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A humbler destiny have we rétraced,
And told of lapse and hesitating choice,
And backward wanderings along thorny

ways:

Yet-compassed round by mountain soli tudes,

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,
But shrunk with apprehensive jealousy
From 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 in formed,

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 joyEvil, as one is rashly named by men Who know not what they speak. By love subsists

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 lanıb

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 de

light

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This spiritual Love acts not nor can
exist

Without Imagination, which, in truth,
Is but another name for absolute power
And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,
And Reason in her most exalted mood.
This faculty hath been the feeding source
Of our long labor: 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
Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed;
Then given it greeting as it rose once more
In strength, reflecting from its placid
breast

The works of man, and face of human life; And lastly, from its progress have we drawn

Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought 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,
All that a darling countenance can look
Or dear voice utter, to complete the man,

Perfect him, made imperfect in himself, All shall be his and he whose soul hath risen

Up to the height of feeling intellect
Shall want no humbler tenderness; his
heart

Be tender as a nursing mother's heart;
Of female softness shall his life be full,
Of humble cares and delicate desires,
Mild interests and gentlest sympathies.

Child of my parents! Sister of my soul ! Thanks in sincerest verse have been elsewhere

Poured out for all the early tenderness Which I from thee imbibed: and 'tis most true

That later seasons owed to thee no less; For, spite of thy sweet influence and the touch

Of kindred hands that opened out the springs

Of genial thought in childhood, and in spite Of all that unassisted I had marked

In life or nature of those charms minute That win their way into the heart by stealth, Still, to the very going-out of youth,

I too exclusively esteemed that love, And sought that beauty, which, as Milton sings,

Hath terror in it. Thou didst soften down This over-sternness; but for thee, dear

Friend!

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Dear Sister! was a kind of gentler spring That went before my steps. Thereafter

came

One whom with thee friendship had early paired;

She came, no more a phantom to adorn
A moment, but an inmate of the heart,
And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined
To penetrate the lofty and the low;
Even as one essence of pervading light
Shines, in the brightness of ten thousand
stars,

And the meek worm that feeds her lonely lamp

Couched in the dewy grass.

With such a theme, Coleridge! with this my argument, of thee Shall I be silent? O capacious Soul ! Placed on this earth to love and understand,

And from thy presence shed the light of love,

Shall I be mute, ere thou be spoken of? Thy kindred influence to my heart of

hearts

Did also find its way. Thus fear relaxed Her over-weening grasp; thus thoughts and things

In the self-haunting spirit learned to take
More rational proportions; mystery,
The incumbent mystery of sense and soul,.
Of life and death, time and eternity,
Admitted more habitually a mild
Interposition-a serene delight

In closelier gathering cares, such as become
A human creature, howsoe'er endowed,
Poet, or destined for a humbler name;
And so the deep enthusiastic joy,
The rapture of the hallelujah sent
From all that breathes and is, was chastened,
stemmed

And balanced by pathetic truth, by trust
In hopeful reason, leaning on the stay

Of Providence; and in reverence for duty,
Here, if need be, struggling with storms,

and there

Strewing in peace life's humblest ground with herbs,

At every season green, sweet at all hours.

And now, O Friend! this history is brought

To its appointed close: the discipline
And consummation of a Poet's mind,
In everything that stood most prominent,
Have faithfully been pictured: we have
reached

The time (our guiding object from the first)
When we may, not presumptuously, I hope,
Suppose my powers so far confirmed, and
such

My knowledge, as to make me capable
Of building up a Work that shall endure.
Yet much hath been omitted, as need was;
Of books how much! and even of the other
wealth

That is collected among woods and fields,
Far more: for Nature's secondary grace
Hath hitherto been barely touched upon,
The charm more superficial that attends
Her works, as they present to Fancy's
choice

Apt illustrations of the moral world, Caught at a glance, or traced with curious pains.

Finally, and above all, O Friend! (I speak

With due regret) how much is overlooked
In human nature and her subtle ways,
As studied first in our own hearts, and then
In life among the passions of mankind,
Varying their composition and their hue,
Where'er we move, under the diverse
shapes

That individual character presents
To an attentive eye. For progress meet,
Along this intricate and difficult path,
Whate'er was wanting, something had I
gained,

As one of many schoolfellows compelled
In hardy independence to stand up
Amid conflicting interests, and the shock
Of various tempers; to endure and note
What was not understood, though known to
be;

Among the mysteries of love and hate,
Honor and shame, looking to right and left,
Unchecked by innocence too delicate,
And moral notions too intolerant,
Sympathies too contracted. Hence, when
called

To take a station among men, the step
Was easier, the transition more secure,
More profitable also; for the mind
Learns from such timely exercise to keep
In wholesome separation the two natures,
The one that feels, the other that observes.

Yet one more word of personal con

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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 labor 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 heav

ens

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,
1 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 labor, 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 labor 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,

Have beed laid open, needs must make me
That in this meditative history

feel

More deeply, yet enable me to bear

From hope that thou art near, and wilt be More firmly; and a comfort now hath risen

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THE RIGHT HONORABLE WILLIAM, EARL OF LONSDALE, K.&.,

ETC., ETC.

OFT, through thy fair domains, illustrious | A token (may it prove a monument ! )
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 pre-
sent,

RYDAL MOUNT, WESTMORELAND,
July 29, 1814.

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

PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1814.

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 be stowed 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 interests, 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

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