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Recluse - William Wordsworth · Classic Speeches

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Speaker 1: Pages one through eighteen of The Recluse. This is a
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Andrea Fiori. The Recluse by William Wordsworth, pages
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Speaker 1: one through eighteen, part first book, First Home, mat Grassmere.
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Speaker 1: Once to the verge of yon steep Barrier came a
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Speaker 1: roving schoolboy. What the adventurer's age hath now escaped his memory?
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Speaker 1: But the hour one of a golden summer holiday he
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Speaker 1: well remembers, though the year begone, Alone and devious, from
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Speaker 1: afar he came, and with a sudden influx, overpowered at
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Speaker 1: sight of this seclusion, he forgot his haste for haste
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Speaker 1: he had his footsteps been as boyish as pursuits, And sighing, said,
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Speaker 1: what happy fortune were it? Here to live? And if
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Speaker 1: a thought of dying, if a thought of mortal separation
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Speaker 1: could intrude with paradise before him? Here to die? No
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Speaker 1: prophet was He had not even a hope, scarcely a wish,
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Speaker 1: but one bright pleasing thought, a fancy in the heart
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Speaker 1: of what might be the lot of others. Never could
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Speaker 1: be his. The station, whence he looked, was soft and green,
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Speaker 1: not giddy, yet aeriel, with a depth of veil below,
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Speaker 1: a height of hills above for rest of body. Perfect
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Speaker 1: was the spot, all that luxurious nature could desire, but
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Speaker 1: stirring to the spirit, who could gaze and not feel motions.
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Speaker 1: There he thought of clouds that sail on, winds of
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Speaker 1: breezes that delight to play on water, or an endless
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Speaker 1: chase pursue each other through the yielding plain of grass
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Speaker 1: or corn, over and through and through in billow after billow.
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Speaker 1: Ever more disporting nor unmindful was the boy of sunbeams, shadows,
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Speaker 1: butterflies and birds, of fluttering sylphs, and softly gliding fays genii,
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Speaker 1: and winged angels that are lords without restraint of all
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Speaker 1: which they behold. The illusion strengthening as he gazed, he
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Speaker 1: felt that such unfettered liberty was his, such power and joy,
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Speaker 1: but only for this end. To flit from field to rock,
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Speaker 1: from rock to field, from shore to island, and from
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Speaker 1: aisle to shore, from open ground to covert, from a
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Speaker 1: bed of meadow flowers into a tuft of wood, from
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Speaker 1: high to low, from low to high yet still within
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Speaker 1: the bound of this huge concave. Here must be his home,
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Speaker 1: this valley be his world since that day forth, the
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Speaker 1: place to him, to me, for I who lived to
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Speaker 1: register the truth was that same young and happy being
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Speaker 1: became as beautiful to thought as it had been when
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Speaker 1: present to the bodily sense, a haunt of pure affections,
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Speaker 1: shedding upon joy a brighter joy. And through such damp
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Speaker 1: and gloom of the gay mind, as oft times splenetic
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Speaker 1: youth mistakes for sorrow, darting beams of light that no
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Speaker 1: self cherished sadness could withstand. And now tis mine perchance
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Speaker 1: for life. Dear veil, beloved Grassmere, Let the wandering streams
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Speaker 1: take up the cloud capped hills repeat the name one
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Speaker 1: of thy lowly dwellings is my home. And was the
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Speaker 1: cost so great? And could it seem an act of courage?
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Speaker 1: And the thing itself a conquest? And who must bear
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Speaker 1: the blame? Sage men, thy prudence, thy experience, thy desires,
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Speaker 1: thy apprehensions, blush thou for them all. Yes, the realities
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Speaker 1: of life, so cold, so cowardly, so ready to betray,
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Speaker 1: so stinted in the measure of their grace, as we
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Speaker 1: pronounce them doing them much wrong have been to me
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Speaker 1: more bountiful than hope, less timid than desire. But that
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Speaker 1: is past on nature's invitation. Do I come, by reason sanctioned?
