<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539942" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Book Thirteenth [Imagination And Taste, How Impaired And Restored Concluded]</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">FROM Nature doth emotion come, and moods<br>Of calmness equally are Nature's gift:<br>This is her glory; these two attributes<br>Are sister horns that constitute her strength.<br>Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange<br>Of peace and excitation, finds in her<br>His best and purest friend; from her receives<br>That energy by which he seeks the truth,<br>From her that happy stillness of the mind<br>Which fits him to receive it when unsought. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Such benefit the humblest intellects<br>Partake of, each in their degree; 'tis mine<br>To speak, what I myself have known and felt;<br>Smooth task! for words find easy way, inspired<br>By gratitude, and confidence in truth.<br>Long time in search of knowledge did I range<br>The field of human life, in heart and mind<br>Benighted; but, the dawn beginning now<br>To re-appear, 'twas proved that not in vain<br>I had been taught to reverence a Power <br>That is the visible quality and shape<br>And image of right reason; that matures<br>Her processes by steadfast laws; gives birth<br>To no impatient or fallacious hopes,<br>No heat of passion or excessive zeal,<br>No vain conceits; provokes to no quick turns<br>Of self-applauding intellect; but trains<br>To meekness, and exalts by humble faith;<br>Holds up before the mind intoxicate<br>With present objects, and the busy dance <br>Of things that pass away, a temperate show<br>Of objects that endure; and by this course<br>Disposes her, when over-fondly set<br>On throwing off incumbrances, to seek<br>In man, and in the frame of social life,<br>Whate'er there is desirable and good<br>Of kindred permanence, unchanged in form<br>And function, or, through strict vicissitude<br>Of life and death, revolving. Above all<br>Were re-established now those watchful thoughts <br>Which, seeing little worthy or sublime<br>In what the Historian's pen so much delights<br>To blazon--power and energy detached<br>From moral purpose--early tutored me<br>To look with feelings of fraternal love<br>Upon the unassuming things that hold<br>A silent station in this beauteous world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus moderated, thus composed, I found<br>Once more in Man an object of delight,<br>Of pure imagination, and of love; <br>And, as the horizon of my mind enlarged,<br>Again I took the intellectual eye<br>For my instructor, studious more to see<br>Great truths, than touch and handle little ones.<br>Knowledge was given accordingly; my trust<br>Became more firm in feelings that had stood<br>The test of such a trial; clearer far<br>My sense of excellence--of right and wrong:<br>The promise of the present time retired<br>Into its true proportion; sanguine schemes, <br>Ambitious projects, pleased me less; I sought<br>For present good in life's familiar face,<br>And built thereon my hopes of good to come.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With settling judgments now of what would last<br>And what would disappear; prepared to find<br>Presumption, folly, madness, in the men<br>Who thrust themselves upon the passive world<br>As Rulers of the world; to see in these,<br>Even when the public welfare is their aim,<br>Plans without thought, or built on theories <br>Vague and unsound; and having brought the books<br>Of modern statists to their proper test,<br>Life, human life, with all its sacred claims<br>Of sex and age, and heaven-descended rights,<br>Mortal, or those beyond the reach of death;<br>And having thus discerned how dire a thing<br>Is worshipped in that idol proudly named<br>'The Wealth of Nations,' 'where' alone that wealth<br>Is lodged, and how increased; and having gained<br>A more judicious knowledge of the worth <br>And dignity of individual man,<br>No composition of the brain, but man<br>Of whom we read, the man whom we behold<br>With our own eyes--I could not but inquire--<br>Not with less interest than heretofore,<br>But greater, though in spirit more subdued--<br>Why is this glorious creature to be found<br>One only in ten thousand? What one is,<br>Why may not millions be? What bars are thrown<br>By Nature in the way of such a hope? <br>Our animal appetites and daily wants,<br>Are these obstructions insurmountable?<br>If not, then others vanish into air.