Six Centuries of English Poetry Part 5

VI.

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.

VII.

Behold the child{14} 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'{15} With all the persons, down to palsied age, That Life brings with her in her equipage, As if his whole vocation Were endless imitation.

VIII.

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!{16} 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!

IX.

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;{17} Blank misgivings{18} of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, 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 endeavor, 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. .h.i.ther, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport upon the sh.o.r.e, And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

X.

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 forever taken from my sight, Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the gra.s.s, 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.

XI.

And O ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, Forebode 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{19} Do take a sober coloring 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.

NOTES.

"This was composed," says Wordsworth, "during my residence at Town-End, Grasmere (1803-1806). Two years at least pa.s.sed between the writing of the first four stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself, but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have said elsewhere:

'A simple child That lightly draws its breath, And feels its life in every limb, What should it know of death?'[44:A]

"But it was not so much from the source of animal vivacity that _my_ difficulty came, as from a sense of the indomitableness of the spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated in something of the same way to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature.

Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to reality. At that time I was afraid of mere processes. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines, _Obstinate questionings_, etc. To that dream-like vividness and splendor which invests objects of sight in childhood every one, I believe, if he could look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the poem regarded it as a presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against a conclusion which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in Revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an a.n.a.logy in its favor. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations, and among all persons acquainted with cla.s.sic literature is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his mind? Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the 'Immortality of the Soul,' I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet."

Lord Houghton says of this poem: "If I am asked what is the greatest poem in the English language, I never for a moment hesitate to say, Wordsworth's 'Ode on the Intimations of Immortality.'"

Princ.i.p.al Shairp says: "'The Ode on Immortality' marks the highest limit which the tide of poetic inspiration has reached in England within this century, or indeed since the days of Milton."

The idea of the pre-existence of the soul had already been treated by Henry Vaughan in "Silex Scintillans" (1655).

"Happy those infant days, when I Shined in my angel-infancy!

Before I understood this place Appointed for my second race, Or taught my soul to fancy aught But a white, celestial thought; When yet I had not walked above A mile or two from my first Love, And looking back at that short s.p.a.ce Could see a glimpse of his bright face."

Sh.e.l.ley, in "A Lament," hints at the same thought:

"O world! O life! O time!

On whose last steps I climb, Trembling at that where I had stood before, When will return the glory of your prime?

No more--oh, never more!

"Out of the day and night A joy has taken flight; Fresh spring, and summer, and winter h.o.a.r, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more--oh, never more!"

1. =The child is father, etc.= These lines are from a short poem by Wordsworth, ent.i.tled "My Heart leaps up":

"My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky.

So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I shall grow old, Or let me die!

The child is father of the man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety."

Compare with Milton's lines in 'Paradise Regained,' Bk. IV:

"The childhood shows the man As morning shows the day."

2. =apparelled.= From Fr. _pareil_, Lat. _parilis_. Other English words as _pair_, _compare_, etc., are similarly derived. To _apparel_ is strictly to pair, to suit, to put like to like.

3. =tabor.= From Old Fr. _tabour_, Fr. _tambour_. Compare Eng.

_tambourine_. Originally from the root _tap_, Gr. _tup_, to strike lightly. An ancient musical instrument,--a small one-ended drum having a handle projecting from the frame, by which it was held in the left hand, while it was beaten with a stick held in the right hand.

4. =the cataracts.= The poet has probably in mind the "ghills" or falls of his own lake country. The metaphor which he uses is a bold one.

5. =the echoes.= Compare with a similar line by Sh.e.l.ley:

"Lost Echo sits amid the voiceless mountains."

--_Adonais_, 127.

6. =the fields of sleep.= "The yet reposeful, slumbering country side."--_Hales._ "The fields that were dark during the hours of sleep."--_Knight._

7. =jollity.= Merriment. From Lat. _jovialis_. See Milton's 'L'Allegro,'

26:

"Haste thee nymph and bring with thee Jest and youthful jollity."