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The dreariest task that winter nights can bring,
By churchyard dark, or grove, or fairy ring;
Still buoying up the timid mind of youth,
Till loitering reason hoists the scale of truth.
With these blest guardians Giles his course pursues,
Till numbering his heavy-sided ewes,
Surrounding stillness tranquillize his breast,
And shape the dreams that wait his hours of rest.
As when retreating tempests we behold,
Whose skirts at length the azure sky unfold,
And full of murmurings and mingled wrath,
Slowly unshroud the smiling face of earth,
Bringing the bosom joy; so Winter flies !-
And see the source of life and light uprise!
A heightening arch o'er southern hills he bends;
Warm on the cheek the slanting beam descends,
And gives the reeking mead a brighter hue,
And draws the modest primrose bud to view.
Yet frosts succeed, and winds impetuous rush,
And hailstorms rattle through the budding bush;
And nigh-fall'n lambs require the shepherd's care,
And teeming ewes, that still their burdens bear;
Beneath whose sides to-morrow's dawn may see
The milk-white strangers bow the trembling knee;
At whose first birth the powerful instinct's seen
That fills with champions the daisied green :
For ewes that stood aloof with fearful eye,
With stamping foot now men and dogs defy,
And obstinately faithful to their young,
Guard their first steps to join the bleating throng.
But casualties and death from damps and cold
Will still attend the well-conducted fold:
Her tender offspring dead, the dam aloud
Calls, and runs wild amidst th' unconscious crowd;
And orphan'd sucklings raise the piteous cry;
No wool to warm them, no defenders nigh.
And must her streaming milk then flow in vain?
Must unregarded innocence complain?
No-ere this strong solicitude subside,
Maternal fondness may be fresh applied,
And the adopted stripling still may find
A parent most assiduously kind.

For this he's doom'd awhile disguised to range,
(For fraud or force must work the wish'd-for
change ;)

For this his predecessor's skin he wears,
Till, cheated into tenderness and cares,
The unsuspecting dam, contented grown,
Cherish and guard the foundling as her own.

Thus all by turns to fair perfection rise;
Thus twins are parted to increase their size:
Thus instinct yields as interest points the way,
Till the bright flock, augmenting every day,
On sunny hills and vales of springing flowers,
With ceaseless clamour greet the vernal hours.

The humbler shepherd here with joy beholds
Th' approved economy of crowded folds,
And, in his small contracted round of cares,
Adjusts the practice of each hint he hears:
For boys with emulation learn to glow,
And boast their pastures, and their healthful show
Of well-grown lambs, the glory of the Spring;
And field to field in competition bring.

E'en Giles, for all his cares and watchings past,
And all his contests with the wintry blast,
Claims a full share of that sweet praise bestow'd
By gazing neighbours, when along the road,
Or village green, his curly-coated throng
Suspends the chorus of the spinner's song;
When admiration's unaffected grace
Lisps from the tongue, and beams in every face.
Delightful moments!-Sunshine, health, and joy,
Play round, and cheer the elevated boy!
"Another spring!" his heart exulting cries;
"Another year! with promised blessings rise!—
ETERNAL POWER! from whom those blessings
flow,

Teach me still more to wonder, more to know!
Seed-time and harvest let me see again;
Wander the leaf-strewn wood, the frozen plain :
Let the first flower, corn-waving field, plain, tree,
Here round my home, still lift my soul to THEE;
And let me ever, midst thy bounties, raise
An humble note of thankfulness and praise!"

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

morials of a Tour on the Continent; also a Description of the Scenery of the Lakes in the North of England, with illustrative remarks on the scenery of the Alps. His last publication was Yarrow Revisited, which appeared in 1834.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, the founder of what is called the Lake school of poetry, was born in 1770, of a respectable family, at Cockermouth, in Cumberland. He received his early education at the grammar-school of Hawkshead, where he greatly excelled in his classical studies, and was remark- The genius of Mr. Wordsworth has been a matter able for his thoughtful disposition, and taste for of critical dispute ever since he first made pretension poetry, in which he made his first attempt, when at to any, and it is yet a question with some, whether the age of thirteen. In 1787, he was removed to his productions are not those of "an inspired idiot." St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated It would be, however, useless to deny him the B. A. and M. A.; and, in 1793, he published a reputation of a poet, though between the equally poetical account of a pedestrian tour on the conti- extravagant adoration and censure, of which he has nent, entitled Descriptive Sketches in Verse, &c., been the object, it is difficult to define the exact followed by the Evening Walk, an epistle, in verse, position which will be ultimately assigned him in addressed to a young lady. In alluding to the De- the rank of literature. Coleridge, who, as might be scriptive Sketches, says Coleridge," seldom, if ever, expected, is one of his most enthusiastic admirers, was the emergence of an original poetic genius says that, "in imaginative powers, Wordsworth above the literary horizon more evidently an- stands nearest of all modern writers to Shakspeare nounced." After wandering about in various parts and Milton, and yet in a kind perfectly unborrowed, of England, our author took a cottage at Alforton, and his own." The author of an essay on his in Somersetshire, near the then residence of Colc- theory and writings, printed in Blackwood's Maridge, where they were regarded by the good peo- gazine for 1830, gives a very fair estimate of his ple of the neighbourhood as spies and agents of the poetical genius. "The variety of subjects," he French Directory. Our benevolent author, however, observes, "which Wordsworth has touched; the appears to have been considered the more dangerous varied powers which he has displayed; the passages character of the two. "As to Coleridge," one of the of redeeming beauty interspersed even amongst the parish authorities is said to have remarked, "there worst and dullest of his productions; the originis not so much harm in him, for he is a wild brain ality of detached thoughts, scattered throughout that talks whatever comes uppermost; but that works, to which, on the whole, we must deny the (Wordsworth) he is the dark traitor. You praise of originality; the deep pathos, and occanever hear him say a syllable on the subject." In sional grandeur of his style; the real poetical 1798, he published a volume of his Lyrical Ballads, feeling which generally runs through its many which met with much abuse and few admirers, but modulations; his accurate observation of external those who applauded, applauded enthusiastically. nature; and the success with which he blends the purest and most devotional thoughts with the glories of the visible universe-all these are merits, which so far make up in number what they want in weight,' that, although insufficient to raise him to the shrine, they fairly admit him within the sacred temple of poesy." For our own parts, though we are not among those who call, as some of his admirers do, the poetry of Wordsworth "an actual revelation," we admit to have found in his works beauties which no other poet, perhaps, could have struck out of the peculiar sphere to which he has confined his imagination. His Recollections of Early Childhood, and a few others, are sublime compositions; whilst, on the other hand, his lines to a Glow-worm, et id omne genus, are despicable and ridiculous.

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In 1803, he married a Miss Mary Hutchinson, of Penrith, and settled at Grassmere, in Westmoreland, for which county, as well as that of Cumberland, he was subsequently appointed distributor of stamps. In 1807, he gave to the public a second volume of his Ballads; and, in 1809, with an intention to recommend a vigorous prosecution of the war with Spain, he published his only prose production, concerning the relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal to each other. In 1814, appeared, in quarto, his Excursion, a poem, which has been highly extolled, and is undoubtedly one of his most original and best compositions. It was followed, in 1815, by the White Doe of Rylstone; and, in 1819, by his Peter Bell, to the merits of which we must confess ourselves strangers. During the same year, he published his Wagonner, a tale; followed, in 1820, by the River Duddon, a series of sonnets; and Vaudracour and Julia, with other pieces; and Ecclesiastical Sketches. In 1822, he printed Me

The private character of Mr. Wordsworth has never been impeached by his most virulent enemies, if he has any; and no man is more esteemed and respected for his amiable qualities.

THE EXCURSION,

BEING A PORTION OF THE RECLUSE.

PREFACE.