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Speaker 1: Can the choice mislead that made the calmest, fairest spot
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Speaker 1: of earth, with all its unappropriated good my own and
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Speaker 1: not mine? Only? For with me entrenched, say rather peacefully
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Speaker 1: embowered under yon orchard, in yon humble cot, a younger
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Speaker 1: orphan of a home extinct, the only daughter of my
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Speaker 1: parents dwells. I think on that my heart and ceased
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Speaker 1: to stir, pause upon that, and let the breathing frame
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Speaker 1: no longer breathe, but all be satisfied. Oh, if such
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Speaker 1: silence be not thanks to God for what hath been bestowed,
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Speaker 1: then where where then shall gratitude fine rest? Mine eyes
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Speaker 1: never fix on a lovely object, nor my mind take
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Speaker 1: pleasure in the midst of happy thoughts. But either she
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Speaker 1: whom now I have, or who now divides with me,
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Speaker 1: this loved abode was there or not far off wherever
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Speaker 1: my footsteps turned. Her voice was like a hidden bird
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Speaker 1: that sang. The thought of her was like a flash
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Speaker 1: of light or an unseen companionship, a breath of fragrance,
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Speaker 1: independent of the wind, in all my goings, in the
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Speaker 1: new and old of my meditations, and in this favorite
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Speaker 1: of all, in this most of all, what being therefore
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Speaker 1: since the birth of man, had ever more abundant cause
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Speaker 1: to speak thanks. And if favors of the heavenly muse
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Speaker 1: make him more thankful, then to call on verse to
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Speaker 1: aid him in song, resound his joy. The boon is
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Speaker 1: absolute surpassing grace to me, hath been vouchsafed among the
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Speaker 1: bowers of blissful Eden. This was never given, nor could
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Speaker 1: be given, possession of the good which had been sighed
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Speaker 1: for ancient, thought fulfilled and dear imaginations realized up to
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Speaker 1: their highest measure. Yea and more, embrace me, then, ye
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Speaker 1: heels and close me in. Now in the clear and
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Speaker 1: open day, I feel your guardianship. I take it to
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Speaker 1: my heart. Tis like the solemn shelter of the night.
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Speaker 1: But I would call thee beautiful, for mild and soft
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Speaker 1: and gay and beautiful. Thou art, dear valley, having in
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Speaker 1: thy face a smile, though peaceful, full of gladness, Thou
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Speaker 1: art pleased, pleased with thy crags and woody steeps, thy lake,
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Speaker 1: its one green island in its winding shores, the multitude
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Speaker 1: of little rocky hills, thy church and cottages of mountain stone,
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Speaker 1: clustered like stars, some few but single most, and lurking
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Speaker 1: dimly in their shy retreats, or glancing at each other
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Speaker 1: cheerful looks, like separated stars with clouds between What want we?
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Speaker 1: Have we? Not perpetual streams, warm woods and sunny hills,
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Speaker 1: and fresh green fields and mountains not less green, And
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Speaker 1: flocks and herds, and thickets of songsters, and the voice
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Speaker 1: of lordly birds, an unexpected sound heard now and then
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Speaker 1: from morn to latest eve, admonishing the man who walks below.
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Speaker 1: Of solitude and silence in the sky. These have we,
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Speaker 1: And a thousand nooks of earth have also these? But
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Speaker 1: nowhere else is found Nowhere, or is it fancy can
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Speaker 1: be found? The one sensation that is here tis here here,
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Speaker 1: as it found its way into my heart in childhood.
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Speaker 1: Here it abides by day by night here only or
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Speaker 1: in chosen minds that take it with them, hence wherever
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Speaker 1: they go. Tis but I cannot name it. Tis the
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Speaker 1: sense of majesty and beauty and repose a blended holiness
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Speaker 1: of earth and sky, something that makes this individual spot,
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Speaker 1: this small abiding place of many men, a termination and
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Speaker 1: a last retreat, a center. Come from wheresoever ye will,
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Speaker 1: a whole without dependence or defect, made for itself and
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Speaker 1: happy in itself, perfect contentment, unity, entire bleak season? Was
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Speaker 1: it turbulent and bleak? When hitherwod we journeyed side by side,
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Speaker 1: through burst of sunshine and through flying showers pace the
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Speaker 1: long veils, How long they were, and yet how fast
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Speaker 1: that length of way was left behind Wensley's rich veil,
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Speaker 1: and said burned naked heights. The frosty wind, as if
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Speaker 1: to make amends for its keen breath, was aiding to
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Speaker 1: our steps, and drove us onward, like two ships at sea,
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Speaker 1: or like two birds companions in mid air, parted and
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Speaker 1: reunited by the blast. Stern was the face of nature.
