Book Twelfth: Imagination and Taste, How Impaired and Restored

Long time have human ignorance and guiltDetained us, on what spectacles of woeCompelled to look, and inwardly oppressedWith sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,Confusion of the judgment, zeal decayed,And, lastly, utter loss of hope itselfAnd things to hope for! Not with these beganOur song, and not with these our song must end.--Ye motions of delight, that haunt the sidesOf the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs,Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty raceHow without injury to take, to giveWithout offence ; ye who, as if to showThe wondrous influence of power gently used,Bend the complying heads of lordly pines,And, with a touch, shift the stupendous cloudsThrough the whole compass of the sky; ye brooks,Muttering along the stones, a busy noiseBy day, a quiet sound in silent night;Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forthIn a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore,Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm;And you, ye groves, whose ministry it isTo interpose the covert of your shades,Even as a sleep, between the heart of manAnd outward troubles, between man himself,Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart:Oh! that I had a music and a voiceHarmonious as your own, that I might tellWhat ye have done for me. The morning shines,Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,--I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice,In common with the children of her love,Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields,Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heavenOn wings that navigate cerulean skies.So neither were complacency, nor peace,Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my goodThrough these distracted times; in Nature stillGlorying, I found a counterpoise in her,Which, when the spirit of evil reached its height.Maintained for me a secret happiness.

This narrative, my Friend! hath chiefly toldOf intellectual power, fostering love,Dispensing truth, and, over men and things,Where reason yet might hesitate, diffusingProphetic sympathies of genial faith:So was I favoured--such my happy lot--Until that natural graciousness of mindGave way to overpressure from the timesAnd their disastrous issues. What availed,When spells forbade the voyager to land,That fragrant notice of a pleasant shoreWafted, at intervals, from many a bowerOf blissful gratitude and fearless love?Dare I avow that wish was mine to see,And hope that future times would surely see,The man to come, parted, as by a gulph,From him who had been; that I could no moreTrust the elevation which had made me oneWith the great family that still survivesTo illuminate the abyss of ages past,Sage, warrior, patriot, hero; for it seemedThat their best virtues were not free from taintOf something false and weak, that could not standThe open eye of Reason. Then I said,"Go to the Poets, they will speak to theeMore perfectly of purer creatures;--yetIf reason be nobility in man,Can aught be more ignoble than the manWhom they delight in, blinded as he isBy prejudice, the miserable slaveOf low ambition or distempered love?"

In such strange passion, if I may once moreReview the past, I warred against myself--A bigot to a new idolatry--Like a cowled monk who hath forsworn the world,Zealously laboured to cut off my heartFrom all the sources of her former strength;And as, by simple waving of a wand,The wizard instantaneously dissolvesPalace or grove, even so could I unsoulAs readily by syllogistic wordsThose mysteries of being which have made,And shall continue evermore to make,Of the whole human race one brotherhood.

What wonder, then, if, to a mind so farPerverted, even the visible UniverseFell under the dominion of a tasteLess spiritual, with microscopic viewWas scanned, as I had scanned the moral world?

