The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume I Part 21

DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES TAKEN DURING A PEDESTRIAN TOUR AMONG THE ALPS

Composed 1791-2. [A]--Published 1793

TO THE REV. ROBERT JONES, FELLOW OF ST. JOHN'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE

DEAR SIR, [B]--However desirous I might have been of giving you proofs of the high place you hold in my esteem, I should have been cautious of wounding your delicacy by thus publicly addressing you, had not the circ.u.mstance of our having been companions among the Alps, seemed to give this dedication a propriety sufficient to do away any scruples which your modesty might otherwise have suggested. [C]

In inscribing this little work to you, I consult my heart. You know well how great is the difference between two companions lolling in a post-chaise, and two travellers plodding slowly along the road, side by side, each with his little knapsack of necessaries upon his shoulders. How much more of heart between the two latter!

I am happy in being conscious that I shall have one reader who will approach the conclusion of these few pages with regret. You they must certainly interest, in reminding you of moments to which you can hardly look back without a pleasure not the less dear from a shade of melancholy. You will meet with few images without recollecting the spot where we observed them together; consequently, whatever is feeble in my design, or spiritless in my colouring, will be amply supplied by your own memory.

With still greater propriety I might have inscribed to you a description of some of the features of your native mountains, through which we have wandered together, in the same manner, with so much pleasure. But the sea-sunsets, which give such splendour to the vale of Clwyd, Snowdon, the chair of Idris, the quiet village of Bethgelert, Menai and her Druids, the Alpine steeps of the Conway, and the still more interesting windings of the wizard stream of the Dee, remain yet untouched. Apprehensive that my pencil may never be exercised on these subjects, I cannot let slip this opportunity of thus publicly a.s.suring you with how much affection and esteem

I am, dear Sir, Most sincerely yours, W. WORDSWORTH.

LONDON, 1793.

[Much the greatest part of this poem was composed during my walks upon the banks of the Loire, in the years 1791, 1792. I will only notice that the description of the valley filled with mist, beginning--'In solemn shapes'--was taken from that beautiful region of which the princ.i.p.al features are Lungarn and Sarnen. Nothing that I ever saw in Nature left a more delightful impression on my mind than that which I have attempted, alas, how feebly! to convey to others in these lines.

Those two lakes have always interested me especially, from bearing in their size and other features, a resemblance to those of the North of England. It is much to be deplored that a district so beautiful should be so unhealthy as it is.--I. F.]

As the original text of the 'Descriptive Sketches' is printed in Appendix I. (p. 309) to this volume--with all the notes to that edition of 1793--it is not quoted in the footnotes to the final text in the pages which follow, except in cases which will justify themselves.

Therefore the various readings which follow begin with the edition of 1815, which was, however, a mere fragment of the original text. Almost the whole of the poem of 1793 was reproduced in 1820, but there were many alterations of the text in that edition, and in those of 1827, 1832, 1836 and 1845. Wordsworth's own footnotes here reproduced are those which he retained in the edition of 1849.

'Descriptive Sketches' was ranked among the "Juvenile Pieces" from 1815 onwards: but in 1836 it was put in a cla.s.s by itself along with the 'Female Vagrant'. [D]--Ed.

'Happiness (if she had been to be found on earth) among the charms of Nature--Pleasures of the pedestrian Traveller--Author crosses France to the Alps--Present state of the Grande Chartreuse--Lake of Como--Time, Sunset--Same Scene, Twilight--Same Scene, Morning; its voluptuous Character; Old man and forest-cottage music--River Tusa--Via Mala and Grison Gipsy--Sckellenen-thal--Lake of Uri--Stormy sunset--Chapel of William Tell--Force of local emotion--Chamois-chaser--View of the higher Alps--Manner of Life of a Swiss mountaineer, interspersed with views of the higher Alps--Golden Age of the Alps--Life and views continued--Ranz des Vaches, famous Swiss Air--Abbey of Einsiedlen and its pilgrims--Valley of Chamouny--Mont Blanc--Slavery of Savoy--Influence of liberty on cottage-happiness--France--Wish for the Extirpation of slavery--Conclusion'.

THE POEM

Were there, below, a spot of holy ground Where from distress a refuge might be found, And solitude prepare the soul for heaven; Sure, nature's G.o.d that spot to man had given [1]

Where falls the purple morning far and wide 5 In flakes of light upon the mountain-side; Where with loud voice the power of water shakes [2]

The leafy wood, or sleeps in quiet lakes.

Yet not unrecompensed the man shall roam, Who at the call of summer quits his home, 10 And plods through some wide realm o'er vale and height, Though seeking only holiday delight; [3]

At least, not owning to himself an aim To which the sage would give a prouder name. [4]

No gains too cheaply earned his fancy cloy, 15 Though every pa.s.sing zephyr whispers joy; Brisk toil, alternating with ready ease, Feeds the clear current of his sympathies. [5]

For him sod-seats the cottage-door adorn; And peeps the far-off spire, his evening bourn! 20 Dear is the forest frowning o'er his head, And dear the velvet green-sward to his tread: [6]

Moves there a cloud o'er mid-day's flaming eye?

Upward he looks--"and calls it luxury:" [E]

Kind Nature's charities his steps attend; 25 In every babbling brook he finds a friend; While [7] chastening thoughts of sweetest use, bestowed By wisdom, moralise his pensive road.

Host of his welcome inn, the noon-tide bower, To his spare meal he calls the pa.s.sing poor; 30 He views the sun uplift his golden fire, Or sink, with heart alive like Memnon's lyre; [F]

Blesses the moon that comes with kindly ray, To light him shaken by his rugged way. [8]

Back from his sight no bashful children steal; 35 He sits a brother at the cottage-meal; [9]

His humble looks no shy restraint impart; Around him plays at will the virgin heart.

