tone,

An image, and a character, by books
Not hitherto reflected. Call we this

A partial judgment-and yet why? for then
We were as strangers; and I may not speak

CONCLUSION.

Which do both give it being and maintain
A balance, an ennobling interchange
Of action from without and from within;
The excellence, pure function, and best power
Both of the object seen, and eye that sees.

It was a close, warm, breezeless summer night,

Wan, dull, and glaring, with a dripping fog Low-hung and thick that covered all the sky; But, undiscouraged, we began to climb

The mountain-side. The mist soon girt us round,

And, after ordinary travellers' talk
With our conductor, pensively we sank
Each into commerce with his private thoughts:
Thus did we breast the ascent, and by myself
Was nothing either seen or heard that checked
Those musings or diverted, save that once
The shepherd's lurcher, who, among the crags.
Had to his joy unearthed a hedgehog, teased
His coiled-up prey with barkings turbulent.
This small adventure, for even such it seemed
In that wild piace and at the dead of night,
Being over and forgotten, on we wound
In silence as before. With forehead bent
Earthward, as if in opposition set
Against an enemy, I panted up

With eager pace, and no less eager thoughts.
Thus might we wear a midnight hour away,
Ascending at loose distance each from each,
And I, as chanced, the foremost of the band;
When at my feet the ground appeared to
brighten,

And with a step or two seemed brighter still;
Nor was time given to ask or learn the cause,
For instantly a light upon the turf

Fell like a flash, and lo! as I looked up,
The Moon hung naked in a firmament
Of azure without cloud, and at my feet
Rested a silent sea of hoary mist.

A hundred hills their dusk, backs upheaved

All over this still ocean; and beyond,
Far, far beyond, the solid vapours stretched,
Into the main Atlantic, that appeared
In headlands, tongues, and promontory shapes,
To dwindle, and give up his majesty,
Usurped upon far as the sight could reach.
Not so the ethereal vault; encroachment none
Was there, nor loss; only the inferior stars
Had disappeared, or shed a fainter light
In the clear presence of the full-orbed Moon,
Who, from her sovereign elevation, gazed
Upon the billowy ocean, as it lay

All meek and silent, save that through a rift-
Not distant from the shore whereon we stood,
A fixed, abysmal, gloomy, breathing-place-
Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams
Innumerable, roaring with one voice!
Heard over earth and sea, and, in that hour,
For so it seemed, felt by the starry heavens.

When into air had partially dissolved
That vision, given to spirits of the night
And three chance human wanderers, in calm
thought

Reflected, it appeared to me the type
Of a majestic intellect, its acts
And its possessions, what it has and craves,
What in itself it is, and would become.
There I beheld the emblem of a mind
That feeds upon infinity, that broods
Over the dark abyss, intent to hear
Its voices issuing forth to silent light
In one continuous stream; a mind sustained
By recognitions of transcendent power,
In sense conducting to ideal form,
In soul of more than mortal privilege.
One function, above all, of such a mind
Had Nature shadowed there, by putting forth,
'Mid circumstances awful and sublime,
That mutual domination which she loves
To exert upon the face of outward things,
So moulded, joined, abstracted, so endowed
With interchangeable supremacy,

That men, least sensitive, see, hear, perceive,
And cannot choose but feel. The power, which
all
Acknowledge when thus moved, which Nature

thus

To bodily sense exhibits, is the express
Resemblance of that glorious faculty
That higher minds bear with them as their own.
This is the very spirit in which they deal

With the whole compass of the universe:
They from their native selves can send abroad
Kindred mutations; for themselves create
A like existence; and, whene'er it dawns
Created for them, catch it, or are caught
By its inevitable mastery,

Like angels stopped upon the wing by sound
Of harmony from Heaven's remotest spheres.
Them the enduring and the transient both
Serve to exalt; they build up greatest things
From least suggestions; ever on the watch,
Willing to work and to be wrought upon,
They need not extraordinary calls

To rouse them; in a world of life they live,
By sensible impressions not enthralled,
But by their quickening impulse made more
prompt

To hold fit converse with the spiritual world,
And with the generations of mankind
Spread over time, past, present, and to come,
Age after age, till Time shall be no more.
Such minds are truly from the Deity,

