The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 49

With those delightful pathways we advanced, For two days' s.p.a.ce, in presence of the Lake, That, stretching far among the Alps, a.s.sumed 690 A character more stern. The second night, From sleep awakened, and misled by sound Of the church clock telling the hours with strokes Whose import then we had not learned, we rose By moonlight, doubting not that day was nigh, 695 And that meanwhile, by no uncertain path, Along the winding margin of the lake, Led, as before, we should behold the scene Hushed in profound repose. We left the town Of Gravedona [Hh] with this hope; but soon 700 Were lost, bewildered among woods immense, And on a rock sate down, to wait for day.

An open place it was, and overlooked, From high, the sullen water far beneath, On which a dull red image of the moon 705 Lay bedded, changing oftentimes its form Like an uneasy snake. From hour to hour We sate and sate, wondering, as if the night Had been ensnared by witchcraft. On the rock At last we stretched our weary limbs for sleep, 710 But _could not_ sleep, tormented by the stings Of insects, which, with noise like that of noon, Filled all the woods; the cry of unknown birds; The mountains more by blackness visible And their own size, than any outward light; 715 The breathless wilderness of clouds; the clock That told, with unintelligible voice, The widely parted hours; the noise of streams, And sometimes rustling motions nigh at hand, That did not leave us free from personal fear; 720 And, lastly, the withdrawing moon, that set Before us, while she still was high in heaven;-- These were our food; and such a summer's night [Ii]

Followed that pair of golden days that shed On Como's Lake, and all that round it lay, 725 Their fairest, softest, happiest influence.

But here I must break off, and bid farewell To days, each offering some new sight, or fraught With some untried adventure, in a course Prolonged till sprinklings of autumnal snow 730 Checked our unwearied steps. Let this alone Be mentioned as a parting word, that not In hollow exultation, dealing out Hyperboles of praise comparative; Not rich one moment to be poor for ever; 735 Not prostrate, overborne, as if the mind Herself were nothing, a mere pensioner On outward forms--did we in presence stand Of that magnificent region. On the front Of this whole Song is written that my heart 740 Must, in such Temple, needs have offered up A different worship. Finally, whate'er I saw, or heard, or felt, was but a stream That flowed into a kindred stream; a gale, Confederate with the current of the soul, 745 To speed my voyage; every sound or sight, In its degree of power, administered To grandeur or to tenderness,--to the one Directly, but to tender thoughts by means Less often instantaneous in effect; 750 Led me to these by paths that, in the main, Were more circuitous, but not less sure Duly to reach the point marked out by Heaven.

Oh, most beloved Friend! a glorious time, A happy time that was; triumphant looks 755 Were then the common language of all eyes; As if awaked from sleep, the Nations hailed Their great expectancy: the fife of war Was then a spirit-stirring sound indeed, A black-bird's whistle in a budding grove. 760 We left the Swiss exulting in the fate Of their near neighbours; and, when shortening fast Our pilgrimage, nor distant far from home, We crossed the Brabant armies on the fret [Kk]

For battle in the cause of Liberty. 765 A stripling, scarcely of the household then Of social life, I looked upon these things As from a distance; heard, and saw, and felt, Was touched, but with no intimate concern; I seemed to move along them, as a bird 770 Moves through the air, or as a fish pursues Its sport, or feeds in its proper element; I wanted not that joy, I did not need Such help; the ever-living universe, Turn where I might, was opening out its glories, 775 And the independent spirit of pure youth Called forth, at every season, new delights Spread round my steps like sunshine o'er green fields.

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

... gloomy Pa.s.s, 1845.]

[Variant 2:

At a slow step 1845.]

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: To Cambridge. The Anglo-Saxons called it 'Grantabridge', of which Cambridge may be a corruption, Granta and Cam being different names for the same stream. Grantchester is still the name of a village near Cambridge. It is uncertain whether the village or the city itself is the spot of which Bede writes, "venerunt ad civitatulam quandam desolatam, quae lingua Anglorum 'Grantachester' vocatur." If it was Cambridge itself it had already an alternative name, _viz._ 'Camboric.u.m'. Compare 'Cache-cache', a Tale in Verse, by William D.

Watson. London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1862:

"Leaving our woods and mountains for the plains Of treeless level Granta." (p. 103.) ...

