Note and preface to the excursion. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Note and preface to the excursion by William Wordsworth. Something must now be said of this poem, but chiefly, as has been done through the whole of these notes, with reference to my personal friends, and especially to her who has perseveringly taken them down from my dictation. Towards the close of the first book stand the lines that were first written, beginning nine tedious years and ending last human tenant of these ruined walls. These were composed in 95 at Race Down, and for several passages describing the employment and demeanor of Margaret during her reflection, I was indebted to observations made in Dorseture, and afterwards at Al-Foxden and Somerseture, where I recited in 97 and 98. The lines towards the conclusion of the fourth book, beginning, for the man who in his spirit, to the words intellectual soul, were in order of time composed the next, either at Race Down or Al-Foxden, I do not remember which. The rest of the poem was written in the veil of Grasmere, chiefly during our residence at Allen Bank. The long poem on my own education was together with many minor poems composed while we lived at the cottage at Town End. Perhaps my purpose of giving an additional interest to these my poems, in the eyes of my nearest and dearest friends, may be promoted by saying a few words upon the character of the wanderer, the solitary and the pastor, and some other of the persons introduced. And first of the principle on the wanderer, my lamented friend Southey, for this is written a month after his decease. Used to say that had he been born a papist, the course of life which would in all probability have been his was the one for which he was most fitted and most to his mind, that of a Benedictine monk in a convent, furnished as many once were and some still are with an inexhaustible library. Books as appears from many passages in his writings, and as was evident to those who had opportunities of observing his daily life, were in fact his passion and wandering, I can with truth affirm, was mine. But this propensity in me was happily counteracted by inability from want of fortune to fulfill my wishes. But had I been born in a class which would have deprived me of what is called a liberal education, it is not unlikely that being strong in body I should have taken to a way of life such as that in which my peddler passed the greater part of his days. At all events I am here called upon freely to acknowledge that the character I have represented in his person is chiefly an idea of what I fancied my own character might have become in his circumstances. Nevertheless, much of what he says and does had an external existence that fell under my own youthful and subsequent observation. An individual named Patrick by birth in education, a Scotchman followed hit this humble occupation for many years and afterwards settled in the town of Kendall. He married a kinswoman of my wife's and her sister Sarah was brought up from her ninth year under this good man's roof. My own imaginations I was happy to find clothed in reality and fresh ones suggested by what she reported of this man's tenderness of heart, his strong and pure imagination and his solid attainments in literature, chiefly religious whether in prose or verse. At Hawkshead also, while I was a schoolboy, there occasionally resided a pac-man, the name then generally given to persons of this calling, with whom I had frequent conversations upon what had befallen him and what he had observed during his wandering life. And as was natural we took much to each other and upon the subject of peddlerism in general as then followed and its favorableness to an intimate knowledge of human concerns. Not merely among the humbler classes of society, I need say nothing here in addition to what is to be found in the excursion and a note attached to it. Now for the solitary. Of him I have much less to say. Not long after we took up our abode at Grasmere, came to reside there. From what motive I either never knew or have forgotten a Scotchman a little past the middle of life who had for many years been chaplain to a Highland regiment. He was in no respect as far as I know an interesting character, though in his appearance there was a good deal that attracted attention as if he had been shattered in fortune and not happy in mind. Of his quantum position I availed myself to connect with the wanderer also a Scotchman, a character suitable to my purpose, the elements of which I drew from several persons with whom I had been connected and who fell under my observation during frequent residences in London at the beginning of the French Revolution. The chief of these was, one may now say, a Mr. Fawcett, a preacher at a dissenting meeting house at the Old Jewry. It happened to me several times to be one of his congregation through my connection with Mr. Nicholson of Cat Eaton Street, who at that time when I had not many acquaintances in London, used often to invite me to dine with him on Sundays. And I took that opportunity, Mr. N being a dissenter, of going to hear Fawcett, who was an able and eloquent man. He published a poem on war, which had a good deal of merit, and made me think more about him than I should otherwise have done. But his Christianity was probably never very deeply rooted. And like many others in those times of like showy talents, he had not strength of character with to withstand the effects of the French Revolution, and of the wild and lax opinions which had done so much towards producing it, and far more in carrying it forward in its extremes. Poor Fawcett, I have been told, became pretty much such a person as I have described, and early disappeared from the stage having fallen into habits of intemperance, which I have heard, though I will not answer for the fact, hastened his death. Of him I need say no more. There were many like him at that time, which the world will never be without, but which were more numerous than for reasons too obvious to be dwelt upon. To what is said of the pastor in the poem I have little to add, but what may be deemed superfluous. It has ever appeared to me highly favorable to the beneficial influence of the Church of England upon all gradations and classes of society, that the patronage of its benefits is in numerous instances attached to the estates of noble families of ancient gentry. And accordingly I am gratified by the opportunity afforded me in the excursion to portray the character of a country clergyman of more than ordinary talents, born and bred in the upper ranks of society so as to partake of their refinements and at the same time brought by his pastoral office and his love of rural life into intimate connection with the peasantry of his native district. To illustrate the relation which in my mind this pastor bore to the wanderer and the resemblance between them, or rather the points of community in their nature, I likened one to an oak and the other to a sycamore. And having here referred to this comparison, I need only add, I had no one individual in my mind, wishing rather to embody this idea than to break in upon the simplicity of it by traits of individual character or of any peculiarity of opinion. And now for a few words upon the scene where these interviews and conversations are supposed to occur. The scene of the first book of the poem is, I must own, laid in attractive country, not sufficiently near to that which soon comes into view in the second book to agree with the fact. All that relates to Margaret and the ruined cottage, etc., was taken from observations made in the southwest of England, and certainly it would require more than seven league boots to stretch in one morning from a common insumersature or dorsature to the heights of furnace fells and the deep valleys they embosom. For thus dealing with space, I need make, I trust no apology, but my friends may be amused by the truth. In the poem I supposed that the peddler and I ascended from a plain country up the Vale of Langdale and struck off a good way above the chapel to the western side of the Vale. We ascended the hill and then looked down upon the circular recess in which lies Blee Tarn, chosen by the solitary for his retreat. After we quit his cottage, passing over a low ridge, we descend into another Vale, that of little Langdale, towards the head of which stands, empowered or partly shaded by use or other trees, something between a cottage and a mansion or gentleman's house, such as they once were in this country. This I convert into the parsonage, and at the same time, and as by the waving of a magic wand, I turn the comparatively confined Vale of Langdale, its tarn, and the rude chapel which once adorned the valley, into the stately and comparatively spacious Vale of Grasmere, its lake, and its ancient parish church. And upon the side of Luffrig Fell, at the foot of the lake, and looking down upon it in the whole Vale and its encompassing mountains, the pastor is supposed by me to stand when its sunset he addresses his companions in words which I hope my readers will remember, or I should not have taken the trouble of giving so much in detail the materials on which my mind actually worked. Now for a few particulars of fact, respecting the persons whose stories are told or characters are described by the different speakers. To Margaret I have already alluded. I will add here that the lines beginning, she was a woman of a steady mind. Faithfully delineate as far as they go, the character possessed in common by many women, whom it has been my