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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539935" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Book Fourteenth [conclusion]</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">In one of those excursions (may they ne'er<br>Fade from remembrance!) through the Northern tracts<br>Of Cambria ranging with a youthful friend,<br>I left Bethgelert's huts at couching-time,<br>And westward took my way, to see the sun<br>Rise, from the top of Snowdon. To the door<br>Of a rude cottage at the mountain's base<br>We came, and roused the shepherd who attends<br>The adventurous stranger's steps, a trusty guide;<br>Then, cheered by short refreshment, sallied forth. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night,<br>Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fog<br>Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky;<br>But, undiscouraged, we began to climb<br>The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round,<br>And, after ordinary travellers' talk<br>With our conductor, pensively we sank<br>Each into commerce with his private thoughts:<br>Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself<br>Was nothing either seen or heard that checked <br>Those musings or diverted, save that once<br>The shepherd's lurcher, who, among the crags,<br>Had to his joy unearthed a hedgehog, teased<br>His coiled-up prey with barkings turbulent.<br>This small adventure, for even such it seemed<br>In that wild place and at the dead of night,<br>Being over and forgotten, on we wound<br>In silence as before. With forehead bent<br>Earthward, as if in opposition set<br>Against an enemy, I panted up <br>With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts.<br>Thus might we wear a midnight hour away,<br>Ascending at loose distance each from each,<br>And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band;<br>When at my feet the ground appeared to brighten,<br>And with a step or two seemed brighter still;<br>Nor was time given to ask or learn the cause,<br>For instantly a light upon the turf<br>Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up,<br>The Moon hung naked in a firmament <br>Of azure without cloud, and at my feet<br>Rested a silent sea of hoary mist.<br>A hundred hills their dusky backs upheaved<br>All over this still ocean; and beyond,<br>Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched,<br>In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes,<br>Into the main Atlantic, that appeared<br>To dwindle, and give up his majesty,<br>Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.<br>Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none <br>Was there, nor loss; only the inferior stars<br>Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light<br>In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon,<br>Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed<br>Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay<br>All meek and silent, save that through a rift--<br>Not distant from the shore whereon we stood,<br>A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place--<br>Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams<br>Innumerable, roaring with one voice! <br>Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour,<br>For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When into air had partially dissolved<br>That vision, given to spirits of the night<br>And three chance human wanderers, in calm thought<br>Reflected, it appeared to me the type<br>Of a majestic intellect, its acts<br>And its possessions, what it has and craves,<br>What in itself it is, and would become.<br>There I beheld the emblem of a mind <br>That feeds upon infinity, that broods<br>Over the dark abyss, intent to hear<br>Its voices issuing forth to silent light<br>In one continuous stream; a mind sustained<br>By recognitions of transcendent power,<br>In sense conducting to ideal form,<br>In soul of more than mortal privilege.<br>One function, above all, of such a mind<br>Had Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,<br>'Mid circumstances awful and sublime, <br>That mutual domination which she loves<br>To exert upon the face of outward things,<br>So moulded, joined, abstracted, so endowed<br>With interchangeable supremacy,<br>That men, least sensitive, see, hear, perceive,<br>And cannot choose but feel. The power, which all<br>Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature thus<br>To bodily sense exhibits, is the express<br>Resemblance of that glorious faculty<br>That higher minds bear with them as their own. <br>This is the very spirit in which they deal<br>With the whole compass of the universe:<br>They from their native selves can send abroad<br>Kindred mutations; for themselves create<br>A like existence; and, whene'er it dawns<br>Created for them, catch it, or are caught<br>By its inevitable mastery,<br>Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound<br>Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.<br>Them the enduring and the transient both <br>Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things<br>From least suggestions; ever on the watch,<br>Willing to work and to be wrought upon,<br>They need not extraordinary calls<br>To rouse them; in a world of life they live,<br>By sensible impressions not enthralled,<br>But by their quickening impulse made more prompt<br>To hold fit converse with the spiritual world,<br>And with the generations of mankind<br>Spread over time, past, present, and to come, <br>Age after age, till Time shall be no more.