<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=540163" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Recluse - Book First</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">HOME AT GRASMERE</div><div style="margin:10px 0">ONCE to the verge of yon steep barrier came<br>A roving school-boy; what the adventurer's age<br>Hath now escaped his memory--but the hour,<br>One of a golden summer holiday,<br>He well remembers, though the year be gone--<br>Alone and devious from afar he came;<br>And, with a sudden influx overpowered<br>At sight of this seclusion, he forgot<br>His haste, for hasty had his footsteps been<br>As boyish his pursuits; and sighing said, <br>'What happy fortune were it here to live!<br>And, if a thought of dying, if a thought<br>Of mortal separation, could intrude<br>With paradise before him, here to die!'<br>No Prophet was he, had not even a hope,<br>Scarcely a wish, but one bright pleasing thought,<br>A fancy in the heart of what might be<br>The lot of others, never could be his.<br>The station whence he looked was soft and green,<br>Not giddy yet aerial, with a depth <br>Of vale below, a height of hills above.<br>For rest of body perfect was the spot,<br>All that luxurious nature could desire;<br>But stirring to the spirit; who could gaze<br>And not feel motions there? He thought of clouds<br>That sail on winds: of breezes that delight<br>To play on water, or in endless chase<br>Pursue each other through the yielding plain<br>Of grass or corn, over and through and through,<br>In billow after billow, evermore <br>Disporting--nor unmindful was the boy<br>Of sunbeams, shadows, butterflies and birds;<br>Of fluttering sylphs and softly-gliding Fays,<br>Genii, and winged angels that are Lords<br>Without restraint of all which they behold.<br>The illusion strengthening as he gazed, he felt<br>That such unfettered liberty was his,<br>Such power and joy; but only for this end,<br>To flit from field to rock, from rock to field,<br>From shore to island, and from isle to shore, <br>From open ground to covert, from a bed<br>Of meadow-flowers into a tuft of wood;<br>From high to low, from low to high, yet still<br>Within the bound of this huge concave; here<br>Must be his home, this valley be his world.<br>Since that day forth the Place to him--'to me'<br>(For I who live to register the truth<br>Was that same young and happy Being) became<br>As beautiful to thought, as it had been<br>When present, to the bodily sense; a haunt <br>Of pure affections, shedding upon joy<br>A brighter joy; and through such damp and gloom<br>Of the gay mind, as ofttimes splenetic youth<br>Mistakes for sorrow, darting beams of light<br>That no self-cherished sadness could withstand;<br>And now 'tis mine, perchance for life, dear Vale,<br>Beloved Grasmere (let the wandering streams<br>Take up, the cloud-capt hills repeat, the Name)<br>One of thy lowly Dwellings is my Home.<br>And was the cost so great? and could it seem <br>An act of courage, and the thing itself<br>A conquest? who must bear the blame? Sage man<br>Thy prudence, thy experience, thy desires,<br>Thy apprehensions--blush thou for them all.<br>Yes the realities of life so cold,<br>So cowardly, so ready to betray,<br>So stinted in the measure of their grace<br>As we pronounce them, doing them much wrong,<br>Have been to me more bountiful than hope,<br>Less timid than desire--but that is past. <br>On Nature's invitation do I come,<br>By Reason sanctioned. Can the choice mislead,<br>That made the calmest fairest spot of earth<br>With all its unappropriated good<br>My own; and not mine only, for with me<br>Entrenched, say rather peacefully embowered,<br>Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot,<br>A younger Orphan of a home extinct,<br>The only Daughter of my Parents dwells.<br>Ay, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir, <br>Pause upon that and let the breathing frame<br>No longer breathe, but all be satisfied.<br>--Oh, if such silence be not thanks to God<br>For what hath been bestowed, then where, where then<br>Shall gratitude find rest? Mine eyes did ne'er<br>Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind<br>Take pleasure in the midst of happy thoughts,<br>But either She whom now I have, who now<br>Divides with me this loved abode, was there,<br>Or not far off. Where'er my footsteps turned, <br>Her voice was like a hidden Bird that sang,<br>The thought of her was like a flash of light,<br>Or an unseen companionship, a breath<br>Of fragrance independent of the Wind.<br>In all my goings, in the new and old<br>Of all my meditations, and in this<br>Favourite of all, in this the most of all.<br>--What being, therefore, since the birth of Man<br>Had ever more abundant cause to speak<br>Thanks, and if favours of the Heavenly Muse <br>Make him more thankful, then to call on Verse<br>To aid him and in song resound his joy?