happiness to know in humble life, and that several of the most touching things which she is represented as saying and doing are taken from actual observation of the distresses and trials, under which different persons were suffering, some of them strangers to me and others daily under my notice. I was warned too late to have a distinct remembrance of the origin of the American War, but the state in which I represent Robert's mind to be, I had frequent opportunities of observing at the commencement of our rupture with France in 93, opportunities of which I availed myself in the story of the female vagrant as told in the poem on guilt and sorrow. The account given by the solitary towards the close of the second book in all that belongs to the character of the old man was taken from a grass-mere popper who was boarded in the last house quitting the veil on the road to Ambleside. The character of his hostess and all that befell that poor man upon the mountain belonged to Patterdale. The woman I know well, her name was Jay, and she was exactly such a person as I describe. The ruins of the old chapel among which the man was found lying may yet be traced and stood upon the ridge that divides Patterdale from Bordale and Martindale, having been placed there for the convenience of both districts. The glorious appearance disclosed above and among the mountains was described partly from what my friend Mr. Lough who then lived in Patterdale witnessed upon that melancholy occasion and partly from what Mrs. Wordsworth and I had seen in company with Sir George and Lady Beaumont above Hart's Hope Hall on our way from Patterdale to Ambleside. And now for a few words upon the church its monuments and the deceased who are spoken of as lying in the surrounding churchyard. But first for the one picture given by the pastor and the wanderer of the living, in this nothing is introduced for what was taken from nature in real life. The cottage is called Hackett and stands as described on the southern extremity of the ridge which separates the two Langdales. The pair who inhabited it were called Jonathan and Betty Udale. Once when our children were ill of whooping cough I think we took them for change of air to this cottage and we're in the habit of going there to drink tea upon fine summer afternoons so that we became intimately acquainted with the characters habits and lives of these good and let me say in the main wise people. The matron had in her early youth been a servant in a house at Hawkshead where several boys boarded while I was a schoolboy there. I did not remember her as having served in that capacity but we had many little anecdotes to tell to each other of remarkable boys, incidents and adventures which had made a noise in their day in that small town. These two persons afterwards settled at Rytle where they both died. The church has already noticed is that of Grasmere. The interior of it has been improved lately, made warmer by underdrawing the roof and raising the floor. But the rude and antique majesty of its former appearance has been impaired by the painting the rafters, and the oak benches with a simple rail at the back dividing them from each other have given way to seats that have more the appearance of pews. It is remarkable that accepting only the pew belonging to Rytle Hall, that to Rytle Mount, the ones of the Parsonage and I believe another, the men and women still continue as used to be the custom in Wales to sit separate from each other. Is this practice as old as the Reformation and when and how did it originate? In the Jewish synagogues and in Lady Huntington's chapels the sexes are divided in the same way. In the joining churchyard greater changes have taken place. It is now not a little crowded with tombstones and near the schoolhouse which stands in the churchyard is an ugly structure built to receive the hearse which is recently come into use. It would not be worthwhile to allude to this building or the hearse vehicle it contains but the ladder has been the means of introducing a change much to be lamented in the mode of conducting funerals among the mountains. Now the coffin is lodged in the hearse at the door of the house of the deceased and the corpse is so conveyed to the churchyard gate. All the solemnity which formerly attended its progress as described in the poem is put an end to. So much do I regret this that I beg to be excused for giving utterance here to a wish that should it befall me to die at Rytlemount my own body may be carried to Grasmere church after the manner in which too lately that of everyone was born to that place of sepulcher namely on the shoulders of neighbors know house being passed without some words of a funeral psalm being sung at the time by the attendance. When I put into the mouth of the wanderer many precious rights and customs of our rural ancestry are gone or stealing from us this I hope will last forever and what follows little did I foresee that the observance and mode of proceeding which had often affected me so much would soon be superseded having said much of the injury done to this churchyard let me add that one is at liberty to look forward to a time when by the growth of the yew trees thriving there a solemnity will be spread over the place that will in some degree make amends for the old simple character which has already been so much encroached upon and will be still more every year I will hear set down more at length what has been mentioned in a previous note that my friend Sir George Beaumont having long ago purchased the beautiful piece of water called Luffrig Tarn on the banks of which he intended to build I told him that a person in Kendall who was attached to the place wished to purchase it Sir George finding the possession of no use to him consented depart with it and placed the purchase money 20 pounds at my disposal for any local use which I thought proper accordingly I resolved to plant yew trees in the churchyard and had four pretty strong large oak enclosures made in each of which was planted under my own eye and principally if not entirely by my own hand two young trees with the attention of leaving the one that throw best to stand many years after Mr. Barber who will long be remembered in Grasmere Mr. Greenwood the chief landed proprietor and myself had four other enclosures made in the churchyard at our own expense in each of which was planted a tree taken from its neighbor and they all stand thriving admirably the fences having been removed is no longer necessary may the trees be taken care of here after when we are all gone and some of them will perhaps at some far distant time rival in majesty the yew of Lorton and those which I've described as growing in Borodale where they are still to be seen in grand assemblage and now for the persons that are selected as lying in the churchyard but first for the individual whose grave is prepared to receive him his story is here truly related he was a school fellow of mine for some years he came to us when he was at least 17 years of age very tall robust and full grown this prevented him from falling into the amusements in games of the school consequently he gave more time to books he was not remarkably bright or quick but by industry he made a progress more than respectable his parents not being wealthy enough to send him to college when he left hawkshead he became a school master with a view to prepare himself for holy orders about this time he fell in love as related in the poem and everything followed as they are described except that I do not know when and where he died the number of youths that came to hawkshead school from the families of the humble yeomanry to be educated to a certain degree of scholarship as a preparation for the church was considerable and the fortunes of these persons in afterlife various of course and of some not a little remarkable I have now one of this class in my eye who became an usher in a preparatory school and ended in making a large fortune his manners when he came to hawkshead were as uncouth as well could be but he had good abilities with skill to turn them to account and when the master of the school to which he was usher died he stepped into his place and became proprietor of the establishment he contrived to manage it with such address and so much to the taste of what is called high society in the fashionable world that no school of the kind even till he retired was in such high request ministers of state the wealthiest gentry and nobility of the first rank vied with each other in bespeaking a place for their sons in the seminary of this fortunate teacher in the solitude of grassmere while living as a married man in a cottage of eight pounds per annum rent I often used to smile at the tales which reached me of his brilliant career not two hundred yards from the cottage in grassmere just mentioned to which I retired this gentleman who many years afterwards purchased the small estate in the neighborhood is now erecting a boat house with an upper story to be resorted to as an entertaining room when he and his associates may feel inclined to take their pastime on the lake every passenger will be disgusted with the sight of this edifice not merely as a tasteless thing in itself but as utterly out of place and peculiarly fitted as far as it is observed and it intrudes itself on notice at every point of view to mar the beauty and destroy the pastoral simplicity of the veil for my own part and that of my household it is our utter detestation standing by a shore to which before the high road was made to pass that way we use daily and hourly to