THE title announces that this is only a portion of a poem; and the reader must be here apprized that it belongs to the second part of a long and laborious work which is to consist of three parts. -The author will candidly acknowledge that, if the first of these had been completed, and in such a manner as to satisfy his own mind, he should have preferred the natural order of publication, and have given that to the world first; but, as the second division of the work was designed to refer more to passing events, and to an existing state of things, than the others were meant to do, more continuous exertion was naturally bestowed upon it, and greater progress made here than in the rest of the poem; and as this part does not depend upon the preceding, to a degree which will materially injure its own peculiar interest, the author, complying with the earnest entreaties of some valued friends, presents the following pages to the public.

It may be proper to state whence the poem, of which the Excursion is a part, derives its title of the Recluse. Several years ago, when the author retired to his native mountains, with the hope of being enabled to construct a literary work that might live, it was a reasonable thing that he should take a review of his own mind, and examine how far nature and education had qualified him for such employment. As subsidiary to this preparation, he undertook to record, in verse, the origin and progress of his own powers, as far as he was acquainted with them. That work, addressed to a dear friend, most distinguished for his knowledge and genius, and to whom the author's intellect is deeply indebted, has been long finished; and the result of the investigation which gave rise to it was a determination to compose a philosophical poem, containing views of man, nature, and society; and to be entitled, the Recluse; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement.-The preparatory poem is biographical, and conducts the history of the author's mind to the point when he was imboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labour which he had proposed to himself; and the two works have the same kind of relation to each other, if he may so express himself, as the antichapel has to the body of a Gothic church. Continuing this allusion, he may be permitted to add, that his minor pieces, which have been long before the public, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive reader to have such connexion with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells, oratories, and sepulchral recesses, ordinarily included in those edifices.

he had not thought that the labour bestowed by him upon what he has heretofore and now laid before the public, entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavours to please, and he would hope, to benefit his countrymen.-Nothing further need be added, than that the first and third parts of the Recluse will consist chiefly of medita tions in the author's own person; and that in the intermediate part (the Excursion) the intervention of characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form adopted.

It is not the author's intention formally to announce a system: it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course; and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts, lively images, and strong feelings, the reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the mean time the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of the Recluse. may be acceptable as a kind of prospectus of the design and scope of the whole poem.

"On man, on nature, and on human life,
Musing in solitude, I oft perceive
Fair trains of imagery before me rise,
Accompanied by feelings of delight
Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixt;
And I am conscious of affecting thoughts
And dear remembrances whose presence soothes
Or elevates the mind, intent to weigh
The good and evil of our mortal state.
-To these emotions, whensoe'er they come,
Whether from breath of outward circumstance,
Or from the soul-an impulse to herself,
I would give utterance in numerous verse.
Of truth, of grandeur, beauty, love, and hope-
And melancholy fear subdued by faith;
Of blessed consolations in distress;
Of moral strength, and intellectual power;
Of joy in widest commonalty spread;
of the individual mind that keeps her own
Inviolate retirement, subject there
To conscience only, and the law supreme
Of that Intelligence which governs all;
I sing: fit audience let me find though few!'
"So pray'd, more gaining than he ask'd, the
bard,

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Holiest of men.-Urania, I shall need Thy guidance, or a greater muse, if such Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven! For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink Deep-and, aloft ascending, breathe in world To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil. All strength-all terror, single or in bands, That ever was put forth in personal form; Jehovah with his thunder, and the choir Of shouting angels, and the empyreal thronesI pass them unalarm'd. Not chaos, not The darkest pit of lowest Erebus, Nor aught of blinder vacancy-scoop'd out By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look The author would not have deemed himself Into our minds, into the mind of man, Justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of My haunt, and the main region of my song. performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if-Beauty-a living presence of the earth,

Surpassing the most fair ideal forms

Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed
From earth's materials-waits upon my steps;
Pitches her tents before me as I move,
An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves
Elysian, fortunate fields-like those of old
Sought in th' Atlantic main, why should they be
A history only of departed things,

