The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 53

Though reared upon the base of outward things, 650 Structures like these the excited spirit mainly Builds for herself; scenes different there are, Full-formed, that take, with small internal help, Possession of the faculties,--the peace That comes with night; the deep solemnity 655 Of nature's intermediate hours of rest, When the great tide of human life stands still; The business of the day to come, unborn, Of that gone by, locked up, as in the grave; The blended calmness of the heavens and earth, 660 Moonlight and stars, and empty streets, and sounds Unfrequent as in deserts; at late hours Of winter evenings, when unwholesome rains Are falling hard, with people yet astir, The feeble salutation from the voice 665 Of some unhappy woman, now and then Heard as we pa.s.s, when no one looks about, Nothing is listened to. But these, I fear, Are falsely catalogued; things that are, are not, As the mind answers to them, or the heart 670 Is prompt, or slow, to feel. What say you, then, To times, when half the city shall break out Full of one pa.s.sion, vengeance, rage, or fear?

To executions, to a street on fire, Mobs, riots, or rejoicings? From these sights 675 Take one,--that ancient festival, the Fair, Holden where martyrs suffered in past time, And named of St. Bartholomew; [c] there, see A work completed to our hands, that lays, If any spectacle on earth can do, 680 The whole creative powers of man asleep!-- For once, the Muse's help will we implore, And she shall lodge us, wafted on her wings, Above the press and danger of the crowd, Upon some showman's platform. What a shock 685 For eyes and ears! what anarchy and din, Barbarian and infernal,--a phantasma, Monstrous in colour, motion, shape, sight, sound!

Below, the open s.p.a.ce, through every nook Of the wide area, twinkles, is alive 690 With heads; the midway region, and above, Is thronged with staring pictures and huge scrolls, Dumb proclamations of the Prodigies; With chattering monkeys dangling from their poles, And children whirling in their roundabouts; 695 With those that stretch the neck and strain the eyes, And crack the voice in rivalship, the crowd Inviting; with buffoons against buffoons Grimacing, writhing, screaming,--him who grinds The hurdy-gurdy, at the fiddle weaves, 700 Rattles the salt-box, thumps the kettle-drum, And him who at the trumpet puffs his cheeks, The silver-collared Negro with his timbrel, Equestrians, tumblers, women, girls, and boys, Blue-breeched, pink-vested, with high-towering plumes.--705 All moveables of wonder, from all parts, Are here--Albinos, painted Indians, Dwarfs, The Horse of knowledge, and the learned Pig, The Stone-eater, the man that swallows fire, Giants, Ventriloquists, the Invisible Girl, 710 The Bust that speaks and moves its goggling eyes, The Wax-work, Clock-work, all the marvellous craft Of modern Merlins, Wild Beasts, Puppet-shows, All out-o'-the-way, far-fetched, perverted things, All freaks of nature, all Promethean thoughts 715 Of man, his dullness, madness, and their feats All jumbled up together, to compose A Parliament of Monsters. Tents and Booths Meanwhile, as if the whole were one vast mill, Are vomiting, receiving on all sides, 720 Men, Women, three-years' Children, Babes in arms.

Oh, blank confusion! true epitome Of what the mighty City is herself, To thousands upon thousands of her sons, Living amid the same perpetual whirl 725 Of trivial objects, melted and reduced To one ident.i.ty, by differences That have no law, no meaning, and no end-- Oppression, under which even highest minds Must labour, whence the strongest are not free. [d] 730 But though the picture weary out the eye, By nature an unmanageable sight, It is not wholly so to him who looks In steadiness, who hath among least things An under-sense of greatest; sees the parts 735 As parts, but with a feeling of the whole.

This, of all acquisitions, first awaits On sundry and most widely different modes Of education, nor with least delight On that through which I pa.s.sed. Attention springs, 740 And comprehensiveness and memory flow, From early converse with the works of G.o.d Among all regions; chiefly where appear Most obviously simplicity and power.

Think, how the everlasting streams and woods, 745 Stretched and still stretching far and wide, exalt The roving Indian, on his desert sands: What grandeur not unfelt, what pregnant show Of beauty, meets the sun-burnt Arab's eye: And, as the sea propels, from zone to zone, 750 Its currents; magnifies its shoals of life Beyond all compa.s.s; spreads, and sends aloft Armies of clouds,--even so, its powers and aspects Shape for mankind, by principles as fixed, The views and aspirations of the soul 755 To majesty. Like virtue have the forms Perennial of the ancient hills; nor less The changeful language of their countenances Quickens the slumbering mind, and aids the thoughts, However mult.i.tudinous, to move 760 With order and relation. This, if still, As. .h.i.therto, in freedom I may speak, Not violating any just restraint, As may be hoped, of real modesty,-- This did I feel, in London's vast domain. 765 The Spirit of Nature was upon me there; The soul of Beauty and enduring Life Vouchsafed her inspiration, and diffused, Through meagre lines and colours, and the press Of self-destroying, transitory things, 770 Composure, and enn.o.bling Harmony.