repair for seclusion and for the shelter of a grove under which I composed many of my poems the brothers especially and for this reason we gave the grove that name that which each man loved and prized in his peculiar nook of earth dies with him or is changed so much for my old school fellow and his exploits I will only add that the foundation has twice failed from the lake no doubt being intolerant of the intrusion the miner next described as having found his treasure after twice ten years of labor lived in Patterdale and the story is true to the letter it seems to me however rather remarkable that the strength of mine which had supported him through this long unrewarded labor did not enable him to bear its successful issue several times in the course of my life I have heard of sudden influxes of great wealth being followed by derangement and in one instance the shock of good fortune was so great as to produce absolute idiocy but these all happened where there had been little or no previous effort to acquire the riches and therefore such a consequence might be more naturally expected than in the case of the solitary miner in reviewing his story one cannot but regret that such perseverance was not sustained by a worthier object our comedies leaped out of his bath and ran about the streets proclaiming his discovery in a transport of joy but we are not told that he lost either his life or his senses in consequence the next character to whom the priest is led by contrast with the resoluteness displayed by the foregoing is taken from a person born in bread and grass mere by named Dawson and whose talents disposition and way of life were such as our here delineated I did not know him but all was fresh in memory when we settled at grass mere in the beginning of the century from this point the conversation leads to the mention of two individuals who by their several fortunes were at different times driven to take refuge at the small and obscure town of hawkshead on the skirt of these mountains their stories I had from the dear old dame with whom as a schoolboy and afterwards I lodged for the nearly the space of 10 years the elder the Jacobite was named Drummond and was of a high family in Scotland the Hanoverian wig bore the name of van de putt and might perhaps be a descendant of some Dutchman who had come over in the train of King William at all events his zeal was such that he ruined himself by a contest for the representation of London or Westminster undertaken to support his party and retired to this corner of the world selected as it had been by Drummond for that obscurity which since visiting the lakes became fashionable it has no longer retained so much was the region considered out of the way till a late period that persons who had fled from justice used often to resort hither for concealment and some were so bold as to not infrequently make excursions from the place of their retreat for the purpose of committing fresh offenses such was particularly the case of two brothers of the name of Weston who took up their abode at Old Brathay I think about 70 years ago they were highwaymen and lived there for some time without being discovered though it was known that they often disappeared in a way and upon errands which could not be accounted for their horses were noticed as being of a choice breed and I have heard from the Ralph family one of whom was a saddler in the town of Kendall that they were curious in their saddles and housings and accoutrements of their horses they as I have heard and as was universally believed were in the end both taken and hanged tall was her stature her complexion dark and sadder nine this person lived at town end and was almost our next neighbour I have little to notice concerning her beyond what is said in the poem she was a most striking instance how far a woman may surpass in talent and knowledge and culture of mind those with and among whom she lives and yet fall below them in Christian virtues of the heart and spirit it seemed almost and I say it with grief that in proportion as she excelled in the one she failed in the other how frequently has one to observe in both sex is the same thing and how mortifying is the reflection as on a sunny bank a tender lamb lurks in safe shelter from the winds of March the story that follows was told to Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister by the sister of this unhappy young woman and every particular was exactly as I have related the party was not known to me though she lived at Hawkshead but it was after I left school the clergyman who administered comfort to her in her distress I knew well her sister who told the story was the wife of a leading yeoman in the Vale of Grasmere and they were an affectionate pair and greatly respected by everyone who knew them neither lived to be old and their estate which was perhaps the most considerable then in the Vale and was endeared to them by many remembrances of a salutary character not easily understood or sympathized with by those who are born to great affluence passed to their eldest son according to the practices of these Vales who died soon after he came into possession he was an amiable and promising youth but was succeeded by an only brother a good-natured man who fell into habits of drinking by which he gradually reduced his property and the other day the last acre of it was sold and his wife and children and he himself still surviving have very little left to live upon which it would not perhaps have been worthwhile to record here but that through all trials this woman has proved a model of patience meekness affectionate forbearance and forgiveness their eldest son who through the vices of his father has thus been robbed of an ancient family inheritance was never heard to murmur or complain against the cause of their distress and is now 1843 deservedly the chief prop of his mother's hopes the clergyman and his family described at the beginning of the seventh book were during many years our principal associates in the Vale of Grasmere unless I were to accept our very nearest neighbors I have entered so particularly into the main points of their history that I will barely testify in prose that with the single exception of the particulars of their journey to Grasmere which however was exactly copied from in another instance the whole that I have said of them is as faithful to the truth as words can make it there was much talent in the family the eldest son was distinguished for poetical talent of which a specimen is given in my notes to the sonnets to the dudden once when in our cottage at town and I was talking with him about poetry in the course of conversation I presumed to find fault with the versification of Pope of whom he was an enthusiastic admirer he defended him with a warmth that indicated much irritation nevertheless I would not abandon my point and said encompassing variety of sound your own versification surpasses his never shall I forget the change in his countenance and tone of voice the storm was laid in a moment he no longer disputed my judgment and I passed immediately in his mind no doubt for as great a critic as ever lived I ought to add he was a clergyman and a well educated man and his verbal memory was the most remarkable of any individual I have known except a Mr. Archer an Irishman who lived several years in this neighborhood and who in this faculty was a prodigy he afterwards became deranged and I fear continues so if alive then follows the character of Robert Walker for which see notes to the dudden then that of the deaf man whose epitaph may be seen in the church yard at the head of Hawswater and whose qualities of heart and mind and their benign influence in conjunction with his privation I had from his relatives on the spot the blind man next commemorated was John Goff of Kendall a man known far beyond his neighborhood for his talents and attainments in natural history and science of the infant's grave next noticed I will only say it is an exact picture of what fellow under my own observation in all persons who are intimately acquainted with cottage life must often have observed like instances of the working of the domestic affections Avali thrice repeated or the course let down into the hollow of that grave this young volunteer bore the name of Dawson and was younger brother if I am not mistaken to the prodigal of whose character and fortunes and account is given towards the beginning of the preceding book the father of the family I knew well he was a man of literary education and of experience in society much beyond what was common among the inhabitants of the veil he had lived a good while in the Highlands of Scotland as a manager of ironworks at Bunaw and had acted as clerk to one of my predecessors in the office of distributor of stamps when he used to travel around the country collecting and bringing home the money due to government in gold which it may be worthwhile to mention for the sake of my friends was deposited in the cell or iron closet under the west window of the long room at Rytle Mount which still exists with the iron doors that guarded the property this of course was before the time of bills and notes the two sons of this person had no doubt been led by the knowledge of their father to take more delight in scholarship and had been accustomed in their own minds to take a wider view of social interests than was usual among their associates the premature death of this gallant young man was much lamented and as an attendant at the funeral I myself witnessed the ceremony and the effect of it as described in