The Prose Works of William Wordsworth Part 88

The course of the great war with the French naturally fixed one's attention upon the military character; and, to the honour of our country, there are many ill.u.s.trious instances of the qualities that const.i.tute its highest excellence. Lord Nelson carried most of the virtues that the trials he was exposed to in his department of the service necessarily call forth and sustain, if they do not produce the contrary vices. But his public life was stained with one great crime, so that, though many pa.s.sages of these lines were suggested by what was generally known as excellent in his conduct, I have not been able to connect his name with the poem as I could wish, or even to think of him with satisfaction in reference to the idea of what a warrior ought to be. For the sake of such of my friends as may happen to read this note I will add, that many elements of the character here portrayed were found in my brother John, who perished by shipwreck, as mentioned elsewhere.

His messmates used to call him 'the Philosopher;' from which it must be inferred that the qualities and dispositions I allude to had not escaped their notice. He often expressed his regret, after the war had continued some time, that he had not chosen the Naval instead of the East India Company's Service, to which his family connection had led him. He greatly valued moral and religious instruction for youth, as tending to make good sailors. The best, he used to say, came from Scotland; the next to them from the north of England, especially from Westmoreland and c.u.mberland, where, thanks to the piety and local attachments of our ancestors, endowed, or, as they are called, free-schools abound.

439. *_The Force of Prayer_. [XXI.]

An appendage to 'The White Doe.' My friend, Mr. Rogers, has also written on the subject. The story is preserved in Dr. Whitaker's _History of Craven_, a topographical writer of first-rate merit in all that concerns the past; but such was his aversion from the modern spirit, as shown in the spread of manufactories in those districts of which he treated, that his readers are left entirely ignorant, both of the progress of these arts, and their real bearing upon the comfort, virtues, and happiness of the inhabitants.

While wandering on foot through the fertile valleys, and over the moorlands of the Apennine that divides Yorkshire from Lancashire, I used to be delighted with observing the number of substantial cottages that had sprung up on every side, each having its little plot of fertile ground, won from the surrounding waste. A bright and warm fire, if needed, was always to be found in these dwellings. The father was at his loom, the children looked healthy and happy. Is it not to be feared that the increase of mechanic power has done away with many of these blessings, and subst.i.tuted many evils? Alas, if these evils grow, how are they to be checked, and where is the remedy to be found? Political economy will not supply it, that is certain. We must look to something deeper, purer, and higher.

440. *_A Fact and an Imagination_. [XXII.]

The first and last four lines of this poem each make a sonnet, and were composed as such. But I thought that by intermediate lines they might be connected so as to make a whole. One or two expressions are taken from Milton's _History of England_.

441. *_A little Onward_. [XXIII.]

The complaint in my eyes which gave occasion to this address to my daughter first showed itself as a consequence of inflammation, caught at the top of Kirkstone, when I was over-heated by having carried up the ascent my eldest son, a l.u.s.ty infant. Frequently has the disease recurred since, leaving the eyes in a state which has often prevented my reading for months, and makes me at this day incapable of bearing without injury any strong light by day or night. My acquaintance with books has therefore been far short of my wishes, and on this account, to acknowledge the services daily and hourly done me by my family and friends, this note is written.

442. _Ode to Lycoris_. [XXIV.]

This, as well as the preceding and the two that follow, were composed in front of Rydal Mount, and during my walks in the neighbourhood.

Nine-tenths of my verses have been murmured out in the open air. And here let me repeat what I believe has already appeared in print. One day a stranger, having walked round the garden and grounds of Rydal Mount, asked of one of the female servants, who happened to be at the door, permission to see her master's Study. 'This,' said she, leading him forward, 'is my master's library, where he keeps his books; but his study is out of doors.' After a long absence from home, it has more than once happened that some one of my cottage neighbours (not of the double-coach-house cottages) has said, 'Well, there he is; we are glad to hear him _booing_ about again.' Once more, in excuse for so much egotism, let me say these notes are written for my familiar friends, and at their earnest request. Another time a gentleman, whom James had conducted through the grounds, asked him what kind of plants throve best there. After a little consideration, he answered, 'Laurels.' 'That is,'

said the stranger, 'as it should be. Don't you know that the laurel is the emblem of poetry, and that poets used, on public occasions, to be crowned with it?' James stared when the question was first put, but was doubtless much pleased with the information.

443. *_Ibid._

The discerning reader who is aware that in the poem of 'Ellen Irwin' I was desirous of throwing the reader at once out of the old ballad, so as if possible to preclude a comparison between that mode of dealing with the subject and the mode I meant to adopt, may here, perhaps, perceive that this poem originated in the four last lines of the first stanza.

