The prelude ... With notes by A. J. George

Front matter

THE PRELUDE, OR GROWTH OF A POET'S MIND; £tn Poem. By WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. WITH NOTES By A. J. GEORGE, A.M., ACTING PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN BOSTON UNIVERSITY; INSTRUCTOR IN ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE NEWTON HIGH SCHOOL. " The child is father of the man." BOSTON : D. C. HEATH & CO., PUBLISHERS. 1888. Copyright, 1887, By A. J. GEORGE, J. S. Cushing & Co., Printers, Boston. TO THE MEMORY OF ftcnrg Norman $?u-sison, 2Æ.M., whose rare qualities of mind and heart were revealed TO me in a long and loving intimacy, and whose COUNSEL, ENCOURAGEMENT, AND FRIENDSHIP HAVE BEEN AMONG THE BLESSINGS OF MY LIFE, THIS SELECTION FROM HIS BELOVED POET IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED.

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. The gods talk in the breath of the woods, They talk in the shaken pine, And fill the long reach of the old seashore With dialogue divine. And the poet who overhears Some random word they say, Is the fated man of men Whom the ages must obey.1 IT is interesting in our survey of the past to study the crises in the world's history, and notice how Providence has, by particular surroundings and education, prepared special men for special emergencies. Seers, prophets, and teachers have been divinely raised up to interpret the mind of God to men, the Heroes, Sages, Bards sublime, And all that fetched the flowing rhyme From genuine springs. In one of these crises, — that of the last half of the eighteenth century, — there was a stirring of the depths in all departments of human life. Literature, the outcome of the whole life of a people, was consequently involved in the revolutionary conflagration which ran over all the European world, from the ashes of which arose new ideas of mankind.

Poetry had been removed from its natural home, the country, and was forced to do service in the artificial surroundings of city life. In the hands of Dryden and Pope it had been shorn of all 1 Emerson. VI

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. its natural charms, and appeared in court dress with " ruffles and rapier." It dealt with the outside aspects and artificial manners of the people, and lost sight of the human heart, — The haunt and main region of song. During this time, Providence was rearing amid the rural scenery of Cumberland and Westmoreland one who was to stand forth as the exponent and defender of the Beautiful, the True, and the Good in English poesy, and by whose heroic struggle the Muse was to be returned to her long-lost home. The face of English literature was changed by that infusion of new blood from the hearts of such men as constituted the new brotherhood. Out of the souls of Cowper, Wordsworth, and Coleridge the poetry of freedom, of equal rights and of universal brotherhood, sprang full-grown into a life of earnest protest against tyranny of all kinds, political, moral, or priestly, — into a life which was to endure no decay.

The pitiless storm of ribaldry and abuse which the leader of this new movement of a return to nature had to encounter, was such as would have discouraged any one but him who knew no fear save the fear to do wrong. Clad in the strength of a lofty and con secrated purpose, he stood through the long pelting, true to himself, and all the time calmly singing from his retirement at Rydal : — For thus I live remote From evil-speaking ; rancor never sought Comes to me not ; malignant truth, or lie. Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I Smooth passion, smooth discourse and joyous thought. Not a note of querulousness or bitterness escaped him. This was not the calm of indifference, but the calm of a nature capable of storms of indignation, yet under the sway of a powerful will. The great Preceptress by whom he was educated did not allow him to remain in the quietude of Nature. The poet of Humanity must needs see ill sights Of madding passions mutually inflamed;

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. VII or hang Brooding above the fierce confederate storm Of sorrow, barricado'd evermore Within the walls of cities. On his first entrance to London a new and truer idea of man arose within him, and in passing to that theatre where the first acts in the mighty drama of Revolution were being enacted, a revolution was produced in his own mind, and he was seized with those ideas which added to his enthusiasm for Nature that enthu siasm for Man which characterized all his work, and raised him to the imperial height of a poet of the first order, — a poet of the " moral depths of the human soul." Blessings be with them — and eternal praise, Who gave us nobler loves and nobler cares, — The Poets — who on earth have made us heirs Of pure delight by heavenly lays ! Oh ! might my name be numbered among theirs ; Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

Thus wrote Wordsworth in 1805, and long and patiently did he wait for the answer to his prayer. At last, in the summer of 1839, he was permitted to realize that for which he had labored so assiduously and prayed so earnestly, when, by the foremost university of his land and the world, he was honored as one of the chief glories of English poetry and the greatest name since Milton. Keble, the professor of Poetry in the University, introduced him as being "one who had shed a celestial light upon the affections, the occupations, and the piety of the poor." The ovation which he received was such as had never been witnessed there before, except upon the occasion of the visit of the Duke of Wel lington. The long battle had been patiently and courageously fought, and victory was at length achieved. Of this victory the Rev. Frederick Robertson says : —