For they are Powers; and hence the highest bliss

That flesh can know is theirs-the conscious

ness

Of Whom they are, habitually infused Through every image and through every thought,

And all affections by communion raised
From earth to heaven, from human to divine;
Hence endless occupation for the Soul,
Whether discursive or intuitive;

Hence cheerfulness for acts of daily life,
Emotions which best foresight need not fear,
Most worthy then of trust when most intense.
Hence, amid ills that vex and wrongs that crush
Our hearts-if here the words of Holy Writ
May with fit reverence be applied-that peace
Which passeth understanding, that repose
In moral judgments which from this pure

source

Must come, or will by man be sought in vain.

Oh! who is he that hath his whole life long Preserved, enlarged, this freedom in himself? For this alone is genuine liberty:

Where is the favoured being who hath held
That course unchecked, unerring, and untired,
In one perpetual progress smooth and bright?
A humbler destiny have we retraced,
And told of lapse and hesitating choice,
And backward wanderings along thorny ways:
Yet-compassed round by mountain solitudes,
Within whose solemn temple I received
My earliest visitations, careless then
Of what was given me; and which now I range,
A meditative, oft a suffering man-
Do I declare-in accents which, from truth
Deriving cheerful confidence, shall blend
Their modulation with these vocal streams-
That, whatsoever falls my better mind,
Revolving with the accidents of life,
May have sustained, that, howsoe'er misled,
Never did I, in quest of right and wrong,
Tamper with conscience from a private aim;
Nor was in any public hope the dupe
Of selfish passions; nor did ever yield
Wilfully to mean cares or low pursuits,

it shrunk with apprehensive jealousy -.om every combination which might aid

The tendency, too potent in itself,

Of use and custom to bow down the soul
Under a growing weight of vulgar sense,
And substitute a universe of death

For that which moves with light and life informed,

Actual, divine, and true. To fear and love,
To love as prime and chief, for there fear ends,
Be this ascribed; to early intercourse,
In presence of sublime or beautiful forms,
With the adverse principles of pain and joy-
Evil, as one is rashly named by men
Who know not what they speak.

subsists

By love

All lasting grandeur, by pervading love;
That gone, we are as dust.-Behold the fields
In balmy spring-time full of rising flowers
And joyous creatures; see that pair, the lamb
And the lamb's mother, and their tender ways
Shall touch thee to the heart; thou callest this
love,

And not inaptly so, for love it is,
Far as it carries thee. In some green bower
Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there
The One who is thy choice of all the world:
There linger, listening, gazing, with delight
Impassioned, but delight how pitiable !
Unless this love by a still higher love

Be hallowed, love that breathes not without

Lifted, in union with the purest, best,

Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise Bearing a tribute to the Almighty's Throne.

This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist Without Imagination, which, in truth, Is but another name for absolute power And Reason in her most exalted mood. And clearest insight, amplitude of mind, This faculty hath been the feeding source Of our long labour: we have traced the stream From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard Its natal murmur; followed it to light And open day; accompanied its course Among the ways of Nature, for a time Then given it greeting as it rose once more Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed ; In strength, reflecting from its placid breast

The works of man and face of human life; Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought And lastly, from its progress have we drawn Of human Being, Eternity, and God.

Imagination having been our theme, So also hath that intellectual Love, For they are each in each, and cannot stand Dividually. Here must thou be, O Man! Power to thyself; no Helper hast thou here; Here keepest thou in singleness thy state: No other can divide with thee this work: No secondary hand can intervene To fashion this ability; 'tis thine, The prime and vital principle is thine In the recesses of thy nature, far From any reach of outward fellowship, Else is not thine at all. But joy to him, Oh, joy to him who here hath sown, hath laid Here, the foundation of his future years! For all that friendship, all that love can do,

Of rural England's cultivated vales Or Cambrian solitudes. A youth-(he bore The name of Calvert-it shall live, if words Of mine can give it life,) in firm belief That by endowments not from me withheld Good might be furthered-in his last decay By a bequest sufficient for my needs Enabled me to pause for choice, and walk At large and unrestrained, nor damped too soon By mortal cares. Himself no Poet, yet Far less a common follower of the world, He deemed that my pursuits and labours lay Apart from all that leads to wealth, or even A necessary maintenance insures, Without some hazard to the finer sense; He cleared a passage for me, and the stream Flowed in the bent of Nature.