<br>The boon is absolute; surpassing grace<br>To me hath been vouchsafed; among the bowers<br>Of blissful Eden this was neither given<br>Nor could be given, possession of the good<br>Which had been sighed for, ancient thought fulfilled,<br>And dear Imaginations realised,<br>Up to their highest measure, yea and more.<br>Embrace me then, ye Hills, and close me in; <br>Now in the clear and open day I feel<br>Your guardianship; I take it to my heart;<br>'Tis like the solemn shelter of the night.<br>But I would call thee beautiful, for mild,<br>And soft, and gay, and beautiful thou art<br>Dear Valley, having in thy face a smile<br>Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased,<br>Pleased with thy crags and woody steeps, thy Lake,<br>Its one green island and its winding shores;<br>The multitude of little rocky hills, <br>Thy Church and cottages of mountain stone<br>Clustered like stars some few, but single most,<br>And lurking dimly in their shy retreats,<br>Or glancing at each other cheerful looks<br>Like separated stars with clouds between.<br>What want we? have we not perpetual streams,<br>Warm woods, and sunny hills, and fresh green fields,<br>And mountains not less green, and flocks and herds,<br>And thickets full of songsters, and the voice<br>Of lordly birds, an unexpected sound <br>Heard now and then from morn to latest eve,<br>Admonishing the man who walks below<br>Of solitude and silence in the sky?<br>These have we, and a thousand nooks of earth<br>Have also these, but nowhere else is found,<br>Nowhere (or is it fancy?) can be found<br>The one sensation that is here; 'tis here,<br>Here as it found its way into my heart<br>In childhood, here as it abides by day,<br>By night, here only; or in chosen minds <br>That take it with them hence, where'er they go.<br>--'Tis, but I cannot name it, 'tis the sense<br>Of majesty, and beauty, and repose,<br>A blended holiness of earth and sky,<br>Something that makes this individual spot,<br>This small abiding-place of many men,<br>A termination, and a last retreat,<br>A centre, come from wheresoe'er you will,<br>A whole without dependence or defect,<br>Made for itself, and happy in itself, <br>Perfect contentment, Unity entire.<br>Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak,<br>When hitherward we journeyed side by side<br>Through burst of sunshine and through flying showers;<br>Paced the long vales--how long they were--and yet<br>How fast that length of way was left behind,<br>Wensley's rich Vale, and Sedbergh's naked heights.<br>The frosty wind, as if to make amends<br>For its keen breath, was aiding to our steps,<br>And drove us onward like two ships at sea, <br>Or like two birds, companions in mid-air,<br>Parted and reunited by the blast.<br>Stern was the face of nature; we rejoiced<br>In that stern countenance, for our souls thence drew<br>A feeling of their strength. The naked trees,<br>The icy brooks, as on we passed, appeared<br>To question us. 'Whence come ye, to what end?'<br>They seemed to say, 'What would ye,' said the shower,<br>'Wild Wanderers, whither through my dark domain?'<br>The sunbeam said, 'Be happy.' When this vale <br>We entered, bright and solemn was the sky<br>That faced us with a passionate welcoming,<br>And led us to our threshold. Daylight failed<br>Insensibly, and round us gently fell<br>Composing darkness, with a quiet load<br>Of full contentment, in a little shed<br>Disturbed, uneasy in itself as seemed,<br>And wondering at its new inhabitants.<br>It loves us now, this Vale so beautiful<br>Begins to love us! by a sullen storm, <br>Two months unwearied of severest storm,<br>It put the temper of our minds to proof,<br>And found us faithful through the gloom, and heard<br>The poet mutter his prelusive songs<br>With cheerful heart, an unknown voice of joy<br>Among the silence of the woods and hills;<br>Silent to any gladsomeness of sound<br>With all their shepherds.<br>But the gates of Spring<br>Are opened; churlish winter hath given leave<br>That she should entertain for this one day, <br>Perhaps for many genial days to come,<br>His guests, and make them jocund.--They are pleased,<br>But most of all the birds that haunt the flood<br>With the mild summons; inmates though they be<br>Of Winter's household, they keep festival<br>This day, who drooped, or seemed to droop, so long;<br>They show their pleasure, and shall I do less?<br>Happier of happy though I be, like them<br>I cannot take possession of the sky,<br>Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there <br>One of a mighty multitude, whose way<br>Is a perpetual harmony and dance<br>Magnificent. Behold how with a grace<br>Of ceaseless motion, that might scarcely seem<br>Inferior to angelical, they prolong<br>Their curious pastime, shaping in mid-air,<br>And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars<br>High as the level of the mountain tops,<br>A circuit ampler than the lake beneath,<br>Their own domain;--but ever, while intent <br>On tracing and retracing that large round,<br>Their jubilant activity evolves<br>Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,<br>Upwards and downwards; progress intricate<br>Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed<br>Their indefatigable flight. 