the poem tradition tells that in Eliza's golden days a night came on a war horse the house is gone the pillars of the gateway in front of the mansion remained where we first took a borrow boat at grass mirror two or three cottages still remain which are called not houses from the name of the gentleman I have called him a night concerning whom these traditions survive he was the ancestor of the not family formerly considerable proprietors in the district what follows in the discourse of the wanderer upon the changes he had witnessed in rural life by the introduction of machinery is truly described from what I myself saw during my boyhood in early youth and from what was often told me by persons of this humble calling happily most happily for these mountains the mischief was diverted from the banks of their beautiful streams and transferred to open and flat countries abounding in coal where the agency of steam was found much more effectual for carrying on these demoralizing works had it not been for this invention long before the present time every torrent and river in this district would have had its factory large and populous in proportion to the power of the water could there have been commanded parliament has interfered to prevent the night work which was once carried on in these mills as actively as during the daytime and by necessity still more perniciously a sad disgrace to the proprietors and to the nation which could so long tolerate such unnatural proceedings reviewing at this late period 1843 what I put into the mouths of my interlocutors a few years ago after the commencement of the century I grieve that so little progress has been made in diminishing the evils deplored or promoting the benefits of education which the wanderer anticipates the results of Lord Ashley's labors to defer the time when children might legally be allowed to work in factories and his endeavors to limit still farther the hours of permitted labor have fallen far short of his own humane wishes and those of every benevolent and right-minded man who has carefully attended to this subject and in the present session of parliament 1843 Sir James Graham's attempt to establish a course of religious education among the children employed in factories has been abandoned in consequence of what might easily have been foreseen the vehement and turbulent opposition of the dissenters so that for many years to come it may be thought expedient to leave the religious instruction of children entirely in the hands of the several denominations of Christians in the island each body to work according to its own means and its own way such as my own confidence a confidence I share with many others of my most valued friends in the superior advantages both religious and social which attend a course of instruction presided over and guided by the clergy of the Church of England that I have no doubt that if but once its members lay and clerical were duly sensible of those benefits their Church would daily gain ground and rapidly upon every shape and fashion of dissent and in that case a great majority of Parliament being sensible of these benefits the ministers of the country might be emboldened were it necessary to apply funds of the state to the support of education on Church principles before I conclude I cannot forbear noticing the strenuous efforts made at this time in Parliament by so many persons to extend manufacturing and commercial industry at the expense of agricultural though we have recently had abundant proofs that the apprehensions expressed by the wanderer were not groundless I spake of mischief by the wise diffused with gladness thinking that the more it spreads the healthier the secure we become delusion which a moment may destroy the Chartists are well aware of this possibility and cling to it with an ardor and perseverance which nothing but wiser and more brotherly dealing towards the many on the part of the wealthy few can moderate or remove while from the grassy mountains open side we gazed and silence hushed the point here fixed upon in my imagination is halfway up the northern side of Luffrig fell from which the pastor and his companions were supposed to look upwards to the sky and mountaintops and round the veil with the lake lying immediately beneath them but turned not without welcome promise made that he would share the pleasures and pursuits of yet another summer's day consumed in wandering with us when I reported this promise of the solitary and long after it was my wish and I might say intention that we should resume our wanderings and pass the borders into his native country whereas I hoped he might witness in the society of the wanderer some religious ceremony a sacrament say in the open fields or preaching among the mountains which by recalling to his mind the days of his early childhood when he had been present on such occasions in company with his parents and nearest kindred might have dissolved his heart into tenderness and so have done more towards restoring the Christian faith in which he had been educated and with that the contentedness and even cheerfulness of mine then all that the wanderer and pastor by their several effusions and addresses had been able to affect an issue like this was in my intentions but alas mid the wreck of is and was things incomplete and purposes betrayed make sadder transits or thoughts optic glass than noblest objects utterly decayed dedication to the right honorable William Earl of Lawnsdale KG etc etc oft through thy fair domains illustrious peer in youth I roamed on youthful pleasures bent and mused in rocky cell or silver intent besides withflowing louters current clear now by thy care befriended I appear before the Lawnsdale and this work present a token may it be a monument of high respect and gratitude sincere gladly would I have waited till my task had reached its close but life is insecure and hopeful off fallacious as a dream therefore for what is here produced I ask thy favor trusting that thou will not deem the offering though imperfect premature William Wordsworth Rytle Mount Westmoreland July 29 1814 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 prized 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 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 and education had qualified him for such employment 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 at whom the authors 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 has 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 where he was emboldened to hope that his faculties were sufficiently matured for entering upon the arduous labor 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 anti-chapel has to the body of a gothic church continuing this illusion 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 a connection with the main work as may give them claim to be likened to the little cells oratories and subpulchral recesses ordinarily included in those edifices the author would not have deemed himself justified in saying upon this occasion so much of performance is either unfinished or unpublished if he had not thought that the labor bestowed by him upon what he is here to for and now laid before the public entitled him to candid attention for such a statement as he thinks necessary to throw light upon his endeavors to please and he would hope to benefit his countrymen nothing further need be added than that the first and third parts of the recluse will consist chiefly of meditations in the author's own person in that the intermediate part the excursion the intervention of characters speaking is employed and something of a dramatic form adopted it is not the author's intention formally to announce the system it was more animating to him to proceed in a different course and if he shall succeed in conveying to the mind clear thoughts lively images and strong feelings the reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself and in the meantime the following passage taken from the conclusion of the first book of the recluse may be acceptable as a kind of prospectus to the design and scope of the whole poem end of the note and preface to the excursion by William Wordsworth book one of the excursion this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org the excursion by William Wordsworth book one the wanderer to a summer and the sun had mounted high southward the landscape indistinctly glared through a pale steam but all the northern downs and clearest air ascending showed far off a surface dappled or with shadows flung from brooding clouds shadows that lay in spots determined and unmoved with steady beams of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed to him most pleasant who on soft cool moss extends his careless limbs along the front of some huge cave whose rocky ceiling casts a twilight of its own an ample shade where there ran warbles while the dreaming man half conscious of the soothing melody with side long eye looks out upon the scene by power of that impending covered thrown to finer distance mine was at that hour far other lot yet with good hope that soon under a shade as grateful I should find rest and be welcomed there to lively or joy across a bare wide common I was toiling with languid steps that by the slippery turf were baffled nor could my weak arm disperse the host of insects gathering round my face and ever with me as I paced along upon that open moorland stood a grove the wished four port to which my course was bound thither I came and there amid the gloom spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms appeared a roofless