WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 1770–1850

Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air Of absence withers what was once so fair? Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant? Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant, Bound to thy service with unceasing care— The mind’s least generous wish a mendicant For nought but what thy happiness could spare. Speak!—though this soft warm heart, once free to hold A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, Be left more desolate, more dreary cold Than a forsaken bird’s-nest filled with snow ’Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine— Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

Two Voices are there; one is of the Sea, One of the Mountains; each a mighty voice: In both from age to age thou didst rejoice, They were thy chosen music, Liberty! There came a tyrant, and with holy glee Thou fought’st against him—but hast vainly striven: Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven, Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee. —Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft; Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left— For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be That Mountain floods should thunder as before, And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore, And neither awful Voice be heard by thee!

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free; The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in his tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven is on the Sea; Listen! the mighty Being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder—everlastingly. Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine: Thou liest in Abraham’s bosom all the year, And worshipp’st at the Temple’s inner shrine God being with thee when we know it not.

Once did She hold the gorgeous East in fee, And was the safeguard of the West; the worth Of Venice did not fall below her birth, Venice, the eldest child of Liberty. She was a maiden city, bright and free; No guile seduced, no force could violate; And when she took unto herself a mate, She must espouse the everlasting Sea. And what if she had seen those glories fade, Those titles vanish, and that strength decay— Yet shall some tribute of regret be paid When her long life hath reached its final day; Men are we, and must grieve when even the shade Of that which once was great is passed away.

O friend! I know not which way I must look For comfort; being, as I am, oppressed To think that now our life is only dressed For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook, Or groom!—We must run glittering like a brook In the open sunshine, or we are unblessed; The wealthiest man among us is the best; No grandeur now in nature or in book Delights us. Rapine, avarice, expense,— This is idolatry; and these we adore; Plain living and high thinking are no more; The homely beauty of the good old cause Is gone; our peace, our fearful innocence, And pure religion breathing household laws.

Surprised by joy—impatient as the wind— I turned to share the transport—O! with whom But thee—deep buried in the silent tomb, That spot which no vicissitude can find? Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind— But how could I forget thee? Through what power, Even for the least division of an hour, Have I been so beguiled as to be blind To my most grievous loss!—That thought’s return Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn, Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more; That neither present time nor years unborn Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men! Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed His beams around thee, or thou rest thy head Pillowed in some dark dungeon’s noisome den— O miserable chieftain! where and when Wilt thou find patience? Yet die not; do thou Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live and take comfort. Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee: air, earth, and skies; There’s not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee; thou hast great allies; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man’s unconquerable mind.

With ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh, Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed; Some lying fast at anchor in the road, Some veering up and down, one knew not why. A goodly vessel did I then espy Come like a giant from a haven broad; And lustily along the bay she strode, ‘Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.’ This ship was naught to me, nor I to her, Yet I pursued her with a lover’s look; This ship to all the rest did I prefer: When will she turn, and whither? She will brook No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir: On went she—and due north her journey took.

The World is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers,— For this, for every thing, we are out of tune; It moves us not.—Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,— So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This city now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning: silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky,— All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

When I have borne in memory what has tamed Great nations; how ennobling thoughts depart, What men change swords for ledgers, and desert The student’s bower for gold,—some fears unnamed I had, my country!—am I to be blamed? Now, when I think of thee, and what thou art, Verily, in the bottom of my heart Of those unfilial fears I am ashamed. For dearly must we prize thee; we do find In thee a bulwark for the cause of men; And I by my affection was beguiled: What wonder if a Poet now and then, Among the many movements of his mind, Felt for thee as a lover or a child!

Three years she grew in sun and shower; Then Nature said, ‘A lovelier flower On earth was never sown. This child I to myself will take: She shall be mine, and I will make A lady of my own.

‘Myself will to my darling be Both law and impulse; and with me The girl, in rock and plain, In earth and heaven, in glade and bower, Shall feel an overseeing power To kindle or restrain.

‘She shall be sportive as the fawn, That wild with glee across the lawn Or up the mountain springs; And hers shall be the breathing balm, And hers the silence and the calm Of mute insensate things.

‘The floating clouds their state shall lend To her; for her the willow bend; Nor shall she fail to see Ev’n in the motions of the storm Grace that shall mould the maiden’s form By silent sympathy.