While unsuspended wheels the village dance, The maidens eye him with enquiring glance, 40 Much wondering by what fit of crazing care, Or desperate love, bewildered, he came there. [10]

A hope, that prudence could not then approve, That clung to Nature with a truant's love, O'er Gallia's wastes of corn my footsteps led; 45 Her files of road-elms, high above my head In long-drawn vista, rustling in the breeze; Or where her pathways straggle as they please By lonely farms and secret villages.

But lo! the Alps ascending white in air, [11] 50 Toy with the sun and glitter from afar.

And now, emerging from the forest's gloom, I greet thee, Chartreuse, while I mourn thy doom.

Whither is fled that Power whose frown severe Awed sober Reason till she crouched in fear? [12] 55 _That_ Silence, once in deathlike fetters bound, Chains that were loosened only by the sound Of holy rites chanted in measured round? [13]

--The voice of blasphemy the fane alarms, The cloister startles at the gleam of arms. [14] 60 The [15] thundering tube the aged angler hears, [G]

Bent o'er the groaning flood that sweeps away his tears. [16]

Cloud-piercing pine-trees nod their troubled heads, [17]

Spires, rocks, and lawns a browner night o'erspreads; Strong terror checks the female peasant's sighs, 65 And start the astonished shades at female eyes.

From Bruno's forest screams the affrighted jay, And slow the insulted eagle wheels away.

A viewless flight of laughing Demons mock The Cross, by angels planted [H] on the aerial rock. [18] 70 The "parting Genius" [J] sighs with hollow breath Along the mystic streams of Life and Death.[K]

Swelling the outcry dull, that long resounds Portentous through her old woods' trackless bounds, Vallombre, [L] 'mid her falling fanes deplores 75 For ever broke, the sabbath of her bowers.

More pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves.

No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps. 80 --To towns, whose shades of no rude noise [19] complain, From ringing team apart [20] and grating wain-- To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's bound, Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound, Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling, 85 And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling-- The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines; [21]

And Silence loves its purple roof of vines.

The loitering traveller [22] hence, at evening, sees From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees; 90 Or marks, 'mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids Tend the small harvest of their garden glades; Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue, And track the yellow lights from steep to steep, 95 As up the opposing hills they slowly creep. [23]

Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed In golden light; [24] half hides itself in shade: While, from amid the darkened roofs, the spire, Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire: [25] 100 There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw Rich golden verdure on the lake [26] below.

Slow glides the sail along the illumined sh.o.r.e, And steals into the shade the lazy oar; Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs, 105 And amorous music on the water dies.

How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets Thy open beauties, or thy lone retreats; Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales; [27] 110 Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the sh.o.r.e, [28]

Each with its [29] household boat beside the door; [30] Thy torrents shooting from the clear-blue sky; Thy towns, that cleave, like swallows' nests, on high; [31]

That glimmer h.o.a.r in eve's last light descried 115 Dim from the twilight water's s.h.a.ggy side, Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods; [32]--Thy lake, that, streaked or dappled, blue or grey, 'Mid smoking woods gleams hid from morning's ray [33] 120 Slow-travelling down the western hills, to' enfold [34]

Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold; Thy glittering steeples, whence the matin bell Calls forth the woodman from his desert cell, And quickens the blithe sound of oars that pa.s.s 125 Along the steaming lake, to early ma.s.s. [35]

But now farewell to each and all--adieu To every charm, and last and chief to you, [36]

Ye lovely maidens that in noontide shade Rest near your little plots of wheaten glade; [37] 130 To all that binds [38] the soul in powerless trance, Lip-dewing song, and ringlet-tossing dance; Where sparkling eyes and breaking smiles illume The sylvan cabin's lute-enlivened gloom.

--Alas! the very murmur of the streams 135 Breathes o'er the failing soul voluptuous dreams, While Slavery, forcing the sunk mind to dwell On joys that might disgrace the captive's cell, Her shameless timbrel shakes on Como's marge, And lures [39] from bay to bay the vocal barge. 140

Yet are thy softer arts with power indued To soothe and cheer the poor man's solitude.

By silent cottage-doors, the peasant's home Left vacant for the day, I loved to roam. [40]

But once I pierced the mazes of a wood 145 In which a cabin undeserted stood; [41]

There an old man an olden measure scanned On a rude viol touched with withered hand. [42]

As lambs or fawns in April cl.u.s.tering lie [43]

Under a h.o.a.ry oak's thin canopy, 150 Stretched at his feet, with stedfast upward eye, His children's children listened to the sound; [44]

--A Hermit with his family around!

But let us hence; for fair Locarno smiles Embowered in walnut slopes and citron isles: 155 Or seek at eve the banks of Tusa's stream, Where, [45] 'mid dim towers and woods, her [M] waters gleam.

From the bright wave, in solemn gloom, retire The dull-red steeps, and, darkening still, aspire To where afar rich orange l.u.s.tres glow 160 Round undistinguished clouds, and rocks, and snow: Or, led where Via Mala's chasms confine The indignant waters of the infant Rhine, Hang o'er the abyss, whose else impervious gloom [46]

His burning eyes with fearful light illume. 165

The mind condemned, without reprieve, to go O'er life's long deserts with its charge of woe, With sad congratulation joins the train Where beasts and men together o'er the plain Move on--a mighty caravan of pain: 170 Hope, strength, and courage, social suffering brings, Freshening the wilderness with shades and springs.

--There be whose lot far otherwise is cast: Sole human tenant of the piny waste, [47]