hut four naked walls that stared upon each other I looked round and to my wish and to my hope aspired the friend I sought a man of reverend age but stout and hail for travel unimpaired there was he seen upon the cottage bench recumbent in the shade as if asleep an iron pointed staff laid his side him had I marked the day before alone and stationed in the public way with face turned toward the sun then setting while that staff afforded to the figure of the man detained for contemplation or repose graceful support his countenance as he stood was hidden from my view and he remained unrecognized but stricken by the sight with slackened footsteps I advanced and soon a glad congratulation we exchanged at such unthought of meeting for the night we parted nothing willingly and now he by appointment waited for me here under the cover of these clustering elms we were tried friends amid a pleasant veil in the antique market village where it was past my school time an apartment he had owned to which it intervals the wanderer drew and found me a kind of home or harbor there he loved me from a swarm of rosy boys singled out me as he in sport would say for my grave looks too thoughtful for my years as I grew up it was my best delight to be his chosen comrade many a time when holidays we rambled through the woods we sat we walked he pleased me with report of things which he had seen and often touched abstrusest matter reasonings of the mind turned inward or at my request would sing old songs the product of his native hills a skillful distribution of sweet sounds feeding the soul and eagerly imbibed as cool refreshing water by the care of the industrious husbandmen diffused through a parched meadowground in time of drought still deeper welcome found his pure discourse how precious when in riper days I learned to weigh with care his words and to rejoice in the plain presence of his dignity oh many are the poets that are sown by nature men endowed with highest gifts the vision and the faculty divine yet wanting the accomplishment of verse which in the docile season of their youth it was denied them to acquire through lack of culture and the inspiring aid of books or happily by a temper too severe or a nice backwardness afraid of shame nor having air as life advanced been led by circumstance to take under the height the measure of themselves these favored beings all but a scattered few live out their time husbanding that which they possess within and go to the grave unthought of strongest minds are often those of whom the noisy world hairs least else surely this man had not left his graces unrevealed and unproclaimed but as the mind was filled with inward light so not without distinction had he lived but loved and honored far as he was known and some small portion of his eloquent speech and something that may serve to set in view the feeling pleasures of his loneliness his observations and the thoughts his mind had dealt with I will hear record in verse which if with truth that correspond and sink or rise as venerable nature leads the high and tender muses shall accept with gracious smile deliberately pleased in listening time to his household though exceeding poor pure livers were they all austere and grave and fearing God the very children taught stern self-respect of reverence for God's word and an habitual piety maintained with strictness scarcely known on English ground from his sixth year the boy of whom I speak in summer tended cattle on the hills but through the inclement and perilous days of long continuing winter he repaired equipped with satchel to a school that stood soul building on a mountain's dreary edge remote from view of city spire or sound of minster clock from that bleak tenement he many an evening to his distant home in solitude returning saw the hills grow larger in the darkness all alone beheld the stars come out above his head and travel through the wood with no one near to whom he might confess the things he saw so the foundations of his mind were laid in such communion not from terror free while yet a child and long before his time had he perceived the presence and the power of greatness and deep feelings had impressed so vividly great objects that they lay upon his mind like substances whose presence perplexed the bodily sense he had received a precious gift for as he grew in years with these impressions would he still compare all his remembrances thoughts shapes and forms and being still unsatisfied with odd of dimmer character he then attained an active power to fasten images upon his brain and on their pictured lines intensely brooded even till they acquired the liveliness of dreams nor did he fail while yet a child with a child's eagerness incessantly to turn his ear and eye on all things which the moving seasons brought to feed such appetite nor this alone appeased his yearning in the after day of boyhood many an hour in caves forlorn and mid the hollow depths of naked crags he sat and even in their fixed lineaments or from the power of a peculiar eye or by creative feeling overborn or by predominance of thought oppressed even in their fixed and steady lineaments he traced an ebbing and a flowing mind expression ever varying thus informed he had small need of books for many a tale traditionary round the mountains hung and many a legend peopling the dark woods nourished imagination in her growth and gave the mind that apprehensive power by which she is made quick to recognize the moral properties and scope of things but eagerly he read and read again what air the minister's old shelf supplied the life and death of martyrs who sustained with will and flexible those fearful pangs triumphantly displayed in records left of persecution and the covenant times whose echo rings through Scotland to this hour and there by lucky hap had been preserved a straggling volume torn and incomplete that left half told the preternatural tale romance of giants chronicle of fiends profuse and garniture of wooden cuts strange and uncouth dire faces figures dire sharp need sharp elbowed and lean ankleed too with long and ghostly shanks forms which once seen could never be forgotten in his heart where fear sat thus a cherished visitant was wanting yet the pure delight of love by sound diffused or by the breathing air or by the silent looks of happy things or flowing from the universal face of earth and sky but he had felt the power of nature and already was prepared by his intense conceptions to receive deeply the lesson deep of love which he whom nature by whatever means has taught to feel intensely cannot but receive such was the boy but for the growing youth what soul was his when from the naked top of some bold headland he beheld the sun rise up and bathe the world in light he looked ocean and earth the solid frame of earth and oceans liquid mass in gladness lay beneath him far and wide the clouds were touched and in their silent faces could he read unutterable love sound needed none nor any voice of joy his spirit drank the spectacle sensation soul and form all melted into him they swallowed up his animal being in them did he live and by them did he live they were his life in such access of mine in such high hour of visitation from the living god thought was not in enjoyment it expired no thanks he breathed he proffered no request wrapped into still communion the transcends the imperfect offices of prayer and praise his mind was a thanksgiving to the power that made him it was blessedness and love a herdsman on the lonely mountaintops such intercourse was his and in this sort was his existence often times possessed oh then how beautiful how bright appeared the written promise early had he learned to reverence the volume that displays the mystery the life which cannot die but in the mountains did he feel his faith all things responsive to the writing there breathed immortality revolving life and greatness still revolving infinite their littleness was not the least of things seemed infinite and there his spirit shaped her prospects nor did he believe he saw what wonder if his being thus became sublime and comprehensive low desires low thoughts had there no place yet was his heart lowly for he was meek in gratitude oft as he called those ecstasies to mind and whence they flowed and from them he acquired wisdom which works through patience thence he learned in oft recurring hours of sober thought to look on nature with a humble heart self-questioned where it did not understand and with a superstitious eye of love so past the time yet to the nearest town he duly went with what small overplus his earnings might supply and brought away the book that most had tempted his desires while at the stall he read among the hills he gazed upon that mighty orb of song the divine Milton lore of different kind the annual savings of a toilsome life his school master supplied books that explain the pure elements of truth involved in lines and numbers and by charm severe especially perceived where nature droops and feeling is suppressed preserve the mind busy in solitude and poverty these occupations oftentimes deceived the listless hours while in the hollow veil hollow and green he lay on the green turf in pensive idleness what could he do thus daily thirsting in that lonesome life with blind endeavors yet still uppermost nature was at his heart as if he felt though yet he knew not how a wasting power in all things that from her sweet influence might tend to wean him therefore with her hues her forms and with the spirit of her forms he clothed the nakedness of austere truth while yet he lingered in the rudiments