'Tis done,<br>Ten times and more I fancied it had ceased,<br>But lo! the vanished company again<br>Ascending, they approach. I hear their wings<br>Faint, faint at first; and then an eager sound <br>Passed in a moment--and as faint again!<br>They tempt the sun to sport among their plumes;<br>Tempt the smooth water, or the gleaming ice,<br>To show them a fair image,--'tis themselves,<br>Their own fair forms upon the glimmering plain<br>Painted more soft and fair as they descend,<br>Almost to touch,--then up again aloft,<br>Up with a sally and a flash of speed,<br>As if they scorned both resting-place and rest!<br>--This day is a thanksgiving, 'tis a day <br>Of glad emotion and deep quietness;<br>Not upon me alone hath been bestowed,<br>Me rich in many onward-looking thoughts,<br>The penetrating bliss; oh surely these<br>Have felt it, not the happy choirs of spring,<br>Her own peculiar family of love<br>That sport among green leaves, a blither train!<br>But two are missing, two, a lonely pair<br>Of milk-white Swans; wherefore are they not seen<br>Partaking this day's pleasure? From afar <br>They came, to sojourn here in solitude,<br>Choosing this Valley, they who had the choice<br>Of the whole world. We saw them day by day,<br>Through those two months of unrelenting storm,<br>Conspicuous at the centre of the Lake<br>Their safe retreat, we knew them well, I guess<br>That the whole valley knew them; but to us<br>They were more dear than may be well believed,<br>Not only for their beauty, and their still<br>And placid way of life, and constant love <br>Inseparable, not for these alone,<br>But that 'their' state so much resembled ours,<br>They having also chosen this abode;<br>They strangers, and we strangers, they a pair,<br>And we a solitary pair like them.<br>They should not have departed; many days<br>Did I look forth in vain, nor on the wing<br>Could see them, nor in that small open space<br>Of blue unfrozen water, where they lodged<br>And lived so long in quiet, side by side. <br>Shall we behold them consecrated friends,<br>Faithful companions, yet another year<br>Surviving, they for us, and we for them,<br>And neither pair be broken? nay perchance<br>It is too late already for such hope;<br>The Dalesmen may have aimed the deadly tube,<br>And parted them; or haply both are gone<br>One death, and that were mercy given to both.<br>Recall, my song, the ungenerous thought; forgive,<br>Thrice favoured Region, the conjecture harsh <br>Of such inhospitable penalty<br>Inflicted upon confidence so pure.<br>Ah! if I wished to follow where the sight<br>Of all that is before my eyes, the voice<br>Which speaks from a presiding spirit here,<br>Would lead me, I should whisper to myself:<br>They who are dwellers in this holy place<br>Must needs themselves be hallowed, they require<br>No benediction from the stranger's lips,<br>For they are blessed already; none would give <br>The greeting 'peace be with you' unto them,<br>For peace they have; it cannot but be theirs,<br>And mercy, and forbearance--nay--not these--<br>'Their' healing offices a pure good-will<br>Precludes, and charity beyond the bounds<br>Of charity--an overflowing love;<br>Not for the creature only, but for all<br>That is around them; love for everything<br>Which in their happy Region they behold!<br>Thus do we soothe ourselves, and when the thought <br>Is passed, we blame it not for having come.<br>--What if I floated down a pleasant stream,<br>And now am landed, and the motion gone,<br>Shall I reprove myself? Ah no, the stream<br>Is flowing, and will never cease to flow,<br>And I shall float upon that stream again.<br>By such forgetfulness the soul becomes,<br>Words cannot say how beautiful: then hail,<br>Hail to the visible Presence, hail to thee,<br>Delightful Valley, habitation fair! <br>And to whatever else of outward form<br>Can give an inward help, can purify,<br>And elevate, and harmonise, and soothe,<br>And steal away, and for a while deceive<br>And lap in pleasing rest, and bear us on<br>Without desire in full complacency,<br>Contemplating perfection absolute,<br>And entertained as in a placid sleep.<br>But not betrayed by tenderness of mind<br>That feared, or wholly overlooked the truth, <br>Did we come hither, with romantic hope<br>To find in midst of so much loveliness<br>Love, perfect love: of so much majesty<br>A like majestic-frame of mind in those<br>Who here abide, the persons like the place.