These specks of snow reflected in the lake, and so transferred, as it were, to the subaqueous sky, reminded me of the swans which the fancy of the ancient cla.s.sic poets yoked to the car of Venus. Hence the tenor of the whole first stanza and the name of Lycoris, which with some readers, who think mythology and cla.s.sical allusion too far-fetched, and therefore more or less unnatural or affected, will tend to unrealise the sentiment that pervades these verses. But surely one who has written so much in verse as I have done may be allowed to retrace his steps into the regions of fancy which delighted him in his boyhood, when he first became acquainted with the Greek and Roman Poets. Before I read Virgil I was so strongly attached to Ovid, whose _Metamorphoses_ I read at school, that I was quite in a pa.s.sion whenever I found him, in books of criticism, placed below Virgil. As to Homer, I was never weary of travelling over the scenes through which he led me. Cla.s.sical literature affected me by its own beauty. But the truths of Scripture having been entrusted to the dead languages, and these fountains having been recently laid open at the Reformation, an importance and a sanct.i.ty were at that period attached to cla.s.sical literature that extended, as is obvious in Milton's _Lycidas_, for example, both to its spirit and form in a degree that can never be revived. No doubt the hackneyed and lifeless use into which mythology fell towards the close of the 17th century, and which continued through the 18th, disgusted the general reader with all allusion to it in modern verse. And though, in deference to this disgust, and also in a measure partic.i.p.ating in it, I abstained in my earlier writings from all introduction of pagan fable,--surely, even in its humble form, it may ally itself with real sentiment--as I can truly affirm it did in the present case.

444. *_Memory_. [XXVIII.]

The verses 'Or strayed from hope and promise, self-betrayed,' were, I am sorry to say, suggested from apprehensions of the fate of my friend H.C., the subject of the verses addressed to H.C. when six years old.

The piece which follows, to 'Memory,' arose out of similar feelings.

445. *_This Lawn_. [XXIX.]

This lawn is the sloping one approaching the kitchen-garden, and was made out of it. Hundreds of times have I here watched the dancing of shadows amid a press of sunshine, and other beautiful appearances of light and shade, flowers and shrubs. What a contrast between this and the cabbages and onions and carrots that used to grow there on a piece of ugly-shaped unsightly ground! No reflection, however, either upon cabbages or onions. The latter, we know, were worshipped by the Egyptians; and he must have a poor eye for beauty who has not observed how much of it there is in the form and colour which cabbages and plants of this genus exhibit through the various stages of their growth and decay. A richer display of colour in vegetable nature can scarcely be conceived than Coleridge, my sister, and I saw in a bed of potatoe plants in blossom near a hut upon the moor between Inversneyd and Loch Katrine. These blossoms were of such extraordinary beauty and richness that no one could have pa.s.sed them without notice. But the sense must be cultivated through the mind before we can perceive those inexhaustible treasures of Nature--for such they truly are--without the least necessary reference to the utility of her productions, or even to the laws whereupon, as we learn by research, they are dependent. Some are of opinion that the habit of a.n.a.lysing, decomposing, and anatomising, is inevitably unfavourable to the perception of beauty. People are led into this mistake by overlooking the fact that such processes being to a certain extent within the reach of a limited intellect, we are apt to ascribe to them that insensibility of which they are in truth the effect, and not the cause. Admiration and love, to which all knowledge truly vital must tend, are felt by men of real genius in proportion as their discoveries in Natural Philosophy are enlarged; and the beauty in form of a plant or an animal is not made less but more apparent as a whole by a more accurate insight into its const.i.tuent properties and powers. A _Savant_, who is not also a poet in soul and a religionist in heart, is a feeble and unhappy creature.

446. *_Humanity_. [x.x.x.]

These verses and the preceding ones, ent.i.tled 'Liberty,' were composed as one piece, which Mrs. W. complained of as unwieldy and ill-proportioned; and accordingly it was divided into two, on her judicious recommendation.

[Printed notes: 'The rocking-stones alluded to in the beginning of the following verses are supposed to have been used, by our British ancestors, both for judicial and religious purposes. Such stones are not uncommonly found, at this day, both in Great Britain and in Ireland.' On l. 32, 'Descending to the worm in charity:' 'I am indebted here to a pa.s.sage in one of Mr. Digby's valuable works.']

447. *_Thought on the Seasons_. [x.x.xI.]

Written at Rydal Mount, 1829.

448. *_To_ ----, _on the Birth of her first Child_. [x.x.xII.]