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. VIII "It was my lot, during a short university career, to witness a transition and a reaction, or revulsion, of public feeling with regard to two great men. The first of these was Arnold of Rugby ; the second, Wordsworth. When he came forward to receive his honorary degree, scarcely had his name been pronounced than from three thousand voices at once there broke forth a burst of applause echoed and taken up again and again. There were young eyes then filled with an emotion of which they had no need to be ashamed ; there were hearts beating with the proud feeling of triumph that at last the world had recognized the merit of the man they had loved so long and acknowledged as their teacher." In 1843 a still greater honor was conferred upon him at the hands of the young Queen. He was urged to accept the Laureate ship, but gratefully and respectfully declined, as he considered that his years unfitted him for the discharge of its duties.

He was then in his seventy-fourth year. This brought a letter from the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, urging his acceptance of the appointment, saying, "As the Queen can select for this honorable appointment no one whose claims for respect and honor, on account of eminence as a poet, can be placed in competition with you, I trust that you will no longer hesitate to accept it. There is but one unanimous feeling on the part of all who have heard of the proposal. " The offer was made not for the purpose of imposing upon you any onerous task or disagreeable duties, but in order to pay you that tribute of respect which is justly due to the first of living poets." This letter removed his scruples, and the laurel wreath was placed upon the brows " of him who uttered nothing base." He produced but little poetry after this date ; but there is one poem, written in 1846 upon the fly-leaf of a gift copy of his poems, presented to the Royal Library at Windsor Castle, which is of special interest (in this Jubilee Year), as connected with his Laureateship.

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. IX As it does not appear in any edition of his works, I give it entire : — Deign, Sovereign Mistress ! to accept a lay, No Laureate offering of elaborate art ; But salutation, taking its glad way From deep recesses of a loyal heart. Queen, wife, and mother! may all-judging Heaven Shower with a bounteous hand on thee and thine Felicity, that only can be given On earth to goodness blessed by grace divine. Lady ! devoutly honored and beloved Through every realm confided to thy sway ; May'st thou pursue thy course by God approved, And he will teach thy people to obey. As thou art wont thy sovereignty adorn With woman's gentleness, yet firm and staid ; So shall that earthly crown thy brows have worn Be changed to one whose glory cannot fade. And now, by duty urged, I lay this book Before thy Majesty in humble trust, That on its simplest pages thou wilt look With a benign indulgence, more than just.

Nor wilt thou blame an aged poet's prayer, That, issuing hence, may steal into thy mind, Some solace under weight of royal care, Or grief, the inheritance of human kind. For know we not that from celestial spheres When time was young an inspiration came, (O were it mine !) to hallow saddest tears And help life onward in its noblest aim? W. W. Rydal Mount, gth January, 1846. He had sung his mine dimittis, and composed no longer. His mission was completed. The bright dream of his boyhood was

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. X fulfilled, and that spirit singled out for holy services, after the discipline of sadness and suffering, entered into its rest. His body lies, as he had requested, in the churchyard at Grasmere, in the bosom of that dear vale where he had lived and loved and sung ; surrounded by the Dalesmen whom he honored ; beneath the shade of those yews planted by his own hands, in sound of Rotha murmuring her plaintive strain that " few or none Hear her voice right now he is gone." While round about in phalanx firm stand the mountains old, faithful guardians of the sacred spot. Earth has no more fitting resting-place for the dust of William Wordsworth. Plain is the stone that marks the Poet's rest ; Not marble worked beneath Italian skies — A grey slate headstone tells where Wordsworth lies, Cleft from the native hills he loved the best.

No heavier thing upon his gentle breast Than turf starred o'er in spring with daisy eyes. Nor richer music makes him lullabies Than Rotha fresh from yonder mountain crest. His name, his date, the years he lived to sing, Are deep incised and eloquently terse ; But Fancy hears the graver's hammer ring, And sees mid lines of much remembered verse These words in gold beneath his title wrought — " Singer of Humble Themes and Noble Thought." 1 There was but one thing more which his countrymen could do for him, and this was not long left undone, for in the Venerable Abbey, surrounded by the medallion of Keble and the busts of Kingsley and Maurice, may be seen the life-size statue of the poet in white marble : he is represented seated in the attitude of contemplation, the characteristic of all his portraits being thus strikingly reproduced in the marble. Underneath are engraved 1 H. D. Rawnsley.

