WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

THE GREATEST OF NATURE POETS

1770-1850

(INTRODUCTORY NOTE)

What could be more fitting for a great poet than to write in verse the story of his own life, the study of his own mental and spiritual development. Yet the only really great poem we have of this type is the one here given. Byron attempted some study of himself in his "Childe Harold," but it remained for Wordsworth, the "Quaker poet," the most profound and yet the most simple and straightforward of men, to examine himself thus honestly and earnestly, and give to the world a poem of frank self-revelation. He calls this "The poem Prelude," explaining that as his whole poetry was a study of the inner life of man, so this study of his own early life was a sort of prelude to all his other poetic studies. He followed it with a somewhat similar poem of his later life, called "The Recluse."'

The reason "The Prelude" has not ordinarily been included in writings on autobiography is probably because it so often turns from speaking of Wordsworth's past life to describe instead his visions of the present and the future. Hence, the effort is here made to bring "The Prelude" more clearly into the hands of students of autobiography by presenting only the personal sections of the poem.

Wordsworth was left an orphan at a very early age. His sister Dorothy, so often mentioned in "The Prelude," was a year younger than he and devoted her life to being his companion. The "friend" repeatedly addressed in the poem is Wordsworth's beloved fellow-poet Coleridge. In 1802 Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson, a childhood's friend, and in 1805 he began "The Prelude." It, however, makes no

mention of his wife, because it studies only his development during the

THE PRELUDE,

OR GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL POEM

BOOK FIRST

INTRODUCTION-CHILDHOOD AND SCHOOL-TIME

O THERE is blessing in this gentle breeze,
A visitant that while it fans my cheek
Doth seem half-conscious of the joy it brings
From the green fields, and from yon azure sky.
Whate'er its mission, the soft breeze can come
To none more grateful than to me; escaped
From the vast city, where I long had pined
A discontented sojourner: now free,

Free as a bird to settle where I will.

What dwelling shall receive me? in what vale
Shall be my harbor? underneath what grove
Shall I take up my home? and what clear stream
Shall with its murmur lull me into rest?
The earth is all before me. With a heart
Joyous, nor scared at its own liberty,
I look about; and should the chosen guide
Be nothing better than a wandering cloud,
I cannot miss my way. I breathe again!
Trances of thought and mountings of the mind
Come fast upon me: it is shaken off,
That burthen of my own unnatural self,
The heavy weight of many a weary day

Not mine, and such as were not made for me.
Long months of peace (if such bold word accord
With any promises of human life),

Long months of ease and undisturbed delight
Are mine in prospect; whither shall I turn,
By road or pathway, or through trackless field,
Up hill or down, or shall some floating thing
Upon the river point me out my course?

Dear Liberty! Yet what would it avail
But for a gift that consecrates the joy?

For I, methought, while the sweet breath of heaven
Was blowing on my body, felt within

A correspondent breeze, that gently moved
With quickening virtue, but is now become
A tempest, a redundant energy,

Vexing its own creation. Thanks to both,
And their congenial powers, that, while they join
In breaking up a long-continued frost,
Bring with them vernal promises, the hope
Of active days urged on by flying hours,—
Days of sweet leisure, taxed with patient thought
Abstruse, nor wanting punctual service high,
Matins and vespers of harmonious verse!

Thus far, O Friend! did I, not used to make

A present joy the matter of a song,

Pour forth that day my soul in measured strains
That would not be forgotten, and are here
Recorded: to the open fields I told
A prophecy: poetic numbers came.
Spontaneously to clothe in priestly robe
A renovated spirit singled out,

Such hope was mine, for holy services.

My own voice cheered me, and, far more, the mind's
Internal echo of the imperfect sound;

To both I listened, drawing from them both
A cheerful confidence in things to come.

...

When, as becomes a man who would prepare For such an arduous work, I through myself Make rigorous inquisition, the report

Is often cheering; for I neither seem

To lack that first great gift, the vital soul,

Nor general Truths, which are themselves a sort
Of Elements and Agents, Under-powers,
Subordinate helpers of the living mind:
Nor am I naked of external things,
Forms, images, nor numerous other aids

Of less regard, though won perhaps with toil
And needful to build up a Poet's praise.

Time, place, and manners do I seek, and these

Are found in plenteous store, but nowhere such
As may be singled out with steady choice;
No little band of yet remembered names
Whom I, in perfect confidence, might hope
To summon back from lonesome banishment,
And make them dwellers in the hearts of men
Now living, or to live in future years.
Sometimes the ambitious Power of choice, mistaking
Proud spring-tide swellings for a regular sea,
Will settle on some British theme, some old
Romantic tale by Milton left unsung.

Sometimes it suits me better to invent
A tale from my own heart, more near akin
To my own passions and habitual thoughts;
Some variegated story, in the main

Lofty, but the unsubstantial structure melts
Before the very sun that brightens it,
Mist into air dissolving! Then a wish,
My last and favorite aspiration, mounts
With yearning toward some philosophic song
Of Truth that cherishes our daily life;
With meditations passionate from deep
Recesses in man's heart, immortal verse
Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre;
But from this awful burthen I full soon
Take refuge and beguile myself with trust
That mellower years will bring a riper mind.
And clearer insight. Thus my days are past
In contradiction; with no skill to part

Vague longing, haply bred by want of power,
From paramount impulse not to be withstood,
A timorous capacity from prudence,
From circumspection, infinite delay.
Humility and modest awe themselves
Betray me, serving often for a cloak
To a more subtle selfishness; that now
Locks every function up in blank reserve,
Now dupes me, trusting to an anxious eye
That with intrusive restlessness beats off

Simplicity and self-presented truth.
Ah! better far than this, to stray about
Voluptuously through fields and rural walks,
And ask no record of the hours, resigned
To vacant musing, unreproved neglect
Of all things, and deliberate holiday.
Far better never to have heard the name
Of zeal and just ambition, than to live
Baffled and plagued by a mind that every hour
Turns recreant to her task; takes heart again,
Then feels immediately some hollow thought
Hang like an interdict upon her hopes.
This is my lot; for either still I find
Some imperfection in the chosen theme,
Or see of absolute accomplishment
Much wanting, so much wanting, in myself,
That I recoil and droop, and seek repose
In listlessness from vain perplexity,
Unprofitably traveling toward the grave,

Like a false steward who hath much received
And renders nothing back.

Was it for this

That one, the fairest of all rivers, loved
To blend his murmurs with my nurse's song,
And, from his alder shades and rocky falls,
And from his fords and shallows, sent a voice
That flowed along my dreams? For this, didst thou,
O Derwent! winding among grassy holms
Where I was looking on, a babe in arms,

Make ceaseless music that composed my thoughts
To more than infant softness, giving me
Amid the fretful dwellings of mankind

A foretaste, a dim earnest, of the calm

That Nature breathes among the hills and groves?
When he had left the mountains and received
On his smooth breast the shadow of those towers
That yet survive, a shattered monument

Of feudal sway, the bright blue river passed
Along the margin of our terrace walk;