of science and among her simplest laws his triangles they were the stars of heaven the silent stars often he take delight to measure the altitude of some tall crag it is the eagle's birthplace or some peak familiar with forgotten years that shows inscribed upon its visionary sides the history of many a winter storm or obscure records of the path of fire and thus before his 18th year was told accumulated feelings pressed his heart with still increasing weight he was orprowered by nature by the turbulence subdued of his own mind by mystery and hope and the first virgin passion of a soul communing with the glorious universe full often wished he that the winds might rage when they were silent far more fondly now than in his earlier season did he love tempestuous nights the conflict and the sounds that live in darkness from his intellect and from the stillness of abstracted thought he asked repose and failing off to win the peace required he scanned the laws of night amid the roar of torrents where they send from hollow clefs up to the clearer air a cloud of mist that smitten by the sun varies its rainbow hues but vainly thus and vainly by all other means he strove to mitigate the fever of his heart in dreams and study and in ardent thought thus was he reared much wanting to assist the growth of intellect yet gaining more and every moral feeling of his soul strengthened embraced by breathing in content the keen the wholesome air of poverty and drinking from the well of homely life but from past liberty and tried restraints he now was summoned to select the course of humble industry that promised best to yield him no unworthy maintenance urged by his mother he essayed to teach a village school but wandering thoughts were then a misery to him and the youth resigned a task he was unable to perform that stern yet kindly spirit who constrains the sever yard to quit his naked rocks the freeborn swiss to leave his narrow veils spirit attached to regions mountainous like their own steadfast clouds did now impel his restless mind to look abroad with hope and irksome drudgery seems it to plod on through hot and dusty ways or pelting storm a vagrant merchant under a heavy load bent as he moves and needing frequent rest yet do such travelers find their own delight and their hard service deemed debasing now gained merited respect in simpler times when squire and priest and they who round them dwelt in rustic sequestration all dependent upon the peddler's toil supplied their wants or pleased their fancies with the wares he brought not ignorant was the youth that still no few of his adventurous countrymen were led by perseverance in this track of life to competence and ease to him it offered attractions manifold and this he chose his parents on the enterprise bestowed their farewell benediction but with hearts foreboding evil from his native hills he wandered far much did he see of men their manners their enjoyments and pursuits their passions and their feelings chiefly those essential and eternal in the heart that made the simpler forms of rural life exist more simple in their elements and speak a planer language in the woods a lone enthusiast and among the fields itinerant in this labor he had passed the better portion of his time and there spontaneously had his affections driven amid the bounties of the year the peace and liberty of nature there he kept in solitude and solitary thought his mind in a just equipoise of love serene it was unclouded by the cares of ordinary life unvexed unwarped by partial bondage in his steady course no piteous revolutions had he felt no wild varieties of joy and grief unoccupied by sorrow of its own his heart lay open and by nature tuned and constant disposition of his thoughts to sympathy with man he was alive to all that was enjoyed where ere he went and all that was endured for in himself happy and quiet in his cheerfulness he had no painful pressure from without that made him turn aside from wretchedness with coward fears he could afford to suffer with those whom he saw suffer hence it came that in our best experience he was rich and in the wisdom of our daily life for hence minutely in his various rounds he had observed the progress and decay of many minds of minds and bodies too the history of many families how they had prospered how they were all thrown by passion or mischance or such misrule among the unthinking masters of the earth as makes the nations grown this active course he followed till provision for his wants had been obtained the wanderer then resolved to pass the remnant of his days untasked with needless services from hardship free his calling laid aside he lived at ease but still he loved to pace the public roads and the wild paths and by the summer's warmth invited often would he leave his home and journey far revisiting the scenes that to his memory were most endeared vigorous in health of hopeful spirits undamped by worldly mindedness or anxious care observant studious thoughtful and refreshed by knowledge gathered up from day to day thus had he lived a long and innocent life the scottish church both on himself and those with whom from childhood he grew up had held the strong hand of her purity and still had watched him with an unrelenting eye this he remembered in his riper age with gratitude and reverential thoughts but by the native vigor of his mind by his habitual wanderings out of doors by loneliness and goodness and kind works what air in docile childhood or in youth he had imbibed of fear or darker thought was melted all away so true was this that sometimes his religion seemed to me self-taught as of a dreamer in the woods who to the model of his own pure heart shaped his belief as grace divine inspired and human reason dictated with awe and surely never did their live on earth a man of kindlier nature the rough sports and teasing ways of children vexed him not indulgent listener was he to the tongue of garrulous age nor did the sick man's tale to his fraternal sympathy addressed obtain reluctant hearing plain his garb such as might suit a rustic sire prepared for Sabbath duties yet he was a man whom no one could have passed without remark active and nervous was his gait his limbs and his whole figure breathed intelligence time had compressed the freshness of his cheek into a narrower circle of deep red but had not tamed his eye that under brows shaggy and gray had meanings which it brought from years of youth which like a being made of many beings he had a wondrous skill to blend with knowledge of the years to come human or such as lie beyond the grave so he was framed and such his course of life who now with no appendage but a staff the prized memorial of relinquished toils upon that cottage bench reposed his limbs screened from the sun supine the wanderer lay his eyes as if in drowsiness half shut the shadows of the breezy elms above dappling his face he had not heard the sound of my approaching steps and in the shade unnoticed did I stand some minutes space at length I hailed him seeing that his hat was moist with water drops as if the brim had newly scooped a running stream he rose and air our lively greeting into peace had settled tizz said I a burning day my lips are parched with thirst but you it seems have found somewhere sweet relief he at the word pointing towards a sweet briar bad me climb the fence where that aspiring shrub looked out upon the public way it was a plot of garden ground run wild its matted weeds marked with the steps of those whom as they passed the gooseberry trees that shot in long length slips of currents hanging from their leafless stems and scanty strings had tempted to orleap the broken wall I looked around and there were two tall hedgerows of thick alder bows joined in a cold damp nook aspired a well shrouded with willow flowers and plumey fern my thirst I slaked and from the cheerless spot withdrawing straight away to the shade returned where sat the old man on the cottage bench and while beside him with uncovered head I was standing freely to respire and cool my temples in the fanning air thus did he speak I see around me here things which you cannot see we die my friend nor we alone but that which each man loved and prized in his peculiar nook of earth dies with him or is changed and very soon even of the good is no memorial left the poets in their elegies and songs lamenting the departed call the groves they call upon the hills and streams to mourn and senseless rocks nor idly for they speak in these their invocations with a voice obedience to the strong creative power of human passion sympathies there are more tranquil yet perhaps of kindred birth that steal upon the meditative mind and grow with thought beside yon spring I stood and eyed its waters till we seem to feel one sadness they and I for them bond of brotherhood is broken time has been when every day the touch of human hand dislodged the natural sleep that binds them up in mortal stillness and they ministered to human comfort stooping down to drink upon the slimy footstone I aspired the useless fragment of a wooden bowl green with the moss of years and subject only to the soft handling of the elements there let it lie how foolish are such thoughts forgive them never never did my steps approach this door but she who dwelt within a daughter's welcome gave me and I loved her as my own child oh sir the good died first and they whose hearts are dry as summer dust burned to the socket many a passenger hath blessed poor margaret for her gentle looks when she upheld the cool refreshment drawn from that forsaken spring and no one came but he was