<br>Such minds are truly from the Deity,<br>For they are Powers; and hence the highest bliss<br>That flesh can know is theirs--the consciousness<br>Of Whom they are, habitually infused<br>Through every image and through every thought,<br>And all affections by communion raised<br>From earth to heaven, from human to divine;<br>Hence endless occupation for the Soul,<br>Whether discursive or intuitive; <br>Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life,<br>Emotions which best foresight need not fear,<br>Most worthy then of trust when most intense.<br>Hence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crush<br>Our hearts--if here the words of Holy Writ<br>May with fit reverence be applied--that peace<br>Which passeth understanding, that repose<br>In moral judgments which from this pure source<br>Must come, or will by man be sought in vain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! who is he that hath his whole life long <br>Preserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself?<br>For this alone is genuine liberty:<br>Where is the favoured being who hath held<br>That course unchecked, unerring, and untired,<br>In one perpetual progress smooth and bright?--<br>A humbler destiny have we retraced,<br>And told of lapse and hesitating choice,<br>And backward wanderings along thorny ways:<br>Yet--compassed round by mountain solitudes,<br>Within whose solemn temple I received <br>My earliest visitations, careless then<br>Of what was given me; and which now I range,<br>A meditative, oft a suffering, man--<br>Do I declare--in accents which, from truth<br>Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend<br>Their modulation with these vocal streams--<br>That, whatsoever falls my better mind,<br>Revolving with the accidents of life,<br>May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled,<br>Never did I, in quest of right and wrong, <br>Tamper with conscience from a private aim;<br>Nor was in any public hope the dupe<br>Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield<br>Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits,<br>But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy<br>From every combination which might aid<br>The tendency, too potent in itself,<br>Of use and custom to bow down the soul<br>Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,<br>And substitute a universe of death <br>For that which moves with light and life informed,<br>Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love,<br>To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends,<br>Be this ascribed; to early intercourse,<br>In presence of sublime or beautiful forms,<br>With the adverse principles of pain and joy--<br>Evil as one is rashly named by men<br>Who know not what they speak. By love subsists<br>All lasting grandeur, by pervading love;<br>That gone, we are as dust.--Behold the fields <br>In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers<br>And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb<br>And the lamb's mother, and their tender ways<br>Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this love,<br>And not inaptly so, for love it is,<br>Far as it carries thee. In some green bower<br>Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there<br>The One who is thy choice of all the world:<br>There linger, listening, gazing, with delight<br>Impassioned, but delight how pitiable! <br>Unless this love by a still higher love<br>Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe;<br>Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer,<br>By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul,<br>Lifted, in union with the purest, best,<br>Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise<br>Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist<br>Without Imagination, which, in truth,<br>Is but another name for absolute power <br>And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,<br>And Reason in her most exalted mood.<br>This faculty hath been the feeding source<br>Of our long labour: we have traced the stream<br>From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard<br>Its natal murmur; followed it to light<br>And open day; accompanied its course<br>Among the ways of Nature, for a time<br>Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed;<br>Then given it greeting as it rose once more <br>In strength, reflecting from its placid breast<br>The works of man and face of human life;<br>And lastly, from its progress have we drawn<br>Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought<br>Of human Being, Eternity, and God.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Imagination having been our theme,<br>So also hath that intellectual Love,<br>For they are each in each, and cannot stand<br>Dividually.--Here must thou be, O Man!<br>Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here; <br>Here keepest thou in singleness thy state:<br>No other can divide with thee this work:<br>No secondary hand can intervene<br>To fashion this ability; 'tis thine,<br>The prime and vital principle is thine<br>In the recesses of thy nature, far<br>From any reach of outward fellowship,<br>Else is not thine at all. But joy to him,<br>Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laid<br>Here, the foundation of his future years! <br>For all that friendship, all that love can do,<br>All that a darling countenance can look<br>Or dear voice utter, to complete the man,<br>Perfect him, made imperfect in himself,<br>All shall be his: and he whose soul hath risen<br>Up to the height of feeling intellect<br>Shall want no humbler tenderness; his heart<br>Be tender as a nursing mother's heart;<br>Of female softness shall his life be full,<br>Of humble cares and delicate desires, <br>Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Child of my parents! Sister of my soul!