Part 70 (2/2)

And now, as this new book was not a success, and as he did not seem able to make enough money as a poet, Coleridge seriously began to think of becoming a Unitarian preacher altogether. But, the Wedgwoods, the famous potters, wealthy men with cultured minds and kindly hearts, offered him one hundred and fifty pounds a year if he would give himself up to poetry and philosophy.

After some hesitation, Coleridge consented, and that winter he set off for a visit to Germany with the Wordsworths.

It was on their return from this visit that Wordsworth again changed his home and went to live at Dove Cottage, near Grasmere, in the Lake District, which as a boy he had known and loved. And here, among the hills, he made his home for the rest of his life.

The days at Grasmere flowed along peacefully and almost without an event. Wordsworth published a second volume of lyrical ballads, and then went on writing and working steadily at his long poem The Prelude, in which he told the story of his early life.

Coleridge soon followed his friend, and settled at Greta Hall, Keswick, and there was much coming and going between Dove Cottage and Greta Hall. At Greta Hall there were two houses under one roof, and soon Southey took the second house and came to live beside his brother-in-law, Coleridge. And so these three poets, having thus drifted together, came to be called the Lake Poets, although Southey's poetry had little in common with that of either Wordsworth or Coleridge.

It seemed hardly to break the peaceful flow of life at Dove Cottage, when, in 1802, Wordsworth married his old playmate and schoolfellow, Mary Hutchinson. They had known each other all their lives, and marriage was a natural and lovely ending to their friends.h.i.+p. Of her Wordsworth wrote--

”She was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; But all things else about her drawn From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; A dancing Shape, an Image gay, to haunt, to startle, and waylay.

”I saw her upon nearer view, A Spirit, yet a woman too!

Her household motions light and free, And steps of virgin-liberty; A countenance in which did meet Sweet records, promises as sweet; A Creature not too bright and good For human nature's daily food; For transient sorrows, simple wiles, Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

”And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine; A Being breathing thoughtful breath, A Traveller between life and death; The reason firm, the temperate will, Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill; A perfect Woman, n.o.bly planned, To warn, to comfort, and command; And yet a Spirit still, and bright With something of angelic light.”

The years pa.s.sed in quiet fas.h.i.+on, with friendly coming and goings, with journeys here and there, now to Scotland, now to the Continent.

Children were born, friends died, and once or twice the Wordsworths changed their house until they finally settled at Rydal Mount, and there the poet remained for the rest of his long life. And all the time, for more than fifty years, Wordsworth steadily wrote, but it is not too much to say that all his best work was done in the twenty years between 1798 and 1818.

Besides The Prelude, of which we have already spoken, Wordsworth's other long poems are The Excursion and The White Doe of Rylstone. The White Doe is a story of the days of Queen Elizabeth, of the days when England was still in the midst of religious struggle. There was a rebellion in Yorks.h.i.+re, in which the old lord of Rylstone fought vainly if gallantly for the Old Religion, and he and his sons died the death of rebels. Of all the family only the gentle Emily remained ”doomed to be the last leaf on a blasted tree.” About the country-side she wandered alone accompanied only by a white doe. In time she, too, died, then for many years the doe was seen alone. It was often to be seen in the churchyard during service, and after service it would go away with the rest of the congregation.

The Excursion, though a long poem, is only part of what Wordsworth meant to write. He meant in three books to give his opinions on Man, Nature, and Society, and the whole was to be called The Recluse. To this great work The Prelude was to be the introduction, hence its name. But Wordsworth never finished his great design and The Excursion remains a fragment. Much of The Excursion cannot be called poetry at all. Yet, as one of Wordsworth's great admirers has said: ”In deserts of preaching we find delightful oases of poetry.”* There is little action in The Excursion, and much of it is merely dull descriptions and conversations. So I would not advise you to read it for a long time to come. But to try rather to understand some of Wordworth's shorter poems, although at times their names may seem less inviting.

*Morley.

One of the most beautiful of all his poems Wordsworth calls by the c.u.mbrous name of Intimations of Immorality from recollections of Early Childhood. This is his way of saying that when we are small we are nearer the wonder-world than when we grow up, and that when we first open our eyes on this world they have not quite forgotten the wonderful sights they saw in that eternity whence we came, for the soul has no beginning, therefore no ending. I will give you here one verse of this poem:--

”Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar; Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness, But trailing clouds of glory do we come From G.o.d, who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Shades of the prison-house begin to close Upon the growing Boy, But he beholds the light, and whence it flows, He sees it in his joy; The Youth, who daily further from the east Must travel , still is Nature's Priest, And by the vision splendid Is on his way attended; At length the Man perceives it die away, And fade into the light of common day.”

Wordsworth, for the times in which he lived, traveled a good deal, and in his comings and goings he made many new friends and met all the great literary men of his day. And by slow degrees his poetry won its way, and the younger men looked up to him as to a master. The great, too, came to see in him a power. Since 1813 Southey had been Laureate, and when in 1843 he died, the honor was given to Wordsworth. He was now an old man of seventy- three, and although he still wrote a few poems, he wrote nothing as Laureate, except an ode in honor of the Prince Consort when he became Chancellor of Cambridge University. Now, as he grew old, one by one death bade his friends to leave him--

”Like clouds that rake the mountain summits, Or waves that own no curbing hand, How fast has brother followed brother, From suns.h.i.+ne to the sunless land!

”Yet I whose lids from infant slumber Were earlier raised, remain to hear A timid voice, that asks in whispers 'Who next will drop and disappear?'”*

*Upon the Death of James Hogg.

At length in 1850, at the age of eighty, he too closed his eyes, and went ”From suns.h.i.+ne to the sunless land.”

”But where will Europe's latter hour Again find Wordsworth's healing power?

Others will teach us how to dare, And against fear our breast to steel; Others will strengthen us to bear-- But who, ah! who, will make us feel?”*

*Arnold.

<script>