These were our food; and such a summer's night The truly precious moments of Wordsworth's journey, those which contributed to mould his imagination in its permanent form, were such as these. Except when he wrote the Sketches, he was not, and had no ambition to be, the poet of the Alps. But when once he had seen them, however hastily, there remained ever after in his mind a lofty exaltation with which the lakes and mountains of his own country alone could never have inspired him. From this time forward there arose, in the back-ground, as it were, of his thought, forms of more majestic grandeur than those of Helvellyn. His imagination dilated that it might embrace a horizon wider and more fascinating than those of Hawkshead and of Grasmere. And, lastly, although he afterwards protested unceasingly against the practice of comparing the scenery of one country with that of another, his travels in Switzerland enabled him to understand better the peculiar charm of Cumberland. But the effect of his continental journey was not limited to its beneficial influence upon his imagination. A new sentiment awoke within him; one destined shortly to transform both his life and his poetry. He became enamoured of France and of the Revolution, two objects which at that time it was difficult to keep separate either in thought or in affection. In a letter which he wrote to his sister during his tour, he described the charming impression made on his mind by the courtesy, the vivacity, and the gay good-humour of the French nation; the "politeness diffused through the lowest ranks," he wrote, "had an air so engaging that you could scarce attribute it to any other cause than real benevolence... We had also perpetual occasion to observe that cheerfulness and sprightliness for which the French have always been remarkable. But I must remind you that we crossed at the time when the whole nation was mad 1 The Prelude, vi, 691-726. with joy in consequence of the revolution. It was a most interesting period to be in France; and we had many delightful scenes, where the interest of the picture was owing solely to this cause."1 He had found a reflexion as it were of this enthusiasm beyond the borders of France, and had understood that more was involved than a mere national reform. He "left the Swiss exulting in the fate of their near neighbours." 2 And when October came and he had sailed down the Rhine as far as Cologne, he passed through Belgium in order to take ship at Calais, and "crossed the Brabant armies on the fret for battle in the cause of Liberty."3 He was not as yet, it is true, himself a passionate adherent of that cause. A stripling, scarcely of the household then I wanted not that joy, I did not need Turn where I might, was opening out its glories, And the independent spirit of pure youth Called forth, at every season, new delights Spread round my steps like sunshine o'er green fields.1 But his sympathy with the Revolution, however feeble it may have been in its infancy, existed even then, and was destined before two years had passed to develop into strong affection. 1 Letter to Dorothy Wordsworth 6th September 1790. Ibid., vi. 766-778. 1 CHAPTER V Early Poems I BEFORE this love takes possession of him, and by its alternations of enthusiasm and despair transforms his mind and feelings, and sows within him the seeds of the poetical revolution which he is destined to effect, it may be well to turn our attention to various poems which were composed before this metamorphosis was accomplished. Though none of these productions is to be reckoned among his master-pieces, they have various claims upon our interest. From them we may learn what were the standards in accordance with which the youthful poet framed his first attempts. From their very faults we can estimate the efforts he must have made to mould himself into the poet he ultimately became. The tone of melancholy which they affect is to all appearances inconsistent with the sincere joyousness of The Prelude. In short, they indicate very clearly the limit of his imaginative and intellectual faculties before the decisive crisis, and show distinctly what were the qualifications he had already acquired, and those in which he was still deficient. With the exception of two sonnets, and about a hundred lines written by direction at Hawkshead, the Evening Walk and the Descriptive Sketches are the only poems written in Wordsworth's youth of which we possess the original text. The other pieces attributed by him to this period of his life were all subjected to revision before they were published, and modified to such an extent that they are scarcely to be recognised, as may easily be ascertained by a comparison of them with the genuine 1 This text has been reprinted in Dowden's edition (vol. vii.), and is the one which has been used in the present chapter. examples of his early work.1 Both the Evening Walk and the Sketches, though not published until the beginning of 1793, belong as regards their spirit and their subjects, and one of them at least as regards the style of its composition, to his Cambridge days. These two poems are our only source of information as to the earliest form in which Wordsworth's poetical genius found expression. It may be that the taste for what is simple and natural is the least spontaneous of all, and implies the greatest amount of reflexion and refinement. It is certainly as rare in the child as in the savage, both of whom exhibit an instinctive preference for that which glitters and sparkles. Now no one, in early life, could have less predilection for the simple verity than young Wordsworth; no one could be more fascinated by the fictitious and the fantastic in poetry. He has said that as a schoolboy he was so enthusiastic an admirer of Ovid's Metamorphoses that he was quite in a passion whenever he found him placed below Virgil in works of criticism.2 The same propensity gave rise to a wilful fancy which mastered him when he stammered out his earliest lines, and delighted in distorting his impressions of reality. His first love was for "pathetic fallacy," since then the object of Mr Ruskin's scorn. From touch of this new power Nothing was safe: the elder-tree that grew Then, if a widow, staggering with the blow 1 We may perhaps except the narrative of The Female Vagrant, which although it was first published among the Lyrical Ballads in 1798, was partly written about the same time as the Evening Walk, and contains many traces of Wordsworth's early style. On the other hand, the lines written in anticipation of leaving Hawkshead school (Dear native regions), the sonnet (Calm is all nature), and the lines composed near Richmond (How richly glows .) are early poems only in respect of their subject matter. 2 Ode to Lycoris, prefatory note. Of her distress, was known to have turned her steps The fact was caught at greedily, and there Instead of seeking to acquire a knowledge of truth he delighted in illusion. A diamond light (Whene'er the summer sun, declining, smote A smooth rock wet with constant springs) was seen Nevertheless, to hold this passion for the fictitious in check, Nature, the subject of his early descriptive poems, was ever before his eyes. He could not always arbitrarily distort what he saw, nor feel it allowable, "like one in cities bred," to form indiscriminate combinations of things of which he knew nothing. If wilful fancy "engrafted far-fetched shapes on feelings bred by pure Imagination," if it led him astray by giving him false conceptions of human passions which as yet he could not fully understand, there was necessarily a limit to its power of misleading him. The reality of nature obtruded itself so forcibly on its senses that he could not falsify as he pleased. By dint of comparing nature as it is with its 1 The Prelude, viii. 376-392. 3 Ibid., viii, 433. 2 lbid., viii. 406-420. |