O Soul of Nature! excellent and fair!That didst rejoice with me, with whom I, too,Rejoiced through early youth, before the windsAnd roaring waters, and in lights and shadesThat marched and countermarched about the hillsIn glorious apparition, Powers on whomI daily waited, now all eye and nowAll ear; but never long without the heartEmployed, and man's unfolding intellect:O Soul of Nature! that, by laws divineSustained and governed, still dost overflowWith an impassioned life, what feeble onesWalk on this earth! how feeble have I beenWhen thou wert in thy strength! Nor this through strokeOf human suffering, such as justifiesRemissness and inaptitude of mind,But through presumption; even in pleasure pleasedUnworthily, disliking here, and thereLiking; by rules of mimic art transferredTo things above all art; but more,--for this,Although a strong infection of the age,Was never much my habit--giving wayTo a comparison of scene with scene,Bent overmuch on superficial things,Pampering myself with meagre noveltiesOf colour and proportion; to the moodsOf time and season, to the moral power,The affections and the spirit of the place,Insensible. Nor only did the loveOf sitting thus in judgment interruptMy deeper feelings, but another cause,More subtle and less easily explained,That almost seems inherent in the creature,A twofold frame of body and of mind.I speak in recollection of a timeWhen the bodily eye, in every stage of lifeThe most despotic of our senses, gainedSuch strength in me as often held my mindIn absolute dominion. Gladly here,Entering upon abstruser argument,Could I endeavour to unfold the meansWhich Nature studiously employs to thwartThis tyranny, summons all the senses eachTo counteract the other, and themselves,And makes them all, and the objects with which allAre conversant, subservient in their turnTo the great ends of Liberty and Power.But leave we this: enough that my delights(Such as they were) were sought insatiably.Vivid the transport, vivid though not profound;I roamed from hill to hill, from rock to rock,Still craving combinations of new forms,New pleasure, wider empire for the sight,Proud of her own endowments, and rejoicedTo lay the inner faculties asleep.Amid the turns and counterturns, the strifeAnd various trials of our complex being,As we grow up, such thraldom of that senseSeems hard to shun. And yet I knew a maid,A young enthusiast, who escaped these bonds;Her eye was not the mistress of her heart;Far less did rules prescribed by passive taste,Or barren intermeddling subtleties,Perplex her mind; but, wise as women areWhen genial circumstance hath favoured them,She welcomed what was given, and craved no more;Whate'er the scene presented to her view,That was the best, to that she was attunedBy her benign simplicity of life,And through a perfect happiness of soul,Whose variegated feelings were in thisSisters, that they were each some new delight.Birds in the bower, and lambs in the green field,Could they have known her, would have loved; methoughtHer very presence such a sweetness breathed,That flowers, and trees, and even the silent hills,And every thing she looked on, should have hadAn intimation how she bore herselfTowards them and to all creatures. God delightsIn such a being; for her common thoughtsAre piety, her life is gratitude.

Even like this maid, before I was called forthFrom the retirement of my native hills,I loved whate'er I saw: nor lightly loved,But most intensely; never dreamt of aughtMore grand, more fair, more exquisitely framedThan those few nooks to which my happy feetWere limited. I had not at that timeLived long enough, nor in the least survivedThe first diviner influence of this world,As it appears to unaccustomed eyes.Worshipping then among the depth of things,As piety ordained; could I submitTo measured admiration, or to aughtThat should preclude humility and love?I felt, observed, and pondered; did not judge,Yea, never thought of judging; with the giftOf all this glory filled and satisfied.And afterwards, when through the gorgeous AlpsRoaming, I carried with me the same heart:In truth, the degradation--howsoe'erInduced, effect, in whatsoe'er degree,Of custom that prepares a partial scaleIn which the little oft outweighs the great;Or any other cause that hath been named;Or lastly, aggravated by the timesAnd their impassioned sounds, which well might makeThe milder minstrelsies of rural scenesInaudible--was transient; I had knownToo forcibly, too early in my life,Visitings of imaginative powerFor this to last: I shook the habit offEntirely and for ever, and againIn Nature's presence stood, as now I stand,A sensitive being, a creative soul.