<br>Not from such hope, or aught of such belief,<br>Hath issued any portion of the joy<br>Which I have felt this day. An awful voice<br>'Tis true hath in my walks been often heard,<br>Sent from the mountains or the sheltered fields, <br>Shout after shout--reiterated whoop,<br>In manner of a bird that takes delight<br>In answering to itself: or like a hound<br>Single at chase among the lonely woods,<br>His yell repeating; yet it was in truth<br>A human voice--a spirit of coming night;<br>How solemn when the sky is dark, and earth<br>Not dark, nor yet enlightened, but by snow<br>Made visible, amid a noise of winds<br>And bleatings manifold of mountain sheep, <br>Which in that iteration recognise<br>Their summons, and are gathering round for food,<br>Devoured with keenness, ere to grove or bank<br>Or rocky bield with patience they retire.<br>That very voice, which, in some timid mood<br>Of superstitious fancy, might have seemed<br>Awful as ever stray demoniac uttered,<br>His steps to govern in the wilderness;<br>Or as the Norman Curfew's regular beat<br>To hearths when first they darkened at the knell: <br>That shepherd's voice, it may have reached mine ear<br>Debased and under profanation, made<br>The ready organ of articulate sounds<br>From ribaldry, impiety, or wrath,<br>Issuing when shame hath ceased to check the brawls<br>Of some abused Festivity--so be it.<br>I came not dreaming of unruffled life,<br>Untainted manners; born among the hills,<br>Bred also there, I wanted not a scale<br>To regulate my hopes; pleased with the good <br>I shrink not from the evil with disgust,<br>Or with immoderate pain. I look for Man,<br>The common creature of the brotherhood,<br>Differing but little from the Man elsewhere,<br>For selfishness and envy and revenge,<br>Ill neighbourhood--pity that this should be--<br>Flattery and double-dealing, strife and wrong.<br>Yet is it something gained, it is in truth<br>A mighty gain, that Labour here preserves<br>His rosy face, a servant only here <br>Of the fireside or of the open field,<br>A Freeman therefore sound and unimpaired:<br>That extreme penury is here unknown,<br>And cold and hunger's abject wretchedness<br>Mortal to body and the heaven-born mind:<br>That they who want are not too great a weight<br>For those who can relieve; here may the heart<br>Breathe in the air of fellow-suffering<br>Dreadless, as in a kind of fresher breeze<br>Of her own native element, the hand <br>Be ready and unwearied without plea,<br>From tasks too frequent or beyond its power,<br>For languor or indifference or despair.<br>And as these lofty barriers break the force<br>Of winds,--this deep Vale, as it doth in part<br>Conceal us from the storm, so here abides<br>A power and a protection for the mind,<br>Dispensed indeed to other solitudes<br>Favoured by noble privilege like this,<br>Where kindred independence of estate <br>Is prevalent, where he who tills the field,<br>He, happy man! is master of the field,<br>And treads the mountains which his Fathers trod.<br>Not less than halfway up yon mountain's side,<br>Behold a dusky spot, a grove of Firs<br>That seems still smaller than it is; this grove<br>Is haunted--by what ghost? a gentle spirit<br>Of memory faithful to the call of love;<br>For, as reports the Dame, whose fire sends up<br>Yon curling smoke from the grey cot below, <br>The trees (her first-born child being then a babe)<br>Were planted by her husband and herself,<br>That ranging o'er the high and houseless ground<br>Their sheep might neither want from perilous storm<br>Of winter, nor from summer's sultry heat,<br>A friendly covert; 'and they knew it well,'<br>Said she, 'for thither as the trees grew up<br>We to the patient creatures carried food<br>In times of heavy snow.' She then began<br>In fond obedience to her private thoughts <br>To speak of her dead husband; is there not<br>An art, a music, and a strain of words<br>That shall be life, the acknowledged voice of life,<br>Shall speak of what is done among the fields,<br>Done truly there, or felt, of solid good<br>And real evil, yet be sweet withal,<br>More grateful, more harmonious than the breath,<br>The idle breath of softest pipe attuned<br>To pastoral fancies? Is there such a stream<br>Pure and unsullied flowing from the heart <br>With motions of true dignity and grace?<br>Or must we seek that stream where Man is not?<br>Methinks I could repeat in tuneful verse,<br>Delicious as the gentlest breeze that sounds<br>Through that aerial fir-grove--could preserve<br>Some portion of its human history<br>As gathered from the Matron's lips, and tell<br>Of tears that have been shed at sight of it,<br>And moving dialogues between this Pair<br>Who in their prime of wedlock, with joint hands <br>Did plant the grove, now flourishing, while they<br>No longer flourish, he entirely gone,<br>She withering in her loneliness. Be this<br>A task above my skill--the silent mind<br>Has her own treasures, and I think of these,<br>Love what I see, and honour humankind.<br>No, we are not alone, we do not stand,<br>My sister here misplaced and desolate,<br>Loving what no one cares for but ourselves,<br>We shall not scatter through the plains and rocks <br>Of this fair Vale, and o'er its spacious heights,<br>Unprofitable kindliness, bestowed<br>On objects unaccustomed to the gifts<br>Of feeling, which were cheerless and forlorn<br>But few weeks past, and would be so again<br>Were we not here; we do not tend a lamp<br>Whose lustre we alone participate,<br>Which shines dependent upon us alone,<br>Mortal though bright, a dying, dying flame.