"'Twas then the time When in two camps, like Pope and Emperor, Byron and Wordsworth parted Granta's sons."

(p. 121.) Ed.]

[Footnote B: Note the meaning, as well as the 'curiosa felicitas', of this phrase.--Ed.]

[Footnote C: His Cambridge studies were very miscellaneous, partly owing to his strong natural disinclination to work by rule, partly to unmethodic training at Hawkshead, and to the fact that he had already mastered so much of Euclid and Algebra as to have a twelvemonth's start of the freshmen of his year.

"Accordingly," he tells us, "I got into rather an idle way, reading nothing but Cla.s.sic authors, according to my fancy, and Italian poetry. As I took to these studies with much interest my Italian master was proud of the progress I made. Under his correction I translated the Vision of Mirza, and two or three other papers of the 'Spectator' into Italian."

Speaking of her brother Christopher, then at Cambridge, Dorothy Wordsworth wrote thus in 1793:

"He is not so ardent in any of his pursuits as William is, but he is yet particularly attached to the same pursuits which have so irresistible an influence over William, _and deprive him of the power of chaining his attention to others discordant to his feelings._"

Ed.]

[Footnote D: April 1804.--Ed.]

[Footnote E: There is no ash tree now in the grove of St. John's College, Cambridge, and no tradition as to where it stood. Covered as it was--trunk and branch--with "cl.u.s.tering ivy" in 1787, it survived till 1808 at any rate. See Note IV. in the Appendix to this volume, p.

390.--Ed.]

[Footnote F: See notes on pp. 210 [Footnote F to Book V] and 223 Footnote C to this Book, above].--Ed.]

[Footnote G: Before leaving Hawkshead he had mastered five books of Euclid, and in Algebra, simple and quadratic equations. See note, p. 223 [Footnote C to this Book, above].--Ed.]

[Footnote H: Compare the second stanza of the 'Ode to Lycoris':

'Then, Twilight is preferred to Dawn, And Autumn to the Spring.'

Ed.]

[Footnote I: Thomson. See the 'Castle of Indolence', canto I. stanza xv.--Ed.]

[Footnote K: Dovedale, a rocky chasm, rather more than two miles long, not far from Ashburn, in Derbyshire. Thomas Potts writes of it thus:

"The rugged, dissimilar, and frequently grotesque and fanciful appearance of the rocks distinguish the scenery of this valley from perhaps every other in the kingdom. In some places they shoot up in detached ma.s.ses, in the form of spires or conical pyramids, to the height of 30 or 40 yards.... One rock, distinguished by the name of the Pike, from its spiry form and situation in the midst of the stream, was noticed in the second part of 'The Complete Angler', by Charles Cotton," etc. etc.

('The Beauties of England and Wales,' Derbyshire, vol. iii, pp. 425, 426, and 431. London, 1810.) Potts speaks of the "pellucid waters" of the Dove. "It is transparent to the bottom." (See Whately, 'Observations on Modern Gardening', p. 114.)--Ed.]

[Footnote L: Doubtless Wharfedale, Wensleydale, and Swaledale.--Ed.]

[Footnote M: Compare 'Paradise Lost', v. 310, and in Chapman's 'Blind Beggar of Alexandria':

'Now see a morning in an evening rise.'

Ed.]

[Footnote N: For glimpses of the friendship of Dorothy Wordsworth and Coleridge, see the 'Life' of the poet in the last volume of this edition.--Ed.]

[Footnote O: The absence referred to--"separation desolate"--may refer both to the Hawkshead years, and to those spent at Cambridge; but doubtless the brother and sister met at Penrith, in vacation time from Hawkshead School; and, after William Wordsworth had gone to the university, Dorothy visited Cambridge, while the brother spent the Christmas holidays of 1790 at Forncett Rectory in Norfolk, where his sister was then staying, and where she spent several years with their uncle Cookson, the Canon of Windsor. It is more probable that the "separation desolate" refers to the interval between this Christmas of 1790 and their reunion at Halifax in 1794. In a letter dated Forncett, August 30, 1793, Dorothy says, referring to her brother, "It is nearly three years since we parted."--Ed.]

[Footnote P: Thomas Wilkinson's poem on the River Emont had been written in 1787, but was not published till 1824.--Ed.]