‘The stars of midnight shall be dear To her, and she shall lean her ear In many a secret place, Where rivulets dance their wayward round, And beauty born of murmuring sound Shall pass into her face.

‘And vital feelings of delight Shall rear her form to stately height, Her virgin bosom swell; Such thoughts to Lucy I will give While she and I together live Here in this happy dell.’

Thus Nature spake. The work was done— How soon my Lucy’s race was run! She died, and left to me This heath, this calm and quiet scene; The memory of what has been, And never more will be.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils, Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:— A Poet could not but be gay In such a jocund company! I gazed—and gazed—but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought;

For oft when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

Behold her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the vale profound Is overflowing with the sound.

No nightingale did ever chaunt More welcome notes to weary bands Of travellers in some shady haunt, Among Arabian sands: A voice so thrilling ne’er was heard In spring-time from the cuckoo-bird, Breaking the silence of the seas Among the farthest Hebrides.

Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow For old, unhappy, far-off things, And battles long ago: Or is it some more humble lay, Familiar matter of to-day? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, That has been and may be again?

Whate’er the theme, the maiden sang As if her song could have no ending; I saw her singing at her work, And o’er the sickle bending;— I listened, motionless and still; And, as I mounted up the hill, The music in my heart I bore Long after it was heard no more.

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile! Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene’er I looked, thy image still was there; It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! It seemed no sleep, No mood, which season takes away or brings: I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

Ah! then—if mine had been the painter’s hand To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was on sea or land, The consecration, and the Poet’s dream,—

I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile, Amid a world how different from this! Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine Of peaceful years: a chronicle of heaven;— Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine The very sweetest had to thee been given.

A picture had it been of lasting ease, Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide; a breeze; Or merely silent Nature’s breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, Such picture would I at that time have made; And seen the soul of truth in every part, A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.

So once it would have been—’tis so no more; I have submitted to a new control: A power is gone which nothing can restore; A deep distress hath humanized my soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been; The feeling of my loss will ne’er be old; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the friend If he had lived, of him whom I deplore. This work of thine I blame not, but commend; This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.

O ’tis a passionate work!—yet wise and well, Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, I love to see the look with which it braves,— Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time— The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the kind! Such happiness, wherever it be known, Is to be pitied, for ’tis surely blind.

But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne,— Such sights, or worse, as are before me here! Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.

O thou! whose fancies from afar are brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; Thou fairy voyager! that dost float In such clear water that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air than on an earthly stream; Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; O blessed vision! O happy child! That art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when pain might be thy guest, Lord of thy house and hospitality; And grief, uneasy lover! never rest But when she sat within the touch of thee. O! too industrious folly! O! vain and causeless melancholy! Nature will either end thee quite; Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, Preserve for thee, by individual right, A young lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks.

What hast thou to do with sorrow, Or the injuries of to-morrow? Thou art a dew-drop which the morn brings forth, Not framed to undergo unkindly shocks; Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, And no forewarning gives; But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife Slips in a moment out of life.

’Tis said that some have died for love: And here and there a churchyard grave is found In the cold North’s unhallowed ground, Because the wretched man himself had slain,— His love was such a grievous pain. And there is one whom I five years have known; He dwells alone Upon Helvellyn’s side: He loved—the pretty Barbara died, And thus he makes his moan: Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid, When thus his moan he made:

‘O move, thou cottage, from behind that oak! Or let the aged tree uprooted lie, That in some other way yon smoke May mount into the sky! The clouds pass on; they from the heavens depart: I look—the sky is empty space; I know not what I trace; But, when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart.

‘O what a weight is in these shades! Ye leaves, When will that dying murmur be suppressed? Your sound my heart of peace bereaves, It robs my heart of rest. Thou thrush, that singest loud—and loud and free, Into yon row of willows flit, Upon that alder sit; Or sing another song, or choose another tree.

‘Roll back, sweet rill! back to thy mountain bounds, And there for ever be thy waters chained! For thou dost haunt the air with sounds That cannot be sustained; If still beneath that pine-tree’s ragged bough Headlong yon waterfall must come, O let it then be dumb!— Be anything, sweet rill, but that which thou art now.