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. XI the words above quoted, " Blessings be with them and eternal praise," etc. The world has not often seen a life so well rounded and sym metrical, a soul so strong and lofty, consecrate itself to a single purpose. Few poets have bequeathed to the world such a legacy of lofty thought and ennobling feeling which will cause all who love it to think the more deeply and feel the more tenderly, thus making men " wiser, better, and happier." Professor Shairp says: "No poet of modern times has had in him so much of the prophet. What earth's far-off, lonely moun tains do for the plains and cities, that Wordsworth has done and will do for literature, and through literature for society ; sending down great streams of higher truth, fresh, purifying winds of feeling to those who least dream from what quarter they came.

The more thoughtful of each generation will draw nearer and observe him more closely, will ascend his imaginative heights and sit under the shadow of his profound meditations, and in proportion as they do so will they become more noble and pure in heart." The sunrise on his breezy lake, The rosy tints his sunset caught, Are gladdening all the vales And mountain peaks of thought.1 Accepting these estimates of the work and influence of Words worth, my aim is to bring before the reader this simple narrative of the ways in which his childhood walked and of what first led him to the love of rivers, woods, and hills, and how the love of nature led him up to the love of man. Goethe said, if you would understand an author, you must understand his age. There can be no more interesting or profitable study than that which seeks to determine by what principles, methods, chances, and changes, by what impulses of the mind and heart, a great personality im presses itself upon the intellectual history of a nation, and feeds it with moral truth and human passion. 1 Whittier.

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. XII It is to William Wordsworth that we owe the nineteenth cen tury renaissance in English poetry, because he led it a step farther than it had gone before, and penetrated the heart of man where it seemed that all were known and explored ; he gave it a style which found itself the style of everybody, -— a style at once new and antique because contemporary with all the ages. In a word, he gave to poetry a " vital soul." He found us when the age had bound Our souls in its benumbing round ; He spoke and loosed our heart in tears. ****** Our youth returned ; for there was shed On spirits that had long been dead, Spirits dried up and closely furled, The freshness of the early world.1 It is the element of personality in Wordsworth's poetry which gives it its influence over the minds of those who enter into vital relations with it.

He everywhere speaks to man's entire being. His profound thoughts, his vivid illustration, his ennobling sensibility, and his wise reflection have to do with the "here and now," — the sphere of our interests, duties, and dangers. He distinctly teaches that the sphere of motives is the sphere of morals ; and that love of the true, the beautiful and the good in human action is a higher and worthier source of inspiration than the hatred of their opposites. He thus grounds his moral teaching upon the spirit of the Founder of Christianity, and in the Ode to Duty and Character of the Happy Warrior we find the highest manifestation of it. Serene will be our days and bright, And happy will our nature be, When love is an unerring light And joy its own security. 1 Matthew Arnold.

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. XIII — 'Tis finally, the man who, lifted high, Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye, Or left unlhought of in obscurity, — Who, with a toward or untoward lot, Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not, Plays in the many games of life, that one Where what he most doth value must be won. Who, not content that former worth stand fast, Looks forward, persevering to the last, From well to better, daily self-surpast ; Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth Forever, and to nobler deeds give birth, Or he must go to dust without his fame, And leave a dead, unprofitable name, Finds comfort in himself and in his cause; And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause : This is the Happy Warrior ; this is he Whom every man in arms should wish to be.

Believing that the poet's function was to Help life onward in its noblest aim, he wrote to Sir George Beaumont : " The poet is a teacher ; I wish to be considered as a teacher or as nothing." But his method is not that of the Doctrinaires and Examining Boards, for he had learned that the aim of education is the development of all the faculties, — body, soul, and spirit. He has severe words of condemnation for the method which produces that intellectual monstrosity, who Can string you names of countries, cities, towns, The whole world over, tight as beads of dew Upon a gossamer thread. * * * * * * Who must live, Knowing that he grows wiser every day, Or else not live at all. For this unnatural growth the trainer blame, Pity the tree. PREFA CE. XIV He offers words of encouragement to those of us who believe that we should teach as Nature teaches, and that the original and poetic spirit in children should be encouraged rather than crushed out by cramming them to the throat with mere instruction.