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Speaker 1: We rejoiced in that stern countenance for our souls, then
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Speaker 1: strew a feeling of their strength. The naked trees, the
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Speaker 1: icy brooks, as on we passed, appeared to question us,
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Speaker 1: whence come ye? To what end? They seemed to say?
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Speaker 1: What would ye? Said? The shower? Wild wanderers wither through
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Speaker 1: my dark domain. The sunbeams said, be happy when this
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Speaker 1: veil we entered. Bright and solemn was the sky that
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Speaker 1: faced us with a passionate welcoming, and led us to
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Speaker 1: our threshold. Daylight failed insensibly, and round us gently fell,
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Speaker 1: composing darkness with a quiet load of full contentment in
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Speaker 1: a little shed, disturbed, uneasy in itself as it seemed,
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Speaker 1: and wondering at its new inhabitants. It loves us. Now,
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Speaker 1: this veil, so beautiful, begins to love us by a
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Speaker 1: sullen storm two months unwearied of severest storm, it put
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Speaker 1: the temper of our minds to proof and found us
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Speaker 1: faithful through the gloom, And heard the poet mutter his
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Speaker 1: prolusive songs with cheerful heart in unknown voice of joy,
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Speaker 1: among the silence of the woods and hills, silent to
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Speaker 1: any gladsomeness of sound, with all their shepherds. But the
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Speaker 1: gates of spring are opened. Cheerish winter hath given leave
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Speaker 1: that she should entertain for this one day, perhaps for
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Speaker 1: many genial days to come his guests and make them jokened.
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Speaker 1: They are pleased. But most of all the birds that
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Speaker 1: haunt the flood with the mid summons. Inmates, though they
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Speaker 1: be of winter's household, they keep festival this day who
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Speaker 1: drooped or seemed to droop? So long they show their pleasure?
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Speaker 1: And shall I do less happier of happy? Though I
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Speaker 1: be like them, I cannot take possession of the sky
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Speaker 1: mount with a thoughtless impulse and wheel there one of
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Speaker 1: a mighty multitude, whose way is a perpetual harmony and
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Speaker 1: dance magnificent behold, with a grace of ceaseless motion that
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Speaker 1: might scarcely seem inferior to angelical, they prolong their curious pastime,
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Speaker 1: shaping in mid air, and sometimes with ambitious wing that
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Speaker 1: soars high as the level of the mountain tops, a
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Speaker 1: circuit ampler than the lake beneath their own domain. But ever,
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Speaker 1: while intent on tracing and retracing that large round, their
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Speaker 1: dubulant activity evolves hundreds of curves and circlets to and
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Speaker 1: fro upwards and downwards, progress intricate yet unperplexed, as if
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Speaker 1: one spirit swayed. Their indefatigable flight tis done ten times
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Speaker 1: and more. I fancied it had ceased, But lo the
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Speaker 1: vanished company again ascending they approach. I hear their wings faint,
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Speaker 1: faint at first, and then an eager sound passed in
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Speaker 1: a moment, and as faint again, they tempt the sun
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Speaker 1: to sport among their plumes, tempt the smooth water or
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Speaker 1: the gleaming ice to show them a fair image tis themselves,
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Speaker 1: their own fair forms upon the glimmering plain, painted more
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Speaker 1: soft and fair as they descend almost to touch, then
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Speaker 1: up again, aloft up with a sally and a flash
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Speaker 1: of speed, as if they scorned both resting place and rest.
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Speaker 1: This day is a thanksgiving, Tis a day of glad,
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Speaker 1: emotion and deep quietness. Not upon me alone hath been
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Speaker 1: bestowed me rich and many onward looking thoughts, the penetrating bliss. Oh,
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Speaker 1: surely these have felt it, not the happy choirs of spring,
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Speaker 1: her own peculiar family of love that sport among green leaves,
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Speaker 1: a blithe their train. But two are missing, two a
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Speaker 1: lonely pair of milk white swans. Wherefore are they not
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Speaker 1: seen partaking this day's pleasure? From afar they came to
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Speaker 1: sojourn here in solitude, choosing this valley, They who had
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Speaker 1: the choice of the whole world. We saw them day
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Speaker 1: by day through those two months of unrelenting storm, conspicuous
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Speaker 1: at the center of the lake, their safe retreat. We
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Speaker 1: knew them when well, I guess that the whole valley
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Speaker 1: knew them. But to us they were more dear than
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Speaker 1: may be well believed, not only for their beauty and
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Speaker 1: their still and placid way of life, and constant love
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Speaker 1: and separable not for these alone, but that their state
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Speaker 1: so much resembled ours, they having also chosen this abode,
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Speaker 1: They strangers and we strangers. They a pair and we
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Speaker 1: a solitary pair like them. They should not have departed
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Speaker 1: many days did I look forth in vain, nor on
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Speaker 1: the wing could I see them, Nor in that small
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Speaker 1: open space of blue, unfrozen water, where they lodged and
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Speaker 1: lived so long and quiet side by side. Shall we
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Speaker 1: behold them, consecrated friends, faithful companions, yet another year surviving,
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Speaker 1: They for us and we for them, and neither pair
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Speaker 1: be broken. Nay, perchance it is too late already for
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Speaker 1: such hope. The Dalesmen may have aimed the deadly tube
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Speaker 1: im parted them. Or haply both are gone one death,
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Speaker 1: and that were mercy given to both. Recall my song
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Speaker 1: the ungenerous thought forgive thrice favored the region the conjecture
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Speaker 1: harsh of such inhospitable penalty inflicted upon confidence so pure.
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Speaker 1: End of pages one through eighteen. Recording by Andrea Fiury,
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Speaker 1: pages nineteen through thirty six of The Recluse by William Wordsworth.
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Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
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Speaker 1: Andrea Fiury, pages nineteen through thirty six. If I wish
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Speaker 1: to follow where the sight of all that is before
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Speaker 1: my eyes, the voice which speaks from a presiding spirit
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Speaker 1: here would lead me, should I whisper to myself, They
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Speaker 1: who are dwellers in this holy place must needs themselves
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Speaker 1: be hallowed. They require no benediction from the stranger's lips,
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Speaker 1: for they are blessed already. None would give the greeting
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Speaker 1: peace be with you unto them. For peace they have
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Speaker 1: it cannot but be theirs. And mercy, and forbearance, Nay,
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Speaker 1: not these their healing offices. A pure good will precludes,
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Speaker 1: and charity beyond the bounds of charity, and overflowing love,
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Speaker 1: not for the creature only, but for all that is
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Speaker 1: around them, love for everything which in their happy region
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Speaker 1: they behold. Thus do we soothe ourselves, And when the
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Speaker 1: thought is past, we blame it not for having come.
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Speaker 1: What if I floated down a pleasant stream and now
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Speaker 1: am landed and the motion gone, shall I reprove myself? Ah? No,
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Speaker 1: the stream is flowing and will never cease to flow,
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Speaker 1: and I shall float upon that stream again. By such
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Speaker 1: forgetfulness the soul becomes words cannot say how beautiful. Then hail,
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Speaker 1: Hail to the visible presence, Hail to thee delightful valley, habitation, fair,
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Speaker 1: and to whatever else of outward form can give an
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Speaker 1: inward help, can purify and elevate, and harmonize, and soothe,
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Speaker 1: and steal away, and for a while deceive and lap
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Speaker 1: in pleasing rest, and bear us on without desire and
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Speaker 1: full complacency, contemplating perfection, absolute and entertained as in a
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Speaker 1: placid sleep, but not betrayed by tenderness of mind that
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Speaker 1: feared or wholly overlook the truth. Did we come hither
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Speaker 1: with romantic hope to find, in midst of so much loveliness,
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Speaker 1: love perfect love, of so much majesty, a like majestic
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Speaker 1: frame of mind in those who here abide the persons
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Speaker 1: like the place. Not from such hope or aught of
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Speaker 1: such belief hath issued any portion of the joy which
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Speaker 1: I have felt this day in awful voice tis true,
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Speaker 1: hath in my walks been often heard, sent from the
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Speaker 1: mountains or the sheltered fields, shout after shout, reiterated whoop,
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Speaker 1: in manner of a bird that takes delight in answering
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Speaker 1: to itself, or like a hound single at chase among
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Speaker 1: the lonely woods, his yell repeating. Yet it was, in
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Speaker 1: truth a human voice, a spirit of coming night, how
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Speaker 1: solemn when the sky is dark, an earth not dark
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Speaker 1: nor yet enlightened, but by snow made visible amid a
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Speaker 1: noise of winds and bleedings, manifold of mountain sheep, which
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Speaker 1: in that iteration recognize their summons and are gathering round
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Speaker 1: for foods. Devoured with keenness, air to grove or bank