Or a mere fiction of what never was
For the discerning intelleet of man,
When wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion, shall find these
A simple produce of the common day.
-I, long before the blissful hour arrives,
Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse
Of this great consummation ;-and, by words
Which speak of nothing more than what we are,
Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep
Of death, and win the vacant and the vain
To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims
How exquisitely the individual mind
(And the progressive powers perhaps no less
Of the whole species) to the external world
Is fitted; and how exquisitely, too,
Theme this but little heard of among men,
Th' external world is fitted to the mind;
And the creation (by no lower name

Can it be call'd) which they with blended might
Accomplish:-this is our high argument.
-Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft

Must turn elsewhere-to travel near the tribes
And fellowships of men, and see ill sights
Of madding passions mutually inflamed;
Must hear humanity in fields and groves
Pipe solitary anguish ; or must hang
Brooding above the fierce confederate storm
Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore

Within the walls of cities; may these sounds
Have their authentic comment,-that even these
Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn
-Descend, prophetic spirit! that inspirest
The human soul* of universal earth,
Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess
A metropolitan temple in the hearts

Of mighty poets; upon me bestow

A gift of genuine insight; that my song
With star-like virtue in its place may shine;
Shedding benignant influence,—and secure,
Itself, from all malevolent effect

Of those mutations that extend their sway
Throughout the nether sphere!-And if with this
I mix more lowly matter; with the thing
Contemplated, describe the mind and man
Contemplating, and who, and what he was,
The transitory being that beheld

This vision,-when and where, and how he lived;
Be not this labour useless. If such theme
May sort with highest objects, then, dread power,
Whose gracious favour is the primal source
Of all illumination, may my life
Express the image of a better time,

More wise desires, and simpler manners ;-nurse

* Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come. Shakspeare's Sonnets.

My heart in genuine freedom :-all pure thoughts
Be with me ;-so shall thy unfailing love
Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!"

TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K. G. &c. &c.

OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious peer!
In youth I roam'd, on youthful pleasures bent;
And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent,
Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear.
-Now, by thy care befriended, I appear
Before thee, Lonsdale, and this work present,
A token (may it prove a monument!)
Of high respect and gratitude sincere.
Gladly would I have waited till my task
Had reached its close; but life is insecure,
And hope full oft fallacious as a dream:
Therefore, for what is here produced I ask
Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem
The offering, though imperfect, premature.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Rydal Mount, Westmoreland,

July 29, 1814.

THE EXCURSION.

ARGUMENT.

A summer forenoon. The author reaches a ruined cottage upon a common, and there meets with a revered friend the Wanderer, of whom he gives an account. The Wanderer while resting under the shade of the trees that surround the cottage relates the history of its last inha bitant

BOOK FIRST.

THE WANDERER.

"TWAS summer, and the sun had mounted high:
Southward the landscape indistinctly glared
Through a pale steam: but all the northern downs,
In clearest air ascending, show'd far off
A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung
From brooding clouds: shadows that lay in spots
Determined and unmoved, with steady beams
Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed;
Pleasant to him who on the soft cool moss
Extends his careless limbs along the front
Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts
A twilight of its own, an ample shade,
Where the wren warbles; while the dreaming man,
Half conscious of the soothing melody,
With sidelong eye looks out upon the scene,
By power of that impending covert thrown
To finer distance. Other lot was mine;
Yet with good hope that soon I should obtain
As grateful resting-place, and livelier joy.
Across a bare wide common I was toiling
With languid steps that by the slippery ground
Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse
The host of insects gathering round my face,
And ever with me as I paced along.

Upon that open level stood a grove,

The wish'd for port to which my course was bound

Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom
Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms,
Appear'd a roofless hut; four naked walls
That stared upon each other! I looked round,
And to my wish and to my hope espied
Him whom I sought; a man of reverend age,
But stout and hale, for travel unimpair'd.
There was he seen upon the cottage bench,
Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep;
An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.

