first-born affinities that fit Our new existence to existing things, And, in our dawn of being, constitute The bond of union between life and joy.
Yes, I remember when the changeful earth, And twice five summers on my mind had stamped The faces of the moving year, even then
I held unconscious intercourse with beauty Old as creation, drinking in a pure Organic pleasure from the silver wreaths Of curling mist, or from the level plain Of waters coloured by impending clouds.
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