<br>Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere<br>Poured out for all the early tenderness<br>Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true<br>That later seasons owed to thee no less;<br>For, spite of thy sweet influence and the touch<br>Of kindred hands that opened out the springs<br>Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite<br>Of all that unassisted I had marked <br>In life or nature of those charms minute<br>That win their way into the heart by stealth<br>(Still to the very going-out of youth)<br>I too exclusively esteemed 'that' love,<br>And sought 'that' beauty, which, as Milton sings,<br>Hath terror in it. Thou didst soften down<br>This over-sternness; but for thee, dear Friend!<br>My soul, too reckless of mild grace, had stood<br>In her original self too confident,<br>Retained too long a countenance severe; <br>A rock with torrents roaring, with the clouds<br>Familiar, and a favourite of the stars:<br>But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers,<br>Hang it with shrubs that twinkle in the breeze,<br>And teach the little birds to build their nests<br>And warble in its chambers. At a time<br>When Nature, destined to remain so long<br>Foremost in my affections, had fallen back<br>Into a second place, pleased to become<br>A handmaid to a nobler than herself, <br>When every day brought with it some new sense<br>Of exquisite regard for common things,<br>And all the earth was budding with these gifts<br>Of more refined humanity, thy breath,<br>Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring<br>That went before my steps. Thereafter came<br>One whom with thee friendship had early paired;<br>She came, no more a phantom to adorn<br>A moment, but an inmate of the heart,<br>And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined <br>To penetrate the lofty and the low;<br>Even as one essence of pervading light<br>Shines, in the brightest of ten thousand stars<br>And the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp<br>Couched in the dewy grass.<br>With such a theme,<br>Coleridge! with this my argument, of thee<br>Shall I be silent? O capacious Soul!<br>Placed on this earth to love and understand,<br>And from thy presence shed the light of love,<br>Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of? <br>Thy kindred influence to my heart of hearts<br>Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed<br>Her overweening grasp; thus thoughts and things<br>In the self-haunting spirit learned to take<br>More rational proportions; mystery,<br>The incumbent mystery of sense and soul,<br>Of life and death, time and eternity,<br>Admitted more habitually a mild<br>Interposition--a serene delight<br>In closelier gathering cares, such as become <br>A human creature, howsoe'er endowed,<br>Poet, or destined for a humbler name;<br>And so the deep enthusiastic joy,<br>The rapture of the hallelujah sent<br>From all that breathes and is, was chastened, stemmed<br>And balanced by pathetic truth, by trust<br>In hopeful reason, leaning on the stay<br>Of Providence; and in reverence for duty,<br>Here, if need be, struggling with storms, and there<br>Strewing in peace life's humblest ground with herbs, <br>At every season green, sweet at all hours.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And now, O Friend! this history is brought<br>To its appointed close: the discipline<br>And consummation of a Poet's mind,<br>In everything that stood most prominent,<br>Have faithfully been pictured; we have reached<br>The time (our guiding object from the first)<br>When we may, not presumptuously, I hope,<br>Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and such<br>My knowledge, as to make me capable <br>Of building up a Work that shall endure.<br>Yet much hath been omitted, as need was;<br>Of books how much! and even of the other wealth<br>That is collected among woods and fields,<br>Far more: for Nature's secondary grace<br>Hath hitherto been barely touched upon,<br>The charm more superficial that attends<br>Her works, as they present to Fancy's choice<br>Apt illustrations of the moral world,<br>Caught at a glance, or traced with curious pains. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Finally, and above all, O Friend! (I speak<br>With due regret) how much is overlooked<br>In human nature and her subtle ways,<br>As studied first in our own hearts, and then<br>In life among the passions of mankind,<br>Varying their composition and their hue,<br>Where'er we move, under the diverse shapes<br>That individual character presents<br>To an attentive eye. For progress meet,<br>Along this intricate and difficult path, <br>Whate'er was wanting, something had I gained,<br>As one of many schoolfellows compelled,<br>In hardy independence, to stand up<br>Amid conflicting interests, and the shock<br>Of various tempers; to endure and note<br>What was not understood, though known to be;<br>Among the mysteries of love and hate,<br>Honour and shame, looking to right and left,<br>Unchecked by innocence too delicate,<br>And moral notions too intolerant, <br>Sympathies too contracted. Hence, when called<br>To take a station among men, the step<br>Was easier, the transition more secure,<br>More profitable also; for, the mind<br>Learns from such timely exercise to keep<br>In wholesome separation the two natures,<br>The one that feels, the other that observes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet one word more of personal concern;--<br>Since I withdrew