welcome no one went away but that it seemed she loved him she is dead the light extinguished of her lonely hut the hut itself abandoned to decay and she forgotten in the quiet grave I speak continued he of one whose stalk of virtues bloomed beneath this lonely roof she was a woman of a steady mind tender and deep in her excess of love not speaking much pleased rather with the joy of her own thoughts by some a special care her temper had been framed as if to make a being who by adding love to peace might live on earth a life of happiness her wedded partner lacked not on his side the humble worth that satisfied her heart frugal affectionate sober and with all keenly industrious she with pride would tell that he was often seated at his loom in summer ere the mower was abroad among the dewy grass in early spring ere the last star had vanished they who passed at evening from behind the garden fence might hear his busy spade which he would ply after his daily work until the light had failed and every leaf and flower were lost in the dark edges so their days were spent in peace and comfort and a pretty boy was their best hope next to God in heaven not 20 years ago but you I think can scarcely bear it now in mind there came two blighting seasons when the fields were left with half a harvest it pleased heaven to add a worse affliction in the plague of war this happy land was stricken to the heart a wanderer then among the cottages I with my freight of winter raiment saw the hardships of that season many rich sank down as in a dream among the poor and of the poor did many cease to be and their place knew them not meanwhile a bridged of daily comforts gladly reconciled to numerous self denials Margaret went struggling on through those calamitous years with cheerful hope until the second autumn when her life's helpmate on a sick bed lay smitten with perilous fever in disease he lingered long and when his strength returned he found the little he had stored to meet the hour of accident or crippling age was all consumed a second infant now was added to the troubles of a time laden for them and all of their degree with care and sorrow shoals of artisans from ill-requited labor turned adrift sought daily bread from public charity they and their wives and children happier far could they have lived as do the little birds that peck along the hedgerows or the kite that makes her dwelling on the mountain rocks a sad reverse it was for him who long had filled with plenty and possessed in peace this lonely cottage at the door he stood and whistled many a snatch of merry tunes that had no mirth in them or with his knife carved uncouth figures on the heads of sticks then not less idly sought through every nook in house or garden any casual work of use or ornament and with a strange amusing yet uneasy novelty he mingled where he might and the various tasks of summer, autumn, winter and of spring but this endured not his good humor soon became a weight in which no pleasure was and poverty brought on a petted mood and a sore temper day by day he drooped and he would leave his work and to the town would turn without an errand his slack steps or wander here and there among the fields one while he would speak lightly of his babes and with a cruel tongue at other times he tossed them with a false unnatural joy and it was a rueful thing to see the looks of the poor innocent children every smile said margaret to me here beneath these trees made my heart bleed at this the wanderer paused and looking up to those enormous elms he said it is now the hour of deepest noon and this still season of repose and peace this hour when all things which are not at rest are cheerful while this multitude of flies with tuneful hum is filling all of the air why should a tear be on an old man's cheek why should we thus with an untoward mind and in the weakness of humanity from natural wisdom turn our hearts away to natural comfort shut our eyes and ears and feeding on disquiet thus disturb the calm of nature with our restless thoughts he spake with somewhat of a solemn tone but when he ended there was in his face such easy cheerfulness a look so mild that for a little time it stole away all recollection and that simple tale passed from my mind like a forgotten sound a while on trivial things we held discourse to me soon tasteless in my own despite I thought of that poor woman as of one whom I had known and loved he had rehearsed her homely tale with such familiar power was such an active countenance and I so busy that the things of which he spake seemed present and attention now relaxed a heartfelt chillness crept along my veins I rose and having left the breezy shades to drinking comfort from the warmer sun that had not cheered me long air looking round upon that tranquil ruin I returned and begged of the old man that for my sake he would resume his story he replied it were a wantonness and would demand severe reproof if we were men whose hearts could hold vain dalliance with the misery even of the dead contented thence to draw a momentary pleasure never marked by reason barren of all future good but we have known that there is often found in mournful thoughts and always might be found a power to virtue friendly worth not so I am a dreamer among men indeed an idle dreamer it is a common tale an ordinary sorrow of man's life a tale of silent suffering hardly clothed in bodily form but without further bidding I will proceed while thus it fared with them to whom this cottage till those hapless years had been a blessed home it was my chance to travel in a country far remote and when these lofty elms once more appeared what pleasant expectations lured me on or the flat common with quick step I reached the threshold and lifted with light hand the latch but when I entered Margaret looked at me a little while and turned her head away speechless and sitting down upon a chair wept bitterly I wished not what to do nor how to speak to her poor wretch at last she rose from off her seat and then oh sir I cannot tell how she pronounced my name with fervent love and with a face of grief unutterably helpless and a look that seemed to cling upon me as she inquired if I had seen her husband as she spake a strange surprise and fear came to my heart nor had I power to answer ere she told that he had disappeared not two months gone he left his house two wretched days had passed and on the third as wistfully she raised her head from off her pillow to look forth like one in trouble for returning light within her chamber casement she aspired a folded paper lying as if placed to meet her waking eyes this trembling lay she opened found no writing but beheld pieces of money carefully enclosed silver and gold I shuddered at the site said Margaret for I knew it was his hand that must have placed it there and ere that day was ended that long anxious day I learned from one who by my husband had been sent with the sad news that he had joined a troop of soldiers going to a distant land he left me thus he could not gather heart to take a farewell of me for he feared that I should follow with my babes and sink beneath the misery of that wandering life this tale did Margaret tell with many tears and when she ended I had little power to give her comfort and was glad to take such words of hope from her own mouth as served to cheer us both but long we had not talked ere we built up a pile of better thoughts and with a brighter eye she looked around as if she had been shedding tears of joy we parted it was the time of early spring I left her busy with her garden tools and well remember or that fence she looked and while I paced along the footway path called out and sent a blessing after me with tender cheerfulness and with a voice that seemed the very sound of happy thoughts I roved or many a hill and many a dale with my accustomed load in heat and cold through many a wood and many an open ground in sunshine and in shade in wet and fair drooping or blithe of heart as might befall my best companions now the driving winds and the trotting brooks and whispering trees and now the music of my own sad steps and with many a short-lived thought that passed between and disappeared I journeyed back this way when in the warmth of mid-summer the wheat was yellow and the soft and bladed grass springing afresh had or the hay field spread its tender verger at the door I arrived I found that she was absent in the shade where we now sit I waited her return her cottage then a cheerful object wore its customary look only it seemed the honeysuckle crowding around the porch hung down in heavier tufts and that bright weed the yellow stone crops suffered to take root along the windows edge profusely grew blinding the lower panes I turned aside and strolled into her garden it appeared to lag behind the season and had lost its pride of neatness daisy flowers and thrift had broken their trim borderlines and straggled or past they used to deck carnations once prized for surpassing beauty and no less for the peculiar gains they had required declined their languid heads wanting support the cumbers bind weed with its wreaths and bells had twined about her two small rows of peas and dragged them to the earth ere this an hour was wasted back I turned to my restless steps a stranger passed and guessing whom I sought he said that she was used to ramble far the sun was sinking in the west and now I sat with sad impatience from within her solitary infant cried aloud then like a blast that dies away self-stilled the voice was silent from the bench I rose but neither could divert nor soothe my thoughts the spot note