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Goslar, February 10th, 1799. Compare Mr. Carter's note to 'The Prelude', book vii. l. 3.--Ed.]

[Footnote B: The first two paragraphs of book i.--Ed.]

[Footnote C: April 1804: see the reference in book vi. l. 48.--Ed.]

[Footnote D: Before he left for Malta, Coleridge had urged Wordsworth to complete this work.--Ed.]

[Footnote E: The summer of 1804.--Ed.]

[Footnote F: Doubtless John's Grove, below White Moss Common. On November 24, 1801, Dorothy Wordsworth wrote in her Journal,

"As we were going along, we were stopped at once, at the distance perhaps of fifty yards from our favourite birch tree. It was yielding to the gusty wind with all its tender twigs. The sun shone upon it, and it glanced in the wind like a flying sunshiny shower. It was a tree in shape, with stem and branches, but it was like a spirit of water. The sun went in, and it resumed its purplish appearance, the twigs still yielding to the wind, but not so visibly to us. The other birch trees that were near it looked bright and cheerful, but it was a Creation by itself amongst them."

This does not refer to John's Grove, but it may be interesting to compare the sister's description of a birch tree "tossing in sunshine,"

with the brother's account of a grove of fir trees similarly moved.--Ed.]

[Footnote G: The visit to Switzerland with Jones in 1790, described in book vi.--Ed.]

[Footnote H: He took his B. A. degree in January 1791, and immediately afterwards left Cambridge.--Ed.]

[Footnote I: Going to Forncett Rectory, near Norwich, he spent six weeks with his sister, and then went to London, where he stayed four months.--Ed.]

[Footnote K: From the hint given in this pa.s.sage, it would seem that he had gone up to London for a few days in 1788. Compare book viii. l. 543, and note [Footnote o].--Ed.]

[Footnote L: The story of Whittington, hearing the bells ring out the prosperity in store for him,

'Turn again, Whittington, Thrice Lord Mayor of London,'

is well known.--Ed.]

[Footnote M: Tea-gardens, till well on in this century; now built over.--Ed.]

[Footnote N: Bedlam, a popular corruption of Bethlehem, a lunatic hospital, founded in 1246. The old building, with its "carved maniacs at the gates," was taken down in 1675, and the hospital removed to Moorfields. The second building--the one to which Wordsworth refers--was demolished in 1814.--Ed.]

[Footnote O: The London "Monument," erected from a design by Sir Christopher Wren, on the spot where the great London Fire of 1666 began.--Ed.]

[Footnote P: The historic Tower of London.--Ed.]

[Footnote Q: A theatre in St. John's Street Road, Clerkenwell, erected in 1765.--Ed.]

[Footnote R: See 'Samson Agonistes', l. 88.--Ed.]

[Footnote S: See 'Hamlet', act I. sc. v. l. 100.--Ed.]

[Footnote T: The story of Mary, "The Maid of b.u.t.termere," as told in the guidebooks, is as follows:

'She was the daughter of the inn-keeper at the Fish Inn. She was much admired, and many suitors sought her hand in vain. At last a stranger, named Hatfield, who called himself the Hon. Colonel Hope, brother of Lord Hopetoun, won her heart, and married her. Soon after the marriage, he was apprehended on a charge of forgery, surrept.i.tiously franking a letter in the name of a Member of Parliament, tried at Carlisle, convicted, and hanged. It was discovered during the trial, that he had a wife and family, and had fled to these sequestered parts to escape the arm of the law.'

See 'Essays on his own Times', by S. T. Coleridge, edited by his daughter Sara. A melodrama on the story of the Maid of b.u.t.termere was produced in all the suburban London theatres; and in 1843 a novel was published in London by Henry Colburn, ent.i.tled 'James Hatfield and the Beauty of b.u.t.termere, a Story of Modern Times', with ill.u.s.trations by Robert Cruikshank.--Ed.]

[Footnote U: Compare S. T. C.'s 'Essays on his own Times', p. 585.--Ed.]

[Footnote V: He first went south to Cambridge, in October 1787; and he left London, at the close of his second visit to Town, in the end of May 1791.--Ed.]

[Footnote W: Compare 'Macbeth', act II. sc. i. l. 58:

'Thy very stones prate of my whereabout.'

Ed.]

[Footnote X: The Houses of Parliament.--Ed.]

[Footnote Y: See Shakespeare's 'King Henry the Fifth', act IV. sc. iii.