<br>Look where we will, some human hand has been <br>Before us with its offering; not a tree<br>Sprinkles these little pastures, but the same<br>Hath furnished matter for a thought; perchance<br>For some one serves as a familiar friend.<br>Joy spreads, and sorrow spreads; and this whole Vale,<br>Home of untutored shepherds as it is,<br>Swarms with sensation, as with gleams of sunshine,<br>Shadows or breezes, scents or sounds. Nor deem<br>These feelings, though subservient more than ours<br>To every day's demand for daily bread, <br>And borrowing more their spirit and their shape<br>From self-respecting interests; deem them not<br>Unworthy therefore, and unhallowed--no,<br>They lift the animal being, do themselves<br>By nature's kind and ever-present aid<br>Refine the selfishness from which they spring,<br>Redeem by love the individual sense<br>Of anxiousness, with which they are combined.<br>And thus it is that fitly they become<br>Associates in the joy of purest minds: <br>They blend therewith congenially: meanwhile<br>Calmly they breathe their own undying life<br>Through this their mountain sanctuary; long<br>Oh long may it remain inviolate,<br>Diffusing health and sober cheerfulness,<br>And giving to the moments as they pass<br>Their little boons of animating thought<br>That sweeten labour, make it seen and felt<br>To be no arbitrary weight imposed,<br>But a glad function natural to man. <br>Fair proof of this, newcomer though I be,<br>Already have I gained; the inward frame,<br>Though slowly opening, opens every day<br>With process not unlike to that which cheers<br>A pensive stranger journeying at his leisure<br>Through some Helvetian Dell; when low-hung mists<br>Break up and are beginning to recede;<br>How pleased he is where thin and thinner grows<br>The veil, or where it parts at once, to spy<br>The dark pines thrusting forth their spiky heads; <br>To watch the spreading lawns with cattle grazed;<br>Then to be greeted by the scattered huts<br>As they shine out; and 'see' the streams whose murmur<br>Had soothed his ear while 'they' were hidden; how pleased<br>To have about him which way e'er he goes<br>Something on every side concealed from view,<br>In every quarter something visible<br>Half seen or wholly, lost and found again,<br>Alternate progress and impediment,<br>And yet a growing prospect in the main. <br>Such pleasure now is mine, albeit forced,<br>Herein less happy than the Traveller,<br>To cast from time to time a painful look<br>Upon unwelcome things which unawares<br>Reveal themselves, not therefore is my heart<br>Depressed, nor does it fear what is to come;<br>But confident, enriched at every glance,<br>The more I see the more delight my mind<br>Receives, or by reflection can create:<br>Truth justifies herself, and as she dwells <br>With Hope, who would not follow where she leads?<br>Nor let me pass unheeded other loves<br>Where no fear is, and humbler sympathies.<br>Already hath sprung up within my heart<br>A liking for the small grey horse that bears<br>The paralytic man, and for the brute<br>In Scripture sanctified--the patient brute<br>On which the cripple, in the quarry maimed,<br>Rides to and fro: I know them and their ways.<br>The famous sheep-dog, first in all the vale, <br>Though yet to me a stranger, will not be<br>A stranger long; nor will the blind man's guide,<br>Meek and neglected thing, of no renown!<br>Soon will peep forth the primrose, ere it fades<br>Friends shall I have at dawn, blackbird and thrush<br>To rouse me, and a hundred warblers more!<br>And if those Eagles to their ancient hold<br>Return, Helvellyn's Eagles! with the Pair<br>From my own door I shall be free to claim<br>Acquaintance, as they sweep from cloud to cloud. <br>The owl that gives the name to Owlet-Crag<br>Have I heard whooping, and he soon will be<br>A chosen one of my regards. See there<br>The heifer in yon little croft belongs<br>To one who holds it dear; with duteous care<br>She reared it, and in speaking of her charge<br>I heard her scatter some endearing words<br>Domestic, and in spirit motherly,<br>She being herself a mother; happy Beast,<br>If the caresses of a human voice <br>Can make it so, and care of human hands.<br>And ye as happy under Nature's care,<br>Strangers to me and all men, or at least<br>Strangers to all particular amity,<br>All intercourse of knowledge or of love<br>That parts the individual from his kind.<br>Whether in large communities ye keep<br>From year to year, not shunning man's abode,<br>A settled residence, or be from far<br>Wild creatures, and of many homes, that come <br>The gift of winds, and whom the winds again<br>Take from us at your pleasure; yet shall ye<br>Not want for this your own subordinate place<br>In my affections. Witness the delight<br>With which erewhile I saw that multitude<br>Wheel through the sky, and see them now at rest,<br>Yet not at rest upon the glassy lake:<br>They 'cannot' rest--they gambol like young whelps;<br>Active as lambs, and overcome with joy<br>They try all frolic motions; flutter, plunge, <br>And beat the passive water with their wings.