<br>'Inspect the basis of the social pile:<br>Inquire,' said I, 'how much of mental power<br>And genuine virtue they possess who live<br>By bodily toil, labour exceeding far<br>Their due proportion, under all the weight<br>Of that injustice which upon ourselves<br>Ourselves entail.' Such estimate to frame <br>I chiefly looked (what need to look beyond?)<br>Among the natural abodes of men,<br>Fields with their rural works; recalled to mind<br>My earliest notices; with these compared<br>The observations made in later youth,<br>And to that day continued.--For, the time<br>Had never been when throes of mighty Nations<br>And the world's tumult unto me could yield,<br>How far soe'er transported and possessed,<br>Full measure of content; but still I craved <br>An intermingling of distinct regards<br>And truths of individual sympathy<br>Nearer ourselves. Such often might be gleaned<br>From the great City, else it must have proved<br>To me a heart-depressing wilderness;<br>But much was wanting: therefore did I turn<br>To you, ye pathways, and ye lonely roads;<br>Sought you enriched with everything I prized,<br>With human kindnesses and simple joys.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! next to one dear state of bliss, vouchsafed, <br>Alas! to few in this untoward world,<br>The bliss of walking daily in life's prime<br>Through field or forest with the maid we love,<br>While yet our hearts are young, while yet we breathe<br>Nothing but happiness, in some lone nook,<br>Deep vale, or anywhere, the home of both,<br>From which it would be misery to stir:<br>Oh! next to such enjoyment of our youth,<br>In my esteem, next to such dear delight,<br>Was that of wandering on from day to day <br>Where I could meditate in peace, and cull<br>Knowledge that step by step might lead me on<br>To wisdom; or, as lightsome as a bird<br>Wafted upon the wind from distant lands,<br>Sing notes of greeting to strange fields or groves,<br>Which lacked not voice to welcome me in turn:<br>And, when that pleasant toil had ceased to please,<br>Converse with men, where if we meet a face<br>We almost meet a friend, on naked heaths<br>With long long ways before, by cottage bench, <br>Or well-spring where the weary traveller rests.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who doth not love to follow with his eye<br>The windings of a public way? the sight,<br>Familiar object as it is, hath wrought<br>On my imagination since the morn<br>Of childhood, when a disappearing line,<br>One daily present to my eyes, that crossed<br>The naked summit of a far-off hill<br>Beyond the limits that my feet had trod,<br>Was like an invitation into space <br>Boundless, or guide into eternity.<br>Yes, something of the grandeur which invests<br>The mariner, who sails the roaring sea<br>Through storm and darkness, early in my mind<br>Surrounded, too, the wanderers of the earth;<br>Grandeur as much, and loveliness far more.<br>Awed have I been by strolling Bedlamites;<br>From many other uncouth vagrants (passed<br>In fear) have walked with quicker step; but why<br>Take note of this? When I began to enquire, <br>To watch and question those I met, and speak<br>Without reserve to them, the lonely roads<br>Were open schools in which I daily read<br>With most delight the passions of mankind,<br>Whether by words, looks, sighs, or tears, revealed;<br>There saw into the depth of human souls,<br>Souls that appear to have no depth at all<br>To careless eyes. And--now convinced at heart<br>How little those formalities, to which<br>With overweening trust alone we give <br>The name of Education, have to do<br>With real feeling and just sense; how vain<br>A correspondence with the talking world<br>Proves to the most; and called to make good search<br>If man's estate, by doom of Nature yoked<br>With toil, be therefore yoked with ignorance;<br>If virtue be indeed so hard to rear,<br>And intellectual strength so rare a boon--<br>I prized such walks still more, for there I found<br>Hope to my hope, and to my pleasure peace <br>And steadiness, and healing and repose<br>To every angry passion. There I heard,<br>From mouths of men obscure and lowly, truths<br>Replete with honour; sounds in unison<br>With loftiest promises of good and fair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There are who think that strong affection, love<br>Known by whatever name, is falsely deemed<br>A gift, to use a term which they would use,<br>Of vulgar nature; that its growth requires<br>Retirement, leisure, language purified <br>By manners studied and elaborate;<br>That whoso feels such passion in its strength<br>Must live within the very light and air<br>Of courteous usages refined by art.