though fair was very desolate the longer I remained the more desolate and looking around me now I first observed the cornerstones on either side of the porch with dull red stains discolored and stuck or with tufts and hairs of wool as if the sheep that fed upon the common thither came familiarly and found a couching place even at her threshold deeper shadows fell from these tall elms the cottage clock struck eight I turned and saw her distant a few steps her face was pale and thin her figure too was changed as she unlocked the door she said it grieves me you have waited here so long but in good truth I've wandered much of late and sometimes to my shame I speak have need of my best prayers to bring me back again while on the board she spread our evening meal she told me interrupting not the work which gave employment to her listless hands that she had parted with her elder child to a kind master on a distant farm now happily apprenticed I perceive you look at me and you have cause today I've been traveling far and many days about the fields I wander knowing this only that what I seek I cannot find and so I waste my time for I am changed and to myself said she have done much wrong and to this helpless infant I have slept weeping and weeping have I waked my tears have flowed as if my body were not such as others are and I could never die but I am now in mind and in my heart more easy and I hope said she that God will give me patience to endure the things which I behold at home it would have grieved your very soul to see her sir I feel the story linger in my heart I feared his long and tedious but my spirit clings to that poor woman so familiarly do I perceive her manner and her look and presence and so deeply do I feel her goodness that not seldom in my walks a momentary trance comes over me and to myself I seem to muse on one by sorrow late asleep or born away a human being destined to awake to human life or something very near to human life when he shall come again for whom she suffered yes it would have grieved your very soul to see her evermore her eyelids drooped her eyes downward were cast and when she at her table gave me food she did not look at me her voice was low her body was subdued in every act pertaining to her house affairs appeared the careless stillness of a thinking mind self occupied to which all outward things are like an idle matter still she sighed but yet no motion of the breast was seen no heaving of the heart while by the fire we sat together sighs came on my ear I knew not how and hardly once they came ere my departure to her care I gave for her sons used some tokens of regard which with a look of welcome she received and I exhorted her to place her trust in God's good love and seek his help by prayer I took my staff and when I kissed her babe the tears stood in her eyes I left her then with the best hope and comfort I could give she thanked me for my wish but for my hope it seemed she did not thank me I returned and took my rounds along this road again when on its sunny bank the prim rose flower peeped forth to give an earnest of the spring I found her sad and drooping she had learned the tidings of her husband if he lived she knew not that he lived if he were dead she knew not he was dead she seemed the same in person and appearance but her house bespake a sleepy hand of negligence the floor was neither dry nor neat the hearth was comfortless and her small lot of books which in the cottage window here before had been piled up against the corner panes in seemly order now with straggling leaves lay scattered here and there open or shut as if they had chance to fall her infant babe had from his mother caught the trick of grief inside among its play things I withdrew and once again entering the garden saw more plainly still that poverty and grief were now come nearer to her weeds defaced the hardened soil and knots of withered grass no ridges there appeared of clear black mold no winter greenness her herbs and flowers it seemed the better part was not away or trampled into earth a chain of straw which had been twined about the slender stem of a young apple tree lay at its root the bark was nibbled round by truant sheep Margaret stood near her infant in her arms and noting that my eye was on the tree she said I fear it will be dead and gone ere Robert come again went to the house we had returned together she inquired if I had any hope but for her babe and for her little orphan boy she said she had no wish to live that she must die of sorrow yet I saw the idle loom still in its place his Sunday garments hung upon the self same nail his very staff stood undisturbed behind the door and when in bleak December I retraced this way she told me that her little babe was dead and she was left alone she now released from her maternal cares had taken up the employment common through these wilds and gained by spinning hemp a pittance for herself and for this end had hired a neighbor's boy to give her a needful help that very time most willingly she put her work aside and walked with me along the myery road heedless how far and in such piteous sort that any heart had ached to hear her begged that where so where I went I still would ask for him whom she had lost we parted then our final parting for from that time forth did many seasons pass ere I returned into this tract again nine tedious years from their first separation nine long years she lingered in unquiet widowhood a wife in widow needs musted have been a sore heart wasting I have heard my friend that in Jan Arbor oftentimes she sat alone through half the vacant Sabbath day and if a dog passed by she still would quit the shade and look abroad on this old bench for hours she sat and evermore her eye was busy in the distance shaping things that made her heart beat quick you see that path now faint the grass is crept or its gray line there to and fro she paced through many a day of the warm summer from a belt of hemp that gird her waist spinning the long drawn thread with backward steps yet ever as there passed a man whose garments showed the soldiers red or crippled mendicant in a sailor's garb the little child who sat to turn the wheel ceased from his task and she with faltering voice made many a fond inquiry and when they whose presence gave no comfort were gone by her heart was still more sad and by Yon Gate that bars the travelers road she often stood and when a stranger horseman came the latch would lift and in his face looked wistfully most happy if from ought discovered there of tender feeling she might dare repeat the same sad question meanwhile her poor hut sank to decay for he was gone whose hand at the first nipping of October frost closed up each chink and with fresh bands of straw checkered the green grown thatch and so she lived through the long winter reckless and alone until her house by frost and thaw and rain was sapped and while she slept the nightly damse did chill her breast and in the stormy day her tattered clothes were ruffled by the wind even at the side of her own fire yet still she loved this wrecked spot no wood for worlds have parted hence and still that length of road and this rude bench one torturing hope endeared fast-rooted at her heart and here my friend in sickness she remained and here she died last human tenant of these ruined walls the old man ceased he saw that I was moved from that low bench rising instinctively I turned aside in weakness nor had power to thank him for the tale which he had told I stood in leaning or the garden wall reviewed that woman's sufferings and it seemed to comfort me while with a brother's love I blessed her in the impotence of grief then towards the cottage I returned and traced fondly though with an interest more mild that secret spirit of humanity which made the calm oblivious tendencies of nature made her plants and weeds and flowers and silent overgrowings still survived the old man noting this resumed and said my friend enough to sorrow you have given the purposes of wisdom asked no more no more would she have craved as due to one who in her worst distress had off times felt the unbounded might of prayer and learned with soul fixed on the cross that consolation springs from sources deeper far than deepest pain for the meek sufferer why then should we read the forms of things with an unworthy eye she sleeps in the calm earth and peace is here I well remember that those very plumes those weeds at the high speargrass on that wall by mist and silent raindrops silvered ore as once I passed into my heart conveyed so still an image of tranquility so calm and still and looked so beautiful amid the uneasy thoughts which filled my mind that what we feel a sorrow and despair from ruin and from change and all the grief that passing shows of being love behind appeared an idle dream that could maintain nowhere dominion or the enlightened spirit whose meditative sympathies repose upon the breast of faith I turned away and walked along my road in happiness he ceased air the long sun declining shot to slant and mellow radiance which began to fall upon us while beneath the trees we sat on that low bench and now we felt admonished thus the sweet hour coming on a linnet warbled from those lofty elms a thrush sang loud and other melodies distance heard people the mild air air the old man rose and with a sprightly mean of hopeful preparation grasped his staff together casting then a farewell look upon those silent walls we left the shade and air the stars were visible had reached the village in our evening resting place end of book one of the excursion by William Wordsworth