<br>Too distant are they for plain view, but lo!<br>Those little fountains, sparkling in the sun,<br>Betray their occupation, rising up<br>First one and then another silver spout,<br>As one or other takes the fit of glee,<br>Fountains and spouts, yet somewhat in the guise<br>Of plaything fireworks, that on festal nights<br>Sparkle about the feet of wanton boys.<br>--How vast the compass of this theatre, <br>Yet nothing to be seen but lovely pomp<br>And silent majesty; the birch-tree woods<br>Are hung with thousand thousand diamond drops<br>Of melted hoar-frost, every tiny knot<br>In the bare twigs, each little budding-place<br>Cased with its several beads; what myriads these<br>Upon one tree, while all the distant grove,<br>That rises to the summit of the steep,<br>Shows like a mountain built of silver light:<br>See yonder the same pageant, and again <br>Behold the universal imagery<br>Inverted, all its sun-bright features touched<br>As with the varnish and the gloss of dreams.<br>Dreamlike the blending also of the whole<br>Harmonious landscape: all along the shore<br>The boundary lost--the line invisible<br>That parts the image from reality;<br>And the clear hills, as high as they ascend<br>Heavenward, so deep piercing the lake below.<br>Admonished of the days of love to come <br>The raven croaks, and fills the upper air<br>With a strange sound of genial harmony;<br>And in and all about that playful band,<br>Incapable although they be of rest,<br>And in their fashion very rioters,<br>There is a stillness, and they seem to make<br>Calm revelry in that their calm abode.<br>Them leaving to their joyous hours I pass,<br>Pass with a thought the life of the whole year<br>That is to come: the throng of woodland flowers <br>And lilies that will dance upon the waves.<br>Say boldly then that solitude is not<br>Where these things are: he truly is alone,<br>He of the multitude whose eyes are doomed<br>To hold a vacant commerce day by day<br>With Objects wanting life--repelling love;<br>He by the vast metropolis immured,<br>Where pity shrinks from unremitting calls,<br>Where numbers overwhelm humanity,<br>And neighbourhood serves rather to divide <br>Than to unite--what sighs more deep than his,<br>Whose nobler will hath long been sacrificed;<br>Who must inhabit under a black sky<br>A city, where, if indifference to disgust<br>Yield not to scorn or sorrow, living men<br>Are ofttimes to their fellow-men no more<br>Than to the forest Hermit are the leaves<br>That hang aloft in myriads; nay, far less,<br>For they protect his walk from sun and shower,<br>Swell his devotion with their voice in storms, <br>And whisper while the stars twinkle among them<br>His lullaby. From crowded streets remote,<br>Far from the living and dead Wilderness<br>Of the thronged world, Society is here<br>A true community--a genuine frame<br>Of many into one incorporate.<br>'That' must be looked for here: paternal sway,<br>One household, under God, for high and low,<br>One family and one mansion; to themselves<br>Appropriate, and divided from the world, <br>As if it were a cave, a multitude<br>Human and brute, possessors undisturbed<br>Of this Recess--their legislative Hall,<br>Their Temple, and their glorious Dwelling-place.<br>Dismissing therefore all Arcadian dreams,<br>All golden fancies of the golden age,<br>The bright array of shadowy thoughts from times<br>That were before all time, or are to be<br>Ere time expire, the pageantry that stirs<br>Or will be stirring, when our eyes are fixed <br>On lovely objects, and we wish to part<br>With all remembrance of a jarring world,<br>--Take we at once this one sufficient hope,<br>What need of more? that we shall neither droop<br>Nor pine for want of pleasure in the life<br>Scattered about us, nor through want of aught<br>That keeps in health the insatiable mind.<br>--That we shall have for knowledge and for love<br>Abundance, and that feeling as we do<br>How goodly, how exceeding fair, how pure <br>From all reproach is yon ethereal vault,<br>And this deep Vale, its earthly counterpart,<br>By which and under which we are enclosed<br>To breathe in peace; we shall moreover find<br>(If sound, and what we ought to be ourselves,<br>If rightly we observe and justly weigh)<br>The inmates not unworthy of their home,<br>The Dwellers of their Dwelling.<br>And if this<br>Were otherwise, we have within ourselves<br>Enough to fill the present day with joy, <br>And overspread the future years with hope,<br>Our beautiful and quiet home, enriched<br>Already with a stranger whom we love<br>Deeply, a stranger of our Father's house,<br>A never-resting Pilgrim of the Sea,<br>Who finds at last an hour to his content<br>Beneath our roof. And others whom we love<br>Will seek us also, Sisters of our hearts,<br>And one, like them, a Brother of our hearts,<br>Philosopher and Poet, in whose sight <br>These mountains will rejoice with open joy.