‘Thou eglantine, whose arch so proudly towers (Even like a rainbow spanning half the vale), Thou one fair shrub—oh, shed thy flowers, And stir not in the gale! For thus to see thee nodding in the air,— To see thy arch thus stretch and bend, Thus rise and thus descend,— Disturbs me, till the sight is more than I can bear.’

The man who makes this feverish complaint Is one of giant stature, who could dance Equipped from head to foot in iron mail. Ah gentle love! if ever thought was thine To store up kindred hours for me, thy face Turn from me, gentle love! nor let me walk Within the sound of Emma’s voice, or know Such happiness as I have known to-day.

The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink; I heard a voice: it said, ‘Drink, pretty creature, drink!’ And, looking o’er the hedge, before me I espied A snow-white mountain lamb, with a maiden at its side.

No other sheep were near, the lamb was all alone, And by a slender cord was tethered to a stone; With one knee on the grass did the little maiden kneel, While to that mountain lamb she gave its evening meal.

The lamb, while from her hand he thus his supper took, Seemed to feast with head and ears; and his tail with pleasure shook. ‘Drink, pretty creature, drink,’ she said, in such a tone That I almost received her heart into my own.

’Twas little Barbara Lewthwaite, a child of beauty rare! I watched them with delight; they were a lovely pair. Now with her empty can the maiden turned away; But ere ten yards were gone, her footsteps did she stay.

Towards the lamb she looked; and from that shady place I, unobserved, could see the workings of her face; If Nature to her tongue could measured numbers bring, Thus, thought I, to her lamb that little maid might sing:—

‘What ails thee, young one? What? Why pull so at thy cord? Is it not well with thee? Well both for bed and board? Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be; Rest, little young one, rest; what is’t that aileth thee?

‘What is it thou wouldst seek? What is wanting to thy heart? Thy limbs, are they not strong? And beautiful thou art: This grass is tender grass; these flowers they have no peers; And that green corn all day is rustling in thy ears!

‘If the sun be shining hot, do but stretch thy woollen chain, This beech is standing by, its covert thou canst gain; For rain and mountain storms, the like thou need’st not fear;— The rain and storm are things which scarcely can come here.

‘Rest, little young one, rest; thou hast forgot the day When my father found thee first in places far away: Many flocks were on the hills, but thou wert owned by none; And thy mother from thy side for evermore was gone.

‘He took thee in his arms, and in pity brought thee home: A blessed day for thee! then whither wouldst thou roam? A faithful nurse thou hast; the dam that did thee yean Upon the mountain-tops no kinder could have been.

‘Thou know’st that twice a day I have brought thee in this can Fresh water from the brook, as clear as ever ran; And twice in the day, when the ground is wet with dew, I bring thee draughts of milk, warm milk it is, and new.

‘Thy limbs will shortly be twice as stout as they are now, Then I’ll yoke thee to my cart like a pony in the plough; My playmate thou shalt be; and when the wind is cold, Our hearth shall be thy bed, our house shall be thy fold.

‘It will not, will not rest!—poor creature, can it be That ’tis thy mother’s heart which is working so in thee? Things that I know not of belike to thee are dear, And dreams of things which thou canst neither see nor hear.

‘Alas, the mountain-tops that look so green and fair! I’ve heard of fearful winds and darkness that come there; The little brooks, that seem all pastime and all play, When they are angry roar like lions for their prey.

‘Here thou need’st not dread the raven in the sky; Night and day thou art safe,—our cottage is hard by. Why bleat so after me? Why pull so at thy chain? Sleep—and at break of day I will come to thee again!’

As homeward through the lane I went with lazy feet, This song to myself did I oftentimes repeat; And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line by line, That but half of it was hers, and one-half of it was mine.

Again, and once again did I repeat the song; ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘more than half to the damsel must belong, For she looked with such a look, and she spake with such a tone, That I almost received her heart into my own.’

‘What, you are stepping westward?’—‘Yea.’ —’Twould be a wildish destiny, If we, who thus together roam In a strange land, and far from home, Were in this place the guests of chance; Yet who would stop, or fear t’ advance, Though home or shelter he had none, With such a sky to lead him on?

The dewy ground was dark and cold; Behind, all gloomy to behold; And stepping westward seemed to be A kind of heavenly destiny: I liked the greeting; ’twas a sound Of something without place or bound; And seemed to give me spiritual right To travel through that region bright.