Written at Moresby near Whitehaven, 1833, when I was on a visit to my son, then inc.u.mbent of that small living. While I am dictating these Notes to my friend Miss Fenwick, Jan. 24th, 1843, the child, upon whose birth these verses were written, is under my roof, and is of a disposition so promising that the wishes and prayers and prophecies which I then breathed forth in verse are, thro' G.o.d's mercy, likely to be realised. [In pencil--Jane?]

449. *_The Warning: a Sequel to the Foregoing_. [x.x.xIII.]

These lines were composed during the fever spread through the nation by the Reform Bill. As the motives which led to this measure, and the good or evil which has attended or has risen from it, will be duly appreciated by future historians, there is no call for dwelling on the subject in this place. I will content myself with saying that the then condition of the people's mind is not, in these verses, exaggerated.

450. *_The Labourer's Noon-day Hymn_. [x.x.xV.]

Bishop Ken's Morning and Evening Hymns are, as they deserve to be, familiarly known. Many other hymns have also been written on the same subjects; but not being aware of any being designed for noon-day I was induced to compose these verses. Often we had occasion to observe cottage children carrying in their baskets dinner to their fathers engaged with their daily labours in the fields and woods. How gratifying would it be to me could I be a.s.sured that any portion of these stanzas had been sung by such a domestic concert under such circ.u.mstances. A friend of mine has told me that she introduced this Hymn into a village-school which she superintended; and the stanzas in succession furnished her with texts to comment upon in a way which without difficulty was made intelligible to the children, and in which they obviously took delight; and they were taught to sing it to the tune of the old 100th Psalm.

451. *_Ode composed on May Morning_. [x.x.xVI.]

*_To May_. [x.x.xVII.]

These two Poems originated in these lines 'How delicate, &c.' My daughter and I left Rydal Mount upon a Tour through our mountains with Mr. and Mrs. Carr, in the month of May 1826; and as we were going up the Vale of Newlands I was struck with the appearance of the little chapel gleaming through the veil of half-opened leaves, and the feeling which was then conveyed to my mind was expressed in the stanza that follows.

As in the case of 'Liberty' and 'Humanity,' mentioned before, my first intention was to write only one Poem; but subsequently I broke it into two, making additions to each part, so as to produce a consistent and appropriate whole.

452. *_Lines suggested by a Portrait from the Pencil of F. Stone_.

[x.x.xVIII.]

*_The foregoing Subject resumed_. [x.x.xIX.]

This Portrait has hung for many years in our princ.i.p.al sitting-room, and represents J.Q. as she was when a girl. The picture, though it is somewhat thinly painted, has much merit in tone and general effect. It is chiefly valuable, however, from the sentiment that pervades it. The anecdote of the saying of the monk in sight of t.i.tian's picture was told in this house by Mr. Wilkie, and was, I believe, first communicated to the public in this poem, the former portion of which I was composing at the time. Southey heard the story from Miss Hutchinson, and transferred it to the 'Doctor;' but it is not easy to explain how my friend Mr.

Rogers, in a note subsequently added to his 'Italy,' was led to speak of the same remarkable words having many years before been spoken in his hearing by a monk or priest in front of a picture of the Last Supper placed over a refectory-table in a convent at Padua. [Printed note on x.x.xVIII., last line: 'The Escurial. The pile of buildings composing the palace and convent of San Lorenzo has, in common usage, lost its proper name in that of the Escurial, a village at the foot of the hill upon which the splendid edifice, built by Philip the Second, stands. It need scarcely be added, that Wilkie is the painter alluded to.' On x.x.xIX.:

'Frail ties, dissolving or dissolved On earth, will be revived, we trust, in heaven.'

'In the cla.s.s ent.i.tled "Musings," in Mr. Southey's Minor Poems, is one upon his own miniature picture, taken in childhood, and another upon a landscape painted by Gaspar Poussin. It is possible that every word of the above verses, though similar in subject, might have been written had the author been unacquainted with those beautiful effusions of poetic sentiment. But, for his own satisfaction, he must be allowed thus publicly to acknowledge the pleasure those two Poems of his friend have given him, and the grateful influence they have upon his mind as often as he reads them or thinks of them.']

453. *_Upon seeing a coloured Drawing of the Bird of Paradise in an Alb.u.m_. [XLI.]

I cannot forbear to record that the last seven lines of this poem were composed in bed, during the night of the day on which my sister S.H.

died, about six P.M., and it was the thought of her innocent and beautiful life that through faith prompted the words:

'On wings that fear no glance of G.o.d's pure sight, No tempest from His breath.'