"Ye winds, that have made me your sport, “My friends, do they now and then send A wish or a thought after me? Oh, tell me I yet have a friend, Though a friend I am never to see." I have quoted this passage as an instance of three different styles of composition. The first four lines are poorly expressed; some critics would call the language prosaic ; the fact is, it would be bad prose, so bad, that it is scarcely worse in metre. The epithet "church-going" applied to a bell, and that by so chaste a writer as Cowper, is an instance of the strange abuses which poets have introduced into their language till they and their readers take them as matters of course, if they do not single them out expressly as objects of admiration. The two lines, "Ne'er sighed at the sound," etc., are, in my opinion, an instance of the language of passion wrested from its proper use, and, from the mere circumstance of the composition being in metre, applied upon an occasion that does not justify such violent expressions; and I should condemn the passage, though perhaps few readers will agree with me, as vicious poetic diction. The last stanza is throughout admirably expressed: it would be equally good whether in prose or verse, except that the reader has an exquisite pleasure in seeing such natural language so naturally connected with metre. The beauty of this stanza tempts me to conclude with a principle which ought never to be lost sight of,-namely, that in works of imagination and sentiment, in proportion as ideas and feelings are valuable, whether the composition be in prose or in verse, they require and exact one and the same language. Metre is but adventitious to composition, and the phraseology for which that passport is necessary, even where it is graceful at all, will be little valued by the judicious. 334 The Excursion. TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.G., etc. etc. OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious peer! Rydal Mount, Westmoreland, July 29, 1814. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1814. THE title announces that this is only a portion of a poem; and the reader must be here apprised 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, 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 emboldened 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 ante-chapel 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, being now 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. The author would not have deemed himself justified in saying, upon this occasion, so much of performances either unfinished, or unpublished, if 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 meditations in the author's own person; and that in the intermediate part ("The Excursion") the intervention of the characters speaking is employed, and something of a dramatic form is 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 meantime 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 pcem : "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 mixed; 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, whencesoe'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 the individual mind that keeps her own To conscience only, the law supreme Of that Intelligence which governs all ; I sing 'fit audience let me find though few!" "So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the bard, Holiest of men.-Urania, I shall need Thy guidance, or a greater muse, if such Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven I For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink Nor aught of blinder vacancy-scooped out By help of dreams, can breed such fear and awe As fall upon us often when we look Into our minds, into the mind of man, My haunt, and the main region of my song, An hourly neighbour, Paradise, and groves Or a mere fiction of what never was? I, long before the blissful hour arrives, Theme this but little heard of among men, And the creation (by no lower name Can it be called) which they with blended might Within the walls of cities; may these sounds Have their authentic comment,-that even these Dre ming 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 Itself, from all malevolent effect Of those mutations that extend their sway Throughout the nether sphere!--And if with this This vision,-when and where, and how he lived; May sort with highest objects, then, dread Power! Express the image of a better time, More wise desires, and simpler manners;-nurse BOOK I. 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 inhabitant. THE WANDERER. TWAS summer, and the sun had mounted high: A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots A twilight of its own, an ample shade, Where the wren warbles; while the dreaming man, Half conscious of the soothing melody, With side-long eye looks out upon the scene, By power of that impending covert thrown, To finer distance. Other lot was mine; |