<br>--Such is our wealth! O Vale of Peace we are<br>And must be, with God's will, a happy Band.<br>Yet 'tis not to enjoy that we exist,<br>For that end only; something must be done:<br>I must not walk in unreproved delight<br>These narrow bounds, and think of nothing more,<br>No duty that looks further, and no care.<br>Each Being has his office, lowly some<br>And common, yet all worthy if fulfilled <br>With zeal, acknowledgment that with the gift<br>Keeps pace a harvest answering to the seed.<br>Of ill-advised Ambition and of Pride<br>I would stand clear, but yet to me I feel<br>That an internal brightness is vouchsafed<br>That must not die, that must not pass away.<br>Why does this inward lustre fondly seek<br>And gladly blend with outward fellowship?<br>Why do 'they' shine around me whom I love?<br>Why do they teach me, whom I thus revere? <br>Strange question, yet it answers not itself.<br>That humble Roof embowered among the trees,<br>That calm fireside, it is not even in them,<br>Blest as they are, to furnish a reply<br>That satisfies and ends in perfect rest.<br>Possessions have I that are solely mine,<br>Something within which yet is shared by none,<br>Not even the nearest to me and most dear,<br>Something which power and effort may impart;<br>I would impart it, I would spread it wide: <br>Immortal in the world which is to come--<br>Forgive me if I add another claim--<br>And would not wholly perish even in this,<br>Lie down and be forgotten in the dust,<br>I and the modest Partners of my days<br>Making a silent company in death;<br>Love, knowledge, all my manifold delights,<br>All buried with me without monument<br>Or profit unto any but ourselves!<br>It must not be, if I, divinely taught, <br>Be privileged to speak as I have felt<br>Of what in man is human or divine.<br>While yet an innocent little one, with a heart<br>That doubtless wanted not its tender moods,<br>I breathed (for this I better recollect)<br>Among wild appetites and blind desires,<br>Motions of savage instinct my delight<br>And exaltation. Nothing at that time<br>So welcome, no temptation half so dear<br>As that which urged me to a daring feat, <br>Deep pools, tall trees, black chasms, and dizzy crags,<br>And tottering towers: I loved to stand and read<br>Their looks forbidding, read and disobey,<br>Sometimes in act and evermore in thought.<br>With impulses, that scarcely were by these<br>Surpassed in strength, I heard of danger met<br>Or sought with courage; enterprise forlorn<br>By one, sole keeper of his own intent,<br>Or by a resolute few, who for the sake<br>Of glory fronted multitudes in arms. <br>Yea, to this hour I cannot read a Tale<br>Of two brave vessels matched in deadly fight,<br>And fighting to the death, but I am pleased<br>More than a wise man ought to be; I wish,<br>Fret, burn, and struggle, and in soul am there.<br>But me hath Nature tamed, and bade to seek<br>For other agitations, or be calm;<br>Hath dealt with me as with a turbulent stream,<br>Some nursling of the mountains which she leads<br>Through quiet meadows, after he has learnt <br>His strength, and had his triumph and his joy,<br>His desperate course of tumult and of glee.<br>That which in stealth by Nature was performed<br>Hath Reason sanctioned: her deliberate Voice<br>Hath said; be mild, and cleave to gentle things,<br>Thy glory and thy happiness be there.<br>Nor fear, though thou confide in me, a want<br>Of aspirations that have been--of foes<br>To wrestle with, and victory to complete,<br>Bounds to be leapt, darkness to be explored; <br>All that inflamed thy infant heart, the love,<br>The longing, the contempt, the undaunted quest,<br>All shall survive, though changed their office, all<br>Shall live, it is not in their power to die.<br>Then farewell to the Warrior's Schemes, farewell<br>The forwardness of soul which looks that way<br>Upon a less incitement than the Cause<br>Of Liberty endangered, and farewell<br>That other hope, long mine, the hope to fill<br>The heroic trumpet with the Muse's breath! <br>Yet in this peaceful Vale we will not spend<br>Unheard-of days, though loving peaceful thought,<br>A voice shall speak, and what will be the theme?<br>On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life,<br>Musing in solitude, I oft perceive<br>Fair trains of imagery before me rise,<br>Accompanied by feelings of delight<br>Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed;<br>And I am conscious of affecting thoughts<br>And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes <br>Or elevates the Mind, intent to weigh<br>The good and evil of our mortal state.<br>--To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come,<br>Whether from breath of outward circumstance,<br>Or from the Soul--an impulse to herself--<br>I would give utterance in numerous verse.