unwillingly from France,<br>I led an undomestic wanderer's life, <br>In London chiefly harboured, whence I roamed,<br>Tarrying at will in many a pleasant spot<br>Of rural England's cultivated vales<br>Or Cambrian solitudes. A youth--(he bore<br>The name of Calvert--it shall live, if words<br>Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief<br>That by endowments not from me withheld<br>Good might be furthered--in his last decay<br>By a bequest sufficient for my needs<br>Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk <br>At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon<br>By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet<br>Far less a common follower of the world,<br>He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay<br>Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even<br>A necessary maintenance insures,<br>Without some hazard to the finer sense;<br>He cleared a passage for me, and the stream<br>Flowed in the bent of Nature.<br>Having now<br>Told what best merits mention, further pains <br>Our present purpose seems not to require,<br>And I have other tasks. Recall to mind<br>The mood in which this labour was begun,<br>O Friend! The termination of my course<br>Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then,<br>In that distraction and intense desire,<br>I said unto the life which I had lived,<br>Where art thou? Hear I not a voice from thee<br>Which 'tis reproach to hear? Anon I rose<br>As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched <br>Vast prospect of the world which I had been<br>And was; and hence this Song, which, like a lark,<br>I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens<br>Singing, and often with more plaintive voice<br>To earth attempered and her deep-drawn sighs,<br>Yet centring all in love, and in the end<br>All gratulant, if rightly understood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whether to me shall be allotted life,<br>And, with life, power to accomplish aught of worth,<br>That will be deemed no insufficient plea <br>For having given the story of myself,<br>Is all uncertain: but, beloved Friend!<br>When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view<br>Than any liveliest sight of yesterday,<br>That summer, under whose indulgent skies,<br>Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved<br>Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs,<br>Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,<br>Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,<br>The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes <br>Didst utter of the Lady Christabel;<br>And I, associate with such labour, steeped<br>In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours,<br>Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found,<br>After the perils of his moonlight ride,<br>Near the loud waterfall; or her who sate<br>In misery near the miserable Thorn--<br>When thou dost to that summer turn thy thoughts,<br>And hast before thee all which then we were,<br>To thee, in memory of that happiness, <br>It will be known, by thee at least, my Friend!<br>Felt, that the history of a Poet's mind<br>Is labour not unworthy of regard;<br>To thee the work shall justify itself.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The last and later portions of this gift<br>Have been prepared, not with the buoyant spirits<br>That were our daily portion when we first<br>Together wantoned in wild Poesy,<br>But, under pressure of a private grief,<br>Keen and enduring, which the mind and heart, <br>That in this meditative history<br>Have been laid open, needs must make me feel<br>More deeply, yet enable me to bear<br>More firmly; and a comfort now hath risen<br>From hope that thou art near, and wilt be soon<br>Restored to us in renovated health;<br>When, after the first mingling of our tears,<br>'Mong other consolations, we may draw<br>Some pleasure from this offering of my love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! yet a few short years of useful life, <br>And all will be complete, thy race be run,<br>Thy monument of glory will be raised;<br>Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of truth)<br>This age fall back to old idolatry,<br>Though men return to servitude as fast<br>As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame,<br>By nations, sink together, we shall still<br>Find solace--knowing what we have learnt to know,<br>Rich in true happiness if allowed to be<br>Faithful alike in forwarding a day <br>Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work<br>(Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe)<br>Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.<br>Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak<br>A lasting inspiration, sanctified<br>By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,<br>Others will love, and we will teach them how;<br>Instruct them how the mind of man becomes<br>A thousand times more beautiful than the earth<br>On which he dwells, above this frame of things <br>(Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes<br>And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)<br>In beauty exalted, as it is itself<br>Of quality and fabric more divine.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Wordsworth">William Wordsworth</a><div class=q>
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Fade from remembrance!) through the Northern tracts
Of Cambria ranging with a youthful friend,
I left Bethgelert's huts at couching-time,
And westward took my way, to see the sun
Rise, from the top of Sno..."></div>
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