Growth of a Poet’s Mind

Lyrics

Oh, many a time have I, a five years' child In a small mill-race severed from his stream Made one long bathing of a summer's day; Basked in the sun, and plunged and basked again Alternate, all a summer's day, or scoured The sandy fields, leaping through flowery groves Of yellow ragwort; or when rock and hill The woods, and distant Skiddaw's lofty height Were bronzed with deepest radiance, stood alone Beneath the sky, as if I had been born On Indian plains, and from my mother's hut Had run abroad in wantonness, to sport A naked savage, in thе thunder shower Fair seed-time had my soul, and I grеw up Fostered alike by beauty and by fear: Much favoured in my birth-place, and no less In that beloved Vale to which erelong We were transplanted—there were we let loose For sports of wider range. Ere I had told Ten birth-days, when among the mountain slopes Frost, and the breath of frosty wind, had snapped The last autumnal crocus, 'twas my joy With store of springes o'er my shoulder hung To range the open heights where woodcocks run Along the smooth green turf. Through half the night Scudding away from snare to snare, I plied That anxious visitation;—moon and stars Were shining o'er my head. I was alone And seemed to be a trouble to the peace That dwelt among them. Sometimes it befel In these night wanderings, that a strong desire O'erpowered my better reason, and the bird Which was the captive of another's toil Became my prey; and when the deed was done I heard among the solitary hills Low breathings coming after me, and sounds Of undistinguishable motion, steps Almost as silent as the turf they trod Nor less when spring had warmed the cultured Vale Moved we as plunderers where the mother-bird Had in high places built her lodge; though mean Our object and inglorious, yet the end Was not ignoble. Oh! when I have hung Above the raven's nest, by knots of grass And half-inch fissures in the slippery rock But ill sustained, and almost (so it seemed) Suspended by the blast that blew amain Shouldering the naked crag, oh, at that time While on the perilous ridge I hung alone With what strange utterance did the loud dry wind Blow through my ear! the sky seemed not a sky Of earth—and with what motion moved the clouds! Dust as we are, the immortal spirit grows Like harmony in music; there is a dark Inscrutable workmanship that reconciles Discordant elements, makes them cling together In one society. How strange that all The terrors, pains, and early miseries Regrets, vexations, lassitudes interfused Within my mind, should e'er have borne a part And that a needful part, in making up The calm existence that is mine when I Am worthy of myself! Praise to the end! Thanks to the means which Nature deigned to employ; Whether her fearless visitings, or those That came with soft alarm, like hurtless light Opening the peaceful clouds; or she may use Severer interventions, ministry More palpable, as best might suit her aim One summer evening (led by her) I found A little boat tied to a willow tree Within a rocky cave, its usual home Straight I unloosed her chain, and stepping in Pushed from the shore. It was an act of stealth And troubled pleasure, nor without the voice Of mountain-echoes did my boat move on; Leaving behind her still, on either side Small circles glittering idly in the moon Until they melted all into one track Of sparkling light. But now, like one who rows Proud of his skill, to reach a chosen point With an unswerving line, I fixed my view Upon the summit of a craggy ridge The horizon's utmost boundary; far above Was nothing but the stars and the grey sky She was an elfin pinnace; lustily I dipped my oars into the silent lake And, as I rose upon the stroke, my boat Went heaving through the water like a swan; When, from behind that craggy steep till then The horizon's bound, a huge peak, black and huge As if with voluntary power instinct Upreared its head. I struck and struck again And growing still in stature the grim shape Towered up between me and the stars, and still For so it seemed, with purpose of its own And measured motion like a living thing Strode after me. With trembling oars I turned And through the silent water stole my way Back to the covert of the willow tree; There in her mooring-place I left my bark,— And through the meadows homeward went, in grave And serious mood; but after I had seen That spectacle, for many days, my brain Worked with a dim and undetermined sense Of unknown modes of being; o'er my thoughts There hung a darkness, call it solitude Or blank desertion. No familiar shapes Remained, no pleasant images of trees Of sea or sky, no colours of green fields; But huge and mighty forms, that do not live Like living men, moved slowly through the mind By day, and were a trouble to my dreams Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul that art the eternity of thought That givest to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion, not in vain By day or star-light thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of man But with high objects, with enduring things— With life and nature, purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought And sanctifying, by such discipline Both pain and fear, until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days When vapours rolling down the valley made A lonely scene more lonesome, among woods At noon and 'mid the calm of summer nights When, by the margin of the trembling lake Beneath the gloomy hills homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine; Mine was it in the fields both day and night And by the waters, all the summer long And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and visible for many a mile The cottage windows blazed through twilight gloom I heeded not their summons: happy time It was indeed for all of us—for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village clock tolled six,—I wheeled about Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home. All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,—the resounding horn The pack loud chiming, and the hunted hare So through the darkness and the cold we flew And not a voice was idle; with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy not unnoticed, while the stars Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng To cut across the reflex of a star That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes When we had given our bodies to the wind And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me—even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep