That later seasons owed to thee no less; In life or nature of those charms minute I too exclusively esteem'd that love, And sought that beauty which, as Milton sings, Retain'd, too long, a countenance severe; But thou didst plant its crevices with flowers, When every day brought with it some new sense See the little piece, beginning, "She was a Phantom of delight,” page 134. THE EXCURSION. PREFATORY NOTE. THE EXCURSION, first published in 1814, was originally designed as the second part of a larger work, to consist of three parts, and to be entitled The Recluse. The first and third parts of this work were never completed: in fact, only a small portion of the first -one book, I think-was written; and nothing at all was done towards the third; though the author tells us that much, if not most, of the matter intended for that use was worked up into various of his other poems. In the preface to the original edition, we have the following: "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; and the result was a determination to compose a philosophical poern, containing views of Man, Nature, and Society; and to be entitled The Recluse; as having for its principal subject the sensations and opinions of a poet living in retirement." The same Preface informs us, also, that the first and third parts of The Recluse were to "consist chiefly of medi tations in the Author's own person; " while The Excursion, as will readily be seen, is cast into something of a dramatic form, with various interlocutors speaking in a manner suited to their respective characters. It may not be amiss to add, that The Excursion, on its first appearance, was re ceived with many howls of censure by the professional critics and reviewers of that day. Jeffrey, in particular, spouted against it in the Edinburgh Review, opening his article with the dictum, "This will never do." But the poem held its ground, notwithstanding, and slowly won its way, educating a "fit audience" for itself as time wore on; and it has been steadily growing in favour and influence ever since. On the other hand, many of the best contemporary judges, such as Coleridge, Southey, Lamb, Wilson, and others, were from the first most emphatic and outspoken in approval of the work. Southey, on being told how Jeffrey was boasting that he had "CRUSHED The Excursion," uttered the famous saying, "He crush The Excursion! Tell him he might as well fancy that he could crush Skiddaw." Lamb, also, wrote, "It is the noblest conversational poem I ever_read, – -a day in Heaven." Again he speaks of it as follows: "The poet of The Excursion walks through common forests as through some Dodona or enchanted wood; and every casual bird that flits upon the boughs, like that miraculous one in Tasso, but in language more piercing than any articulate sounds, reveals to him far lovelier lays." To the original edition the author prefixed the following grand passage, from the first book of The Recluse," as a kind of Prospectus of the design and scope of the whole Poem." ON MAN, on Nature, and on Human Life, Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mix'd; And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes The good and evil of our mortal state. To Conscience only, and the law supreme Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scoop'd out Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man, Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves Sought in th' Atlantic Main, -why should they be Or a mere fiction of what never was? 1 Milton is the "Bard" referred to. The quotation is from Paradise Lost, vil. 31: "Still govern thou my song, Urania, and fit audience find, though few." (And the progressive powers perhaps no less Of the whole species) to th' external World Is fitted; and how éxquisitely, too, Theme this but little heard of among men, Can it be call'd) which they with blended might Within the walls of cities, may these sounds 2 Dreaming on things to come; and dost possess Of mighty Poets: upon me bestow Of those mutations that extend their sway This Vision; when and where and how he lived;- May sort with highest objects, then, dread Power! Express the image of a better time, nurse My Heart in genuine freedom: - all pure thoughts Be with me; so shall Thy unfailing love Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end! 2 So in Shakespeare's 107th sonnet: "Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come," &c. BOOK FIRST. THE WANDERER." "TWAS Summer, and the Sun had mounted high: A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man, Rest, and be welcomed there to livelier joy. 3 My lamented friend Southey used to say that, had he been a Papist, the course of life which in all probability would have been his was 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 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 fulfil 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 "Wanderer" 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 be come 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 and education a Scotchman, followed this humble occupation for many years, and afterwards settled in the town of Kendal. He married a kinsman of my wife's, and her sister Sarah spent part of her childhood under this good man's eye. My own imagination I was happy to find clothed in re ality, 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 packman, (the name then generally given to 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 Pedlarism in general, as then follower, and its favourableness 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. - Author's Notes, 1843. 4 Downs, in French dunes, are, properly, sand-banks. But in some parts of En. gland the word appears to be used for certain risings or swellings of earth, probably from their resemblance to sand-banks. |