Grandeur of character has its roots in a freedom to drink in other lessons than those which may be recited. Thy art be Nature, the live current quaff, And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool, In fear that else when Critics, grave and cool, Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph. ******* How does the meadow-flower its bloom unfold ? Because the lovely little flower is free Down to its root, and in that freedom bold And so the grandeur of the forest tree Comes not by casting in a formal mould, But by its own divine vitality. Wordsworth was a patriot as well as a poet, and in the school of citizenship, too, he proves our wisest teacher, insisting that good citizenship cannot exist without true manhood, — that the good citizen is the good man. This is the lesson of the French Revolution, and in this school Wordsworth was a pupil of the first rank.

He was the first in England to honor the lives of men in all ranks, with the glory and the wealth and the beauty of song. He was the first to assert the right of every man to the best education which the State can give, and to protection from that greed which would oppress them with unremitting toil. He teaches that the only safety for a Nation is in that spirit of Frater nity which binds together the rich and the poor ; that the liberty and true greatness of a nation are in its agreement with the laws of righteousness. By the soul Only the nations shall be great and free ; not from Fleets and armies, and external wealth, But from within proceeds a nation's strength.

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. XV With youthful ardor he championed the cause of suffering humanity in France, when the nation seemed Standing on the top of golden hours. But when he saw the career of Napoleon begin, and France turn oppressor, in wrath and pity he espoused the interests of the oppressed nations. In a noble outburst of indignation he expressed his hatred of the cruel attack upon the liberties of Switzerland, of St. Domingo, and of the Venetian Republic. After the imprisonment of the patriot Toussaint L'Ouverture, he wrote : — Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee ; air, earth, and skies ; There's not a breathing of the common wind That will forget thee ; thou hast great allies ; Thy friends are exultations, agonies, And love, and man's unconquerable mind. When at last the dreadful contest ended and the tyrant was overthrown at Waterloo, in humble gratitude he pours forth his enthusiasm and his joy that the fate of nations is knit to the government of God.

To Thee, to Thee, Just God of Christianised Humanity, Shall praise be poured forth, and thanks ascend, That thou hast brought our warfare to an end, And that we need no second victory ! ****** Blest, above measure blest, If on thy love our Land her hopes shall rest, And all the nations labor to fulfil Thy law, and live henceforth in peace, in pure good will. From his retirement at Rydal he issued poem and pamphlet in which he discussed the end Of civil government, and its wisest forms ;

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. XVI also education and the duty of the State to insist upon a high standard of citizenship ; the poor laws ; the relation of capital to labor, and the rights of workmen congregated in manufactories. Strange themes for a poet ! They were not strange for a poet who had imbibed the old Teutonic spirit of the people and the people's rights. We must be free or die, who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold Which Milton held. One of the wisest of our public men has said : — " I do not think that anybody of his time — statesman, philosopher, or poet — saw with such unerring insight into the great moral forces that determine the currents of history." 1 As far back as 1820 he foresaw with remarkable penetration the movement which we designate as " Home Rule," and in a letter to Mrs. Hemans he said : — " These two islands will reap the fruit of their own folly and madness, in becoming for the present generation the two most unquiet and miserable spots upon the earth."

He must have had in perspective the great English Liberal when he wrote : — Blest statesman he, whose mind's unselfish will Leaves her at ease among grand thoughts ; whose eye Sees that apart from Magnanimity Wisdom exists not. Americans should claim a close relationship to Wordsworth, for he is spiritually akin to these patriots who stood by the side of Washington, and felt his great arm lean on them for support. His burning words upon the fate of nations which build upon other principles than those of truth and justice have inspired many of our noblest statesmen. In the rustic simplicity and delightful domesticity of that 1 Hon. George F. Hoar.

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. XVII Grasmere Cottage where, in manly independence, peace, and happy poverty, a practical example or " plain living and high thinking" was given to the world, we have a picture not un common in the rural villages of New England. In his sorrow at the worldliness and materialism of those who live in luxury and frivolity, he exclaims : — Which way shall I look For comfort, being as I am, opprest, To think that now our life is only drest For show; mean handiwork of craftsman, cook Or groom — we must run glittering like a brook In the open sunshine, or we are unblest; The richest man among us is the best. * * * * Rapine, Avarice, Expense. This is idolatry, and these we adore ; Plain living and high thinking are no more. There has been some alarm caused by the attitude of Science toward literary studies, and fears have been entertained that Poetry would be relegated to the sphere of mere pastime and amusement, — a subject no longer needed in our education, the human mind having outgrown it.