<br>Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope,<br>And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith;<br>Of blessed consolations in distress;<br>Of moral strength, and intellectual Power; <br>Of joy in widest commonalty spread;<br>Of the individual Mind that keeps her own<br>Inviolate retirement, subject there<br>To Conscience only, and the law supreme<br>Of that Intelligence which governs all--<br>I sing:--'fit audience let me find though few!'<br>So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard--<br>In holiest mood. Urania, I shall need<br>Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such<br>Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven! <br>For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink<br>Deep--and, aloft ascending, breathe in worlds<br>To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil.<br>All strength--all terror, single or in bands,<br>That ever was put forth in personal form--<br>Jehovah--with his thunder, and the choir<br>Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones--<br>I pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not<br>The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,<br>Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out <br>By help of dreams--can breed such fear and awe<br>As fall upon us often when we look<br>Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man--<br>My haunt, and the main region of my song<br>--Beauty--a living Presence of the earth,<br>Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms<br>Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed<br>From earth's materials--waits upon my steps;<br>Pitches her tents before me as I move,<br>An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves <br>Elysian, Fortunate Fields--like those of old<br>Sought in the Atlantic Main--why should they be<br>A history only of departed things,<br>Or a mere fiction of what never was?<br>For the discerning intellect of Man,<br>When wedded to this goodly universe<br>In love and holy passion, shall find these<br>A simple produce of the common day.<br>--I, long before the blissful hour arrives,<br>Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse <br>Of this great consummation:--and, by words<br>Which speak of nothing more than what we are,<br>Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep<br>Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain<br>To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims<br>How exquisitely the individual Mind<br>(And the progressive powers perhaps no less<br>Of the whole species) to the external World<br>Is fitted:--and how exquisitely, too--<br>Theme this but little heard of among men-- <br>The external World is fitted to the Mind;<br>And the creation (by no lower name<br>Can it be called) which they with blended might<br>Accomplish:--this is our high argument.<br>--Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft<br>Must turn elsewhere--to travel near the tribes<br>And fellowships of men, and see ill sights<br>Of madding passions mutually inflamed;<br>Must hear Humanity in fields and groves<br>Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang <br>Brooding above the fierce confederate storm<br>Of sorrow, barricadoed evermore<br>Within the walls of cities--may these sounds<br>Have their authentic comment; that even these<br>Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn!--<br>Descend, prophetic Spirit! that inspir'st<br>The human Soul of universal earth,<br>Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess<br>A metropolitan temple in the hearts<br>Of mighty Poets; upon me bestow <br>A gift of genuine insight; that my Song<br>With star-like virtue in its place may shine,<br>Shedding benignant influence, and secure<br>Itself from all malevolent effect<br>Of those mutations that extend their sway<br>Throughout the nether sphere!--And if with this<br>I mix more lowly matter; with the thing<br>Contemplated, describe the Mind and Man<br>Contemplating; and who, and what he was--<br>The transitory Being that beheld <br>This Vision;--when and where, and how he lived;<br>Be not this labour useless. If such theme<br>May sort with highest objects, then--dread Power!<br>Whose gracious favour is the primal source<br>Of all illumination--may my Life<br>Express the image of a better time,<br>More wise desires, and simpler manners;--nurse<br>My Heart in genuine freedom:--all pure thoughts<br>Be with me;--so shall thy unfailing love<br>Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!</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=540163" data-title="The Recluse - Book First de William Wordsworth" data-description="HOME AT GRASMERE ONCE to the verge of yon steep barrier came A roving school-boy; what the adventurer's age Hath now escaped his memory--but the hour, One of a golden summer holiday, He well remembers, though the year be gone-- Alone and devious ..."></div> </div> </div>

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