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Speaker 1: or rocky beald, with patience, they retire that very voice, which,
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Speaker 1: in some timid mood of superstitious fancy, might have seemed awful,
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Speaker 1: as ever stray demoniac uttered his steps to govern in
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Speaker 1: the wilderness, or as the Norman curfew's regular beat to
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Speaker 1: hearth's when first they darkened at the knell. That shepherd's voice,
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Speaker 1: it may have reached mine, ear, debased and under profanation
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Speaker 1: made the ready organ of articulate sounds from ribaldry, impiety,
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Speaker 1: or wrath issuing. When shame hath ceased to check the
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Speaker 1: brawls of some abuse festivity, so be it. I came
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Speaker 1: not dreaming of unruffled life, untainted manners, born among the hills,
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Speaker 1: bred also there, I wanted not a scale to regulate
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Speaker 1: my hopes. Pleased with the good, I shrink not from
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Speaker 1: the evil with disgust, or with a moderate pain. I
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Speaker 1: look for man, the common creature of the brotherhood, differing
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Speaker 1: but little from the man elsewhere, for selfishness and envy
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Speaker 1: and revenge, ill neighborhood, pity that this should be flattery
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Speaker 1: and double dealing, strife and wrong. Yet is it something gained?
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Speaker 1: It is, in truth a mighty gain that labor here
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Speaker 1: preserves his rosy face, a servant only here of the
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Speaker 1: fireside or the open field, a free man, therefore sound
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Speaker 1: and unimpaired. That extreme penury is here, unknown and cold,
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Speaker 1: and hunger's abject wretchedness mortal to body and the heaven
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Speaker 1: born mind. That they who want are not too great
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Speaker 1: a weight for those who can relieve. Here, may the
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Speaker 1: heart breathe in the air of fellows, suffering dreadless, as
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Speaker 1: in a kind of fresher breeze of her own native element.
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Speaker 1: The hand be ready and unwearied, without plea from tasks
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Speaker 1: too frequent or beyond its power, for languor or indifference
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Speaker 1: or despair. And as these lofty barriers break the force
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Speaker 1: of winds, this deep veil, as it doth in part
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Speaker 1: conceal us from the storm. So here abides a power
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Speaker 1: and a protection for the mind dispensed indeed to other
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Speaker 1: solitudes favored by noble privilege, like this, where kindred independence
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Speaker 1: of a state is prevalent. Where he who tills the field,
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Speaker 1: he happy man, is master of the field, and treads
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Speaker 1: the mountains where his fathers trod. Not less than half
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Speaker 1: way up yond mountain side, behold a dusky spot, a
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Speaker 1: grove of firs that seems still smaller than it is.
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Speaker 1: This grove is haunted by what ghost, A gentle spirit
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Speaker 1: of memory, faithful to the call of love. For, as
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Speaker 1: reports the dame whose fire sends up yon curling smoke
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Speaker 1: from the gray cot below, the trees her first born child,
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Speaker 1: being then a babe, were planted by her husband and
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Speaker 1: herself that ranging over the high and houseless ground. Their
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Speaker 1: sheep might neither want, from perilous storm of winter, nor
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Speaker 1: from summer's sultry heat, a friendly covert. And they knew
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Speaker 1: it well, said she, for thither, as the trees grew up,
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Speaker 1: we to the patient creatures carried food in times of
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Speaker 1: heavy snow. She then began, in fond obedience to her
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Speaker 1: private thoughts, to speak of her dead husband. Is there
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Speaker 1: not an art, a music, and a strain of words
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Speaker 1: that shall be life? The acknowledged voice of life shall
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Speaker 1: speak of what is done among the fields, done truly there,
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Speaker 1: or felt of solid good and real evil. Yet be
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Speaker 1: sweet withal more grateful, more harmonious than the breath, the
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Speaker 1: idle breath of softest pipe attuned to pestooral fancies. Is
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Speaker 1: there such a stream, pure and unsullied, flowing from the
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Speaker 1: heart with motions of true dignity and grace? Or must
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Speaker 1: we seek that stream where man is not? Methinks I
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Speaker 1: could repeat in tuneful verse, delicious as the generous breeze
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Speaker 1: that sounds through that aerial fir grove could preserve some
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Speaker 1: portion of its human history, as gathered from the matron's lips,
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Speaker 1: and tell of tears that have been shed at sight
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Speaker 1: of it, and moving dialogues between this pair, who, in
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Speaker 1: their prime of wedlock, with joint hands, did plant the grove,
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Speaker 1: now flourishing, while they no longer flourish, he entirely gone,
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Speaker 1: she withering in her loneliness. Be this a task above
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Speaker 1: my skill? The silent mind has her own treasures, And
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Speaker 1: I think of these, Love what I see, and honor
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Speaker 1: human kind. No, we are not alone. We do not
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Speaker 1: stand my sister here, misplaced and desolate, loving what no
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Speaker 1: one cares for but ourselves. We shall not scatter through
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Speaker 1: the plains and rocks of this fair veil and over
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Speaker 1: its spacious heights, unprofitable kindness bestowed on objects unaccustomed to
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Speaker 1: the gifts of feeling, which were cheerless and forelne but
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Speaker 1: few weeks past, and would be so again were we
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Speaker 1: not here. We do not tend to lamp whose luster
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Speaker 1: we alone participate, which shines dependent upon us alone, mortal
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Speaker 1: though bright, a dying, dying flame. Look where we will,
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Speaker 1: Some human hand has been before us with its offering.