<br>True is it, where oppression worse than death<br>Salutes the being at his birth, where grace<br>Of culture hath been utterly unknown,<br>And poverty and labour in excess<br>From day to day pre-occupy the ground<br>Of the affections, and to Nature's self <br>Oppose a deeper nature; there, indeed,<br>Love cannot be; nor does it thrive with ease<br>Among the close and overcrowded haunts<br>Of cities, where the human heart is sick,<br>And the eye feeds it not, and cannot feed.<br>--Yes, in those wanderings deeply did I feel<br>How we mislead each other; above all,<br>How books mislead us, seeking their reward<br>From judgments of the wealthy Few, who see<br>By artificial lights; how they debase <br>The Many for the pleasure of those Few;<br>Effeminately level down the truth<br>To certain general notions, for the sake<br>Of being understood at once, or else<br>Through want of better knowledge in the heads<br>That framed them; flattering self-conceit with words,<br>That, while they most ambitiously set forth<br>Extrinsic differences, the outward marks<br>Whereby society has parted man<br>From man, neglect the universal heart. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Here, calling up to mind what then I saw,<br>A youthful traveller, and see daily now<br>In the familiar circuit of my home,<br>Here might I pause, and bend in reverence<br>To Nature, and the power of human minds,<br>To men as they are men within themselves.<br>How oft high service is performed within,<br>When all the external man is rude in show,--<br>Not like a temple rich with pomp and gold,<br>But a mere mountain chapel, that protects <br>Its simple worshippers from sun and shower.<br>Of these, said I, shall be my song; of these,<br>If future years mature me for the task,<br>Will I record the praises, making verse<br>Deal boldly with substantial things; in truth<br>And sanctity of passion, speak of these,<br>That justice may be done, obeisance paid<br>Where it is due: thus haply shall I teach,<br>Inspire; through unadulterated ears<br>Pour rapture, tenderness, and hope,--my theme <br>No other than the very heart of man,<br>As found among the best of those who live--<br>Not unexalted by religious faith,<br>Nor uninformed by books, good books, though few--<br>In Nature's presence: thence may I select<br>Sorrow, that is not sorrow, but delight;<br>And miserable love, that is not pain<br>To hear of, for the glory that redounds<br>Therefrom to human kind, and what we are.<br>Be mine to follow with no timid step <br>Where knowledge leads me: it shall be my pride<br>That I have dared to tread this holy ground,<br>Speaking no dream, but things oracular;<br>Matter not lightly to be heard by those<br>Who to the letter of the outward promise<br>Do read the invisible soul; by men adroit<br>In speech, and for communion with the world<br>Accomplished; minds whose faculties are then<br>Most active when they are most eloquent,<br>And elevated most when most admired. <br>Men may be found of other mould than these,<br>Who are their own upholders, to themselves<br>Encouragement, and energy, and will,<br>Expressing liveliest thoughts in lively words<br>As native passion dictates. Others, too,<br>There are among the walks of homely life<br>Still higher, men for contemplation framed,<br>Shy, and unpractised in the strife of phrase;<br>Meek men, whose very souls perhaps would sink<br>Beneath them, summoned to such intercourse: <br>Theirs is the language of the heavens, the power,<br>The thought, the image, and the silent joy:<br>Words are but under-agents in their souls;<br>When they are grasping with their greatest strength,<br>They do not breathe among them: this I speak<br>In gratitude to God, Who feeds our hearts<br>For His own service; knoweth, loveth us,<br>When we are unregarded by the world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Also, about this time did I receive<br>Convictions still more strong than heretofore, <br>Not only that the inner frame is good,<br>And graciously composed, but that, no less,<br>Nature for all conditions wants not power<br>To consecrate, if we have eyes to see,<br>The outside of her creatures, and to breathe<br>Grandeur upon the very humblest face<br>Of human life. I felt that the array<br>Of act and circumstance, and visible form,<br>Is mainly to the pleasure of the mind<br>What passion makes them; that meanwhile the forms <br>Of Nature have a passion in themselves,<br>That intermingles with those works of man<br>To which she summons him; although the works<br>Be mean, have nothing lofty of their own;<br>And that the Genius of the Poet hence<br>May boldly take his way among mankind<br>Wherever Nature leads; that he hath stood<br>By Nature's side among the men of old,<br>And so shall stand for ever. Dearest Friend!<br>If thou partake the animating faith <br>That Poets, even as Prophets, each with each<br>Connected in a mighty scheme of truth,<br>Have each his own peculiar faculty,<br>Heaven's gift, a sense that fits him to perceive<br>Objects unseen before, thou wilt not blame<br>The humblest of this band who dares to hope<br>That unto him hath also been vouchsafed<br>An insight that in some sort he possesses,<br>A privilege whereby a work of his,<br>Proceeding from a source of untaught things, <br>Creative and enduring, may become<br>A power like one of Nature's. To a hope<br>Not less ambitious once among the wilds<br>Of Sarum's Plain, my youthful spirit was raised;<br>There, as I ranged at will the pastoral downs<br>Trackless and smooth, or paced the bare white roads<br>Lengthening in solitude their dreary line,<br>Time with his retinue of ages fled<br>Backwards, nor checked his flight until I saw<br>Our dim ancestral Past in vision clear; <br>Saw multitudes of men, and, here and there,<br>A single Briton clothed in wolf-skin vest,<br>With shield and stone-axe, stride across the wold;<br>The voice of spears was heard, the rattling spear<br>Shaken by arms of mighty bone, in strength,<br>Long mouldered, of barbaric majesty.<br>I called on Darkness--but before the word<br>Was uttered, midnight darkness seemed to take<br>All objects from my sight; and lo! again<br>The Desert visible by dismal flames; <br>It is the sacrificial altar, fed<br>With living men--how deep the groans! the voice<br>Of those that crowd the giant wicker thrills<br>The monumental hillocks, and the pomp<br>Is for both worlds, the living and the dead.<br>At other moments--(for through that wide waste<br>Three summer days I roamed) where'er the Plain<br>Was figured o'er with circles, lines, or mounds,<br>That yet survive, a work, as some divine,<br>Shaped by the Druids, so to represent <br>Their knowledge of the heavens, and image forth<br>The constellations--gently was I charmed<br>Into a waking dream, a reverie<br>That, with believing eyes, where'er I turned,<br>Beheld long-bearded teachers, with white wands<br>Uplifted, pointing to the starry sky,<br>Alternately, and plain below, while breath<br>Of music swayed their motions, and the waste<br>Rejoiced with them and me in those sweet sounds.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">This for the past, and things that may be viewed <br>Or fancied in the obscurity of years<br>From monumental hints: and thou, O Friend!<br>Pleased with some unpremeditated strains<br>That served those wanderings to beguile, hast said<br>That then and there my mind had exercised<br>Upon the vulgar forms of present things,<br>The actual world of our familiar days,<br>Yet higher power; had caught from them a tone,<br>An image, and a character, by books<br>Not hitherto reflected. Call we this <br>A partial judgment--and yet why? for 'then'<br>We were as strangers; and I may not speak<br>Thus wrongfully of verse, however rude,<br>Which on thy young imagination, trained<br>In the great City, broke like light from far.<br>Moreover, each man's Mind is to herself<br>Witness and judge; and I remember well<br>That in life's every-day appearances<br>I seemed about this time to gain clear sight<br>Of a new world--a world, too, that was fit <br>To be transmitted, and to other eyes<br>Made visible; as ruled by those fixed laws<br>Whence spiritual dignity originates,<br>Which do both give it being and maintain<br>A balance, an ennobling interchange<br>Of action from without and from within;<br>The excellence, pure function, and best power<br>Both of the objects seen, and eye that sees.</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> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=539942" data-title="Book Thirteenth [Imagination And Taste, How Impaired And Restored Concluded] de William Wordsworth" data-description="FROM Nature doth emotion come, and moods Of calmness equally are Nature's gift: This is her glory; these two attributes Are sister horns that constitute her strength. Hence Genius, born to thrive by interchange Of peace and excitation, finds in he..."></div> </div> </div>

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