There are in our existence spots of time,That with distinct pre-eminence retainA renovating virtue, whence, depressedBy false opinion and contentious thought,Or aught of heavier or more deadly weight,In trivial occupations, and the roundOf ordinary intercourse, our mindsAre nourished and invisibly repaired;A virtue, by which pleasure is enhanced,That penetrates, enables us to mount,When high, more high, and lifts us up when fallen.This efficacious spirit chiefly lurksAmong those passages of life that giveProfoundest knowledge to what point, and how,The mind is lord and master--outward senseThe obedient servant of her will. Such momentsAre scattered everywhere, taking their dateFrom our first childhood. I remember well,That once, while yet my inexperienced handCould scarcely hold a bridle, with proud hopesI mounted, and we journeyed towards the hills:An ancient servant of my father's houseWas with me, my encourager and guide:We had not travelled long, ere some mischanceDisjoined me from my comrade; and, through fearDismounting, down the rough and stony moorI led my horse, and, stumbling on, at lengthCame to a bottom, where in former timesA murderer had been hung in iron chains.The gibbet-mast had mouldered down, the bonesAnd iron case were gone; but on the turf,Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name.The monumental letters were inscribedIn times long past; but still, from year to year,By superstition of the neighbourhood,The grass is cleared away, and to this hourThe characters are fresh and visible:A casual glance had shown them, and I fled,Faltering and faint, and ignorant of the road:Then, reascending the bare common, sawA naked pool that lay beneath the hills,The beacon on the summit, and, more near,A girl, who bore a pitcher on her head,And seemed with difficult steps to force her wayAgainst the blowing wind. It was, in truth,An ordinary sight; but I should needColours and words that are unknown to man,To paint the visionary drearinessWhich, while I looked all round for my lost guide,Invested moorland waste, and naked pool,The beacon crowning the lone eminence,The female and her garments vexed and tossedBy the strong wind. When, in the blessed hoursOf early love, the loved one at my side,I roamed, in daily presence of this scene,Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,And on the melancholy beacon, fellA spirit of pleasure and youth's golden gleam;And think ye not with radiance more sublimeFor these remembrances, and for the powerThey had left behind? So feeling comes in aidOf feeling, and diversity of strengthAttends us, if but once we have been strong.Oh! mystery of man, from what a depthProceed thy honours. I am lost, but seeIn simple childhood something of the baseOn which thy greatness stands; but this I feel,That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,Else never canst receive. The days gone byReturn upon me almost from the dawnOf life: the hiding-places of man's powerOpen; I would approach them, but they close.I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,May scarcely see at all; and I would give,While yet we may, as far as words can give,Substance and life to what I feel, enshrining,Such is my hope, the spirit of the PastFor future restoration.--Yet anotherOf these memorials;--One Christmas-time,On the glad eve of its dear holidays,Feverish, and tired, and restless, I went forthInto the fields, impatient for the sightOf those led palfreys that should bear us home;My brothers and myself. There rose a crag,That, from the meeting-point of two highwaysAscending, overlooked them both, far stretched;Thither, uncertain on which road to fixMy expectation, thither I repaired,Scout-like, and gained the summit; 'twas a dayTempestuous, dark, and wild, and on the grassI sate half-sheltered by a naked wall;Upon my right hand couched a single sheep,Upon my left a blasted hawthorn stood;With those companions at my side, I watched,Straining my eyes intensely, as the mistGave intermitting prospect of the copseAnd plain beneath. Ere we to school returned,--That dreary time,--ere we had been ten daysSojourners in my father's house, he died,And I and my three brothers, orphans then,Followed his body to the grave. The event,With all the sorrow that it brought, appearedA chastisement; and when I called to mindThat day so lately past, when from the cragI looked in such anxiety of hope;With trite reflections of morality,Yet in the deepest passion, I bowed lowTo God, Who thus corrected my desires;And, afterwards, the wind and sleety rain,And all the business of the elements,The single sheep, and the one blasted tree,And the bleak music from that old stone wall,The noise of wood and water, and the mistThat on the line of each of those two roadsAdvanced in such indisputable shapes;All these were kindred spectacles and soundsTo which I oft repaired, and thence would drink,As at a fountain; and on winter nights,Down to this very time, when storm and rainBeat on my roof, or, haply, at noon-day,While in a grove I walk, whose lofty trees,Laden with summer's thickest foliage, rockIn a strong wind, some working of the spirit,Some inward agitations thence are brought,Whate'er their office, whether to beguileThoughts over busy in the course they took,Or animate an hour of vacant ease.