The voice was soft, and she who spake Was walking by her native lake; The salutation had to me The very sound of courtesy; Its power was felt; and while my eye Was fixed upon the glowing sky, The echo of the voice enwrought A human sweetness with the thought Of travelling through the world that lay Before me in my endless way.

‘Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away! Not a soul in the village this morning will stay; The hare has just started from Hamilton’s grounds, And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds.’

—Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green, On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen; With their comely blue aprons, and caps white as snow, The girls on the hills made a holiday show.

The basin of boxwood, [244] just six months before, Had stood on the table at Timothy’s door; A coffin through Timothy’s threshold had passed; One child did it bear, and that child was his last.

Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray, The horse and the horn, and the ‘hark! hark away!’ Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut, With a leisurely motion, the door of his hut.

Perhaps to himself at that moment he said, ‘The key I must take, for my Helen is dead.’ But of this in my ears not a word did he speak, And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek.

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The earth, and every common sight To me did seem Apparelled in celestial light, The glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore;— Turn wheresoe’er I may, By night or day, The things which I have seen I now can see no more.

The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare; Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where’er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth.

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, And while the young lambs bound As to the tabor’s sound, To me alone there came a thought of grief: A timely utterance gave that thought relief, And I again am strong. The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;— No more shall grief of mine the season wrong: I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, The winds come to me from the fields of sleep, And all the earth is gay; Land and sea Give themselves up to jollity, And with the heart of May Doth every beast keep holiday;— Thou child of joy Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy!

Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call Ye to each other make; I see The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; My heart is at your festival, My head hath its coronal, The fulness of your bliss, I feel—I feel it all. O evil day! if I were sullen While Earth herself is adorning This sweet May-morning; And the children are culling On every side, In a thousand valleys far and wide, Fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm And the babe leaps up on his mother’s arm:— I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! —But there’s a tree, of many, one, A single field which I have looked upon, Both of them speak of something that is gone; The pansy at my feet Doth the same tale repeat: Whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream?

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting; The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting And cometh from afar. Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God, who is our home; Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily farther from the east Must travel, still is Nature’s priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away And fade into the light of common day.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And, even with something of a mother’s mind And no unworthy aim, The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her inmate, Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, A six years’ darling of a pigmy size! See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies, Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses, With light upon him from his father’s eyes! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, Some fragment from his dream of human life, Shaped by himself with newly-learned art; A wedding or a festival, A mourning or a funeral; And this hath now his heart, And unto this he frames his song: Then will he fit his tongue To dialogues of business, love, or strife; But it will not be long Ere this be thrown aside, And with new joy and pride The little actor cons another part; Filling from time to time his ‘humorous stage’ With all the Persons, down to palsied Age, That life brings with her in her equipage; As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation.

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie Thy soul’s immensity; Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep, Haunted for ever by the eternal Mind,— Mighty Prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest Which we are toiling all our lives to find, In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave; Thou, over whom thy Immortality Broods like the day, a master o’er a slave, A Presence which is not to be put by; Thou little child, yet glorious in the might Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height, Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke The years to bring the inevitable yoke, Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, And custom lie upon thee with a weight Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live, That Nature yet remembers What was so fugitive! The thought of our past years in me doth breed Perpetual benediction: not, indeed, For that which is most worthy to be blest, Delight and liberty, the simple creed Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest, With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: —Not for these I raise The song of thanks and praise; But for those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realised, High instincts, before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised: But for those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, To perish never; Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, Nor man nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence, in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither; Can in a moment travel thither— And see the children sport upon the shore, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song! And let the young lambs bound As to the tabor’s sound! We, in thought, will join your throng, Ye that pipe and ye that play, Ye that through your hearts to-day Feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright Be now for ever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; We will grieve not, rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which, having been, must ever be; In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering; In the faith that looks through death, In years that bring the philosophic mind.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves, Forbode not any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might; I only have relinquished one delight To live beneath your more habitual sway: I love the brooks which down their channels fret Even more than when I tripped lightly as they; The innocent brightness of a new-born day Is lovely yet; The clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober colouring from an eye That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, To me the meanest flower that blows can give Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.