Having now Told what best merits mention, further pains Our present purpose seems not to require, And I have other tasks. Recall to mind The mood in which this labour was begun, O Friend! The termination of my course Is nearer now, much nearer; yet even then, In that distraction and intense desire, I said unto the life which I had lived, Where art thou? Hear I not a voice from thee Which 'tis reproach to hear? Anon I rose As if on wings, and saw beneath me stretched Vast prospect of the world which I had been And was; and hence this Song, which like a lark I have protracted, in the unwearied heavens Singing, and often with more plaintive voice To earth attempered and her deep-drawn sighs, Yet centring all in love, and in the end All gratulant, if rightly understood.

Whether to me shall be allotted life, And, with life, power to accomplish aught of worth,

That will be deemed no insufficient plea
For having given the story of myself,
Is all uncertain: but, beloved Friend!
When, looking back, thou seest, in clearer view
Than any liveliest sight of yesterday,
That summer, under whose indulgent skies
Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roved
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid her sylvan combs,
Thou in bewitching words, with happy heart,
Didst chaunt the vision of that Ancient Man,
The bright-eyed Mariner, and rueful woes
Didst utter of the Lady Christabel ;
And I, associate with such labour, steeped
In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours,
Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found,

After the perils of his moonlight ride,
Near the loud waterfall; or her who sate
In misery near the miserable Thorn;
When thou dost to that summer turn thy
thoughts,

And hast before thee all which then we were,
To thee, in memory of that happiness,
It will be known, by thee at least, my Friend!
Felt, that the history of a Poet's mind
Is labour not unworthy of regard:
To thee the work shall justify itself.

The last and later portions of this gift Have been prepared, not with the buoyant spirits

That were our daily portion when we first
Together wantoned in wild Poesy,

But, under pressure of a private grief,

Keen and enduring, which the mind and heart, That in this meditative history

Have been laid open, needs must make me feel
More deeply, yet enable me to bear

More firmly; and a comfort now hath risen
From hope that thou art near, and wilt be soon
Restored to us in renovated health;
When, after the first mingling of our tears,
'Mong other consolations, we may draw
Some pleasure from this offering of my love.

Oh! yet a few short years of useful life,
And all will be complete, thy race be run,
Thy monument of glory will be raised;
Then, though (too weak to tread the ways of
truth)

This age fall back to old idolatry,
Though men return to servitude as fast
As the tide ebbs, to ignominy and shame
By nations sink together, we shall still
Find solace-knowing what we have learnt to
know,

Rich in true happiness if allowed to be
Faithful alike in forwarding a day

Of firmer trust, joint labourers in the work
(Should Providence such grace to us vouchsafe)
Of their deliverance, surely yet to come.
Prophets of Nature, we to them will speak
A lasting inspiration, sanctified

By reason, blest by faith: what we have loved,
Others will love, and we will teach them how;
Instruct them how the mind of man becomes
A thousand times more beautiful than the earth
On which he dwells, above this frame of things
(Which, 'mid all revolution in the hopes
And fears of men, doth still remain unchanged)
In beauty exalted, as it is itself
'Of quality and fabric more divine.

OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer!
In youth I roamed, on youthful pleasures bent;
And mused in rocky cell or sylvan tent,
Beside swift-flowing Lowther's current clear.
-Now, by thy care befriended, I appear
Before thee, LONSDALE, and this Work present,
A token (may it prove a monument!)

RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND, July 29, 1814.

PREFACE TO THE THE Title-page 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 do, 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

Of high respect and gratitude sincere.
Gladly would I have waited till my task
Had reached its close; but Life is insecure,
And Hope full oft fallacious as a dream :
Therefore, for what is here produced, I ask
Thy favour; trusting that thou wilt not deem
The offering, though imperfect, premature.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

EDITION OF 1814. and Education had qualified him for such em ployment. 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, when they shall be properly arranged, will be found by the attentive Reader to have such connection with the main Work as may give them claim to