Him had I mark'd the day before-alone
And station'd in the public way, with face

His graces unreveal'd and unproclaim'd.
But, as the mind was fill'd with inward light,
So not without distinction had he lived,
Beloved and honour'd-far as he was known.
And some small portion of his eloquent speech,
And something that may serve to set in view
The feeling pleasures of his loneliness,
His observations, and the thoughts his mind
Had dealt with-I will here record in verse;
Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink
Or rise as venerable nature leads,

The high and tender muses shall accept

Turn'd toward the sun then setting, while that staff With gracious smile, deliberately pleased,

Afforded to the figure of the man

Detain'd for contemplation or repose,

Graceful support; his countenance meanwhile
Was hidden from my view, and he remain'd
Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight,
With slacken'd footsteps I advanced, and soon
A glad congratulation we exchanged,
At such unthought of meeting.-For the night
We parted, nothing willingly; and now
He by appointment waited for me here,
Beneath the shelter of these clustering elms.

We were tried friends: amid a pleasant vale,
In the antique market village where were pass'd
My school-days, an apartment he had own'd,
To which at intervals the Wanderer drew,
And found a kind of home or harbour there.
He loved me; from a swarm of rosy boys
Singled out me, as he in sport would say,

And listening time reward with sacred praise.

Among the hills of Athol he was born;
Where, on a small hereditary farm,

An unproductive slip of rugged ground,

His parents, with their numerous offspring, dwelt;
A virtuous household, though exceeding poor!
Pure livers were they all, austere and grave,
And fearing God; the very children taught
Stern self-respect, a reverence for God's word,
And an habitual piety, maintain'd

With strictness scarcely known on English ground.
From his sixth year, the boy of whom I speak,
In summer tended cattle on the hills;
But, through th' inclement and the perilous days
Of long-continuing winter, he repair'd,
Equipp'd with satchel, to a school, that stood
Sole building on a mountain's dreary edge,
Remote from view of city spire, or sound

For my grave looks-too thoughtful for my years. Of minster clock! From that bleak tenement

As I grew up, it was my best delight

To be his chosen comrade. Many a time,
On holydays, we rambled through the woods:
We sate-we walk'd; he pleased me with report
Of things which he had seen; and often touch'd
Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind
Turn'd inward; or at my request would sing
Old songs-the product of his native hills;
A skilful distribution of sweet sounds,
Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed
As cool, refreshing water by the care

Of the industrious husbandman, diffused [drought,
Through a parch'd meadow-ground, in time of
Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse:
How precious when in riper days I learn'd
To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice
In the plain presence of his dignity!

O many are the poets that are sown
By nature; men endow'd with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine;
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse,
(Which, in the docile season of their youth,
It was denied them to acquire, through lack
Of culture and th' inspiring aid of books,
Or haply by a temper too severe,
Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame,)
Not having here as life advanced, been led
By circumstance to take unto the height
The measure of themselves, these favour'd beings,
All but a scatter'd few, live out their time,
Husbanding that which they possess within,
And go to the grave unthought of. Strongest minds
Are often those of whom the noisy world
Hears least; else surely this man had not left

He, many an evening, to his distant home
In solitude returning, saw the hills
Grow larger in the darkness, all alone
Beheld the stars come out above his head,
And travell'd through the wood, with no one near
To whom he might confess the things he saw.
So the foundations of his mind were laid.
In such communion, not from terror free,
While yet a child, and long before his time,
He had perceived the presence and the power
Of greatness; and deep feelings had impress'd
Great objects on his mind, with portraiture
And colour so distinct, that on his mind
They lay like substances, and almost seem'd
To haunt the bodily sense. He had received
A precious gift; for, as he grew in years,
With these impressions would he still compare
All his remembrances, thoughts, shapes, and forms
And, being still unsatisfied with aught
Of dimmer character, he thence attain'd
An active power to fasten images
Upon his brain; and on their pictured lines
Intensely brooded, even till they acquired
The liveliness of dreams. Nor did he fail,
While yet a child, with a child's eagerness
Incessantly to turn his ear and eye

On all things which the moving seasons brought
To feed such appetite: nor this alone
Appeased his yearning:-in the after day
Of boyhood, many an hour in caves forlorn,
And mid the hollow depths of naked crags
He sate, and e'en in their fix'd lineaments,
Or from the power of a peculiar eye,
Or by creative feeling overborne.

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