Aware of the arrogance and dogmatism with which Science is claiming the exclusive right to our intellectual estate, aware also of her boast that she has ban ished the Muse from her birthright, we have no fears that either the claim or the boast can be substantiated so long as human nature remains what it is. True it is Nature hides Her treasures less and less. Man now presides In power, where once he trembled in his weakness ; Science advances with gigantic strides :, But are we aught enriched in love and meekness ? Can aught be found in us of pure and wise More than in humble times graced human story ? That makes our heart more apt to sympathize ?

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. XVIII The claims of Science to " sovereign sway and masterdom " should be met in the spirit of candor and fair dealing, and the claims of Poetry pressed with earnestness. This will help much in determining the sphere of each and to what place in our system of education each is entitled. If the aim of education be a harmonious development of all the facul ties, we assuredly need other aids than those which Science fur nishes. When we consider what treatment Poetry has received in the house of its friends, and upon what weak arguments it has often rested its claim, there can be no wonder that it has received but a contemptuous toleration. The domain of Science is in no wise similar to that of Poetry, and the two ought never to antagonize one another. Science deals with the forces, e'ements, qualities, and operations of the material world ; it is mainly the field of acquirement ; its organ is the understanding, and that alone ; in the abstractions of the intellect it finds its food and life.

Involving but one side of our complex nature, it has no elevating or purifying effect ; it does not reach the sphere of motives. Poetry, on the other hand, deals with the facts of our moral and spiritual life and develops the ethical imaginative and emo tional sides of our nature : its truths are those of the heart, the conscience, the imagination, and those are quite as essential as any with which Science has to deal. Remove duty, love, gratitude, admiration, reverence, and sympathy from life, and what a blank would be left ! Where then would be the " vision and faculty divine "? From what source is the heart to receive its warmth, the soul its inspiration, and life its beauty, if Science is to have supreme control of our mental furnishing? We certainly are in as great need, at the present time, of high moral character as of enlight ened understanding.

"A nation which exhausts all its power in developing steam engines and mill privileges will, in the end, learn that soul power is greater than steam power."

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. XIX We live by admiration, hope and love, And even as these are well and wisely fixed In dignity of being we ascend. While Science is developing the perfect machine and pushing the division of labor to the extreme, literature must look to it that this movement which is "scientific in method, rationalistic in spirit, and utilitarian in purpose," shall not result in making man " a tool or implement." An eminent French critic has said that, owing to the special izing tendency and the all-devouring force of Science, poetry would cease to be read in fifty years. After the severity with which Science was for so long time treated by Literature, there is no wonder that now, in the moment of her mighty exaltation, she should retaliate. Of the relative claims of Science and Literature, the great Dr. Arnold said : " If one might wish for impossibilities, I might then wish that my children might be well versed in physical science, but in due subordination to the fulness and freshness of their knowledge on moral subjects."1 In order that we may lay a deep and sure foundation for char acter, we must insist that poetry be used for its power to elevate and refine : we must not divert it to the use of teaching logic, rhetoric, and the rules of poetic architecture ; if we do, we must not complain that we " dwindle as we pore."

Let the scientist dive into the earth, and the philosopher soar into the sky; but let us keep our feet upon the sure facts of experience, True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home. That poetry will assist us even though we be scientists, we can not doubt when we view the lives of such men as Newton, Kep ler, and Agassiz — men who considered every new insight into Nature as bringing them so much nearer the mind of God. They 1 Stanley's Life of Arnold.

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. XX recognized a logic of the heart no less than of the head, and that it gave them truths that wake to perish never ; Which neither listlessness nor mad endeavor, Nor man, nor boy, Nor all that is at enmity with joy, Can utterly abolish or destroy. Thus we see that, instead of being antagonistic, Science and Poetry may be mutually helpful. Every new field won for Science may be entered and possessed by Poetry, and until the dull eye of the scientist is lighted up and his cold heart warmed by the vivifying influence of imagination, A primrose by the river's brim A yellow primrose is to him, And it is nothing more. Mr. Ruskin has told us that the difference between a tyro and a master is, that the one stops in details while the other refers all the details to a final purpose, By which sense is made Subservient still to moral purposes Auxiliar to divine.

So long as we view all objects " in disconnection dull and spiritless," we are dealing with nature as a mere grammarian deals with a poem, and are waging An impious warfare with the very life Of our own souls. We believe that there is no poet who will, if rightly used, do so much toward counteracting the utilitarian theories of our time, and to bring poetry and science into harmony, as will Words worth. Although living in a pre-scientific age he had clear views upon the tendency of exclusively scientific studies, and he sought to counteract it by teaching us not to cenre our life upon th«