Biographia Literaria
The Youth who daily further from the East
Must travel, still is Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.”
And page 352 to 354 of the same ode.
“O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions: not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts, before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty Thing surprised!
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us--cherish--and have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence; truths that wake
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Hence, in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither;
Can in a moment travel thither,--
And see the children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.”
And since it would be unfair to conclude with an extract, which, though
highly characteristic, must yet, from the nature of the thoughts and the
subject, be interesting or perhaps intelligible, to but a limited number
of readers; I will add, from the poet’s last published work, a passage
equally Wordsworthian; of the beauty of which, and of the imaginative
power displayed therein, there can be but one opinion, and one feeling.
See White Doe, page 5.
“Fast the church-yard fills;--anon
Look again and they all are gone;
The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sate in the shade of the Prior’s Oak!
And scarcely have they disappeared
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard;--
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!
They sing a service which they feel:
For ’tis the sun-rise now of zeal;
And faith and hope are in their prime
In great Eliza’s golden time.”
“A moment ends the fervent din,
And all is hushed, without and within;
For though the priest, more tranquilly,
Recites the holy liturgy,
The only voice which you can hear
Is the river murmuring near.
--When soft!--the dusky trees between,
And down the path through the open green,
Where is no living thing to be seen;
And through yon gateway, where is found,
Beneath the arch with ivy bound,
Free entrance to the church-yard ground--
And right across the verdant sod,
Towards the very house of God;
Comes gliding in with lovely gleam,
Comes gliding in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream.
A solitary Doe!
White she is as lily of June,
And beauteous as the silver moon
When out of sight the clouds are driven
And she is left alone in heaven!
Or like a ship some gentle day
In sunshine sailing far away
A glittering ship that hath the plain
Of ocean for her own domain.”
* * * * * *
“What harmonious pensive changes
Wait upon her as she ranges
Round and through this Pile of state
Overthrown and desolate!
Now a step or two her way
Is through space of open day,
Where the enamoured sunny light
Brightens her that was so bright;
Now doth a delicate shadow fall,
Falls upon her like a breath,
From some lofty arch or wall,
As she passes underneath.”
The following analogy will, I am apprehensive, appear dim and fantastic,
but in reading Bartram’s Travels I could not help transcribing the
following lines as a sort of allegory, or connected simile and metaphor
of Wordsworth’s intellect and genius.--“The soil is a deep, rich, dark
mould, on a deep stratum of tenacious clay; and that on a foundation of
rocks, which often break through both strata, lifting their backs above
the surface. The trees which chiefly grow here are the gigantic, black
oak; magnolia grandi-flora; fraximus excelsior; platane; and a few
stately tulip trees.” What Mr. Wordsworth will produce, it is not for me
to prophesy but I could pronounce with the liveliest convictions what he
is capable of producing. It is the FIRST GENUINE PHILOSOPHIC POEM.
The preceding criticism will not, I am aware, avail to overcome the
prejudices of those, who have made it a business to attack and ridicule
Mr. Wordsworth’s compositions.
Truth and prudence might be imaged as concentric circles. The poet may
perhaps have passed beyond the latter, but he has confined himself far
within the bounds of the former, in designating these critics, as “too
petulant to be passive to a genuine poet, and too feeble to grapple with
him;----men of palsied imaginations, in whose minds all healthy action
is languid;----who, therefore, feed as the many direct them, or with the
many are greedy after vicious provocatives.”
So much for the detractors from Wordsworth’s merits. On the other hand,
much as I might wish for their fuller sympathy, I dare not flatter
myself, that the freedom with which I have declared my opinions
concerning both his theory and his defects, most of which are more
or less connected with his theory, either as cause or effect, will be
satisfactory or pleasing to all the poet’s admirers and advocates.
More indiscriminate than mine their admiration may be: deeper and more
sincere it cannot be. But I have advanced no opinion either for praise
or censure, other than as texts introductory to the reasons which compel
me to form it. Above all, I was fully convinced that such a criticism
was not only wanted; but that, if executed with adequate ability, it
must conduce, in no mean degree, to Mr. Wordsworth’s reputation.
His fame belongs to another age, and can neither be accelerated nor
retarded. How small the proportion of the defects are to the beauties,
I have repeatedly declared; and that no one of them originates in
deficiency of poetic genius. Had they been more and greater, I should
still, as a friend to his literary character in the present age,
consider an analytic display of them as pure gain; if only it removed,
as surely to all reflecting minds even the foregoing analysis must have
removed, the strange mistake, so slightly grounded, yet so widely and
industriously propagated, of Mr. Wordsworth’s turn for simplicity! I
am not half as much irritated by hearing his enemies abuse him for
vulgarity of style, subject, and conception, as I am disgusted with the
gilded side of the same meaning, as displayed by some affected admirers,
with whom he is, forsooth, a “sweet, simple poet!” and so natural, that
little master Charles and his younger sister are so charmed with them,
that they play at “Goody Blake,” or at “Johnny and Betty Foy!”
Were the collection of poems, published with these biographical
sketches, important enough, (which I am not vain enough to believe,)
to deserve such a distinction; even as I have done, so would I be done
unto.
For more than eighteen months have the volume of Poems, entitled
SIBYLLINE LEAVES, and the present volume, up to this page, been printed,
and ready for publication. But, ere I speak of myself in the tones,
which are alone natural to me under the circumstances of late years, I
would fain present myself to the Reader as I was in the first dawn of my
literary life:
When Hope grew round me, like the climbing vine,
And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seem’d mine!
For this purpose I have selected from the letters, which I wrote home
from Germany, those which appeared likely to be most interesting, and at
the same time most pertinent to the title of this work.
SATYRANE’S LETTERS
LETTER I
On Sunday morning, September 16, 1798, the Hamburg packet set sail from
Yarmouth; and I, for the first time in my life, beheld my native land
retiring from me. At the moment of its disappearance--in all the kirks,
churches, chapels, and meeting-houses, in which the greater number, I
hope, of my countrymen were at that time assembled, I will dare question
whether there was one more ardent prayer offered up to heaven, than
that which I then preferred for my country. “Now then,” (said I to a
gentleman who was standing near me,) “we are out of our country.” “Not
yet, not yet!” he replied, and pointed to the sea; “This, too, is a
Briton’s country.” This bon mot gave a fillip to my spirits, I rose and
looked round on my fellow-passengers, who were all on the deck. We
were eighteen in number, videlicet, five Englishmen, an English lady,
a French gentleman and his servant, an Hanoverian and his servant, a
Prussian, a Swede, two Danes, and a Mulatto boy, a German tailor and his
wife, (the smallest couple I ever beheld,) and a Jew. We were all on the
deck; but in a short time I observed marks of dismay. The lady retired
to the cabin in some confusion, and many of the faces round me assumed a
very doleful and frog-coloured appearance; and within an hour the number
of those on deck was lessened by one half. I was giddy, but not sick,
and the giddiness soon went away, but left a feverishness and want of
appetite, which I attributed, in great measure, to the saeva Mephitis of
the bilge-water; and it was certainly not decreased by the exportations
from the cabin. However, I was well enough to join the able-bodied
passengers, one of whom observed not inaptly, that Momus might have
discovered an easier way to see a man’s inside, than by placing a
window in his breast. He needed only have taken a saltwater trip in a
packet-boat.
I am inclined to believe, that a packet is far superior to a
stage-coach, as a means of making men open out to each other. In the
latter the uniformity of posture disposes to dozing, and the
definitiveness of the period, at which the company will separate, makes
each individual think more of those to whom he is going, than of those
with whom he is going. But at sea, more curiosity is excited, if only
on this account, that the pleasant or unpleasant qualities of your
companions are of greater importance to you, from the uncertainty how
long you may be obliged to house with them. Besides, if you are
countrymen, that now begins to form a distinction and a bond of
brotherhood; and if of different countries, there are new incitements
of conversation, more to ask and more to communicate. I found that I
had interested the Danes in no common degree. I had crept into the boat
on the deck and fallen asleep; but was awakened by one of them, about
three o’clock in the afternoon, who told me that they had been seeking
me in every hole and corner, and insisted that I should join their
party and drink with them. He talked English with such fluency, as left
me wholly unable to account for the singular and even ludicrous
incorrectness with which he spoke it. I went, and found some excellent
wines and a dessert of grapes with a pine-apple. The Danes had