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Speaker 1: Not a tree sprinkles these little pastures, but the same
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Speaker 1: half furnished matter for a thought, perchance, for someone serves
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Speaker 1: a familiar friend. Joy spreads and sorrow spreads in this
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Speaker 1: whole veil home of untutored shepherds, as it is swarms
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Speaker 1: with sensation, as with gleams of sl unshine, shadows or breezes,
25:02
Speaker 1: scents or sounds. Nor deem these feelings, though subservient more
25:08
Speaker 1: than ours to every day's demand for daily bread and
25:11
Speaker 1: borrowing more their spirit and their shape from self respecting interests,
25:17
Speaker 1: deem them not unworthy therefore and unhallowed. No, they lift
25:22
Speaker 1: the animal being, do themselves by nature's kind and ever
25:26
Speaker 1: present aid, refine the selfishness from which they spring, redeemed
25:31
Speaker 1: by love the individual sense of anxiousness with which they
25:35
Speaker 1: are combined. And thus it is that fitly they become
25:38
Speaker 1: associates in the joy of purest minds. They blend therewith congeniality. Meanwhile,
25:45
Speaker 1: calmly they breathe their own undying life through this their
25:48
Speaker 1: mountains sanctuary. Long, oh long, may it remain inviolate, diffusing
25:54
Speaker 1: health and sober cheerfulness, and giving to the moments as
25:58
Speaker 1: they pass their little boons of animated thought that sweetened
26:01
Speaker 1: labor make it seen and felt to be no arbitrary
26:05
Speaker 1: weight imposed, but a glad function natural to man. Fair
26:10
Speaker 1: proof of this new comer, though I be already have
26:14
Speaker 1: I gained. The inward frame, though slowly opening, opens every
26:19
Speaker 1: day with process not unlike to that which cheers a
26:22
Speaker 1: pensive stranger journeying at his leisure through some helvetian dell,
26:27
Speaker 1: when low hung mists break up and are beginning to recede.
26:31
Speaker 1: How pleased he is, where thin and thinner grows the veil,
26:35
Speaker 1: or where it parts at once, to spy the dark
26:38
Speaker 1: pines thrusting forth their spiky heads, To watch the spreading
26:42
Speaker 1: lawns with cattle grazed. Then to be greeted by the
26:46
Speaker 1: scattered huts as they shine out, and see the streams
26:50
Speaker 1: whose murmur had soothed his ear while they were hidden.
26:53
Speaker 1: How pleased to have about him, which way ere he goes,
26:57
Speaker 1: something on every side, concealed from view, in every quarter,
27:01
Speaker 1: something visible, half seen, or wholly lost and found again,
27:06
Speaker 1: alternate progress and impediment, and yet a growing prospect in
27:10
Speaker 1: the main. Such pleasure now is mine, albeit forced herein
27:15
Speaker 1: less happy than the traveler to cast from time to
27:18
Speaker 1: time a painful look upon unwelcome things which unawares reveal themselves.
27:25
Speaker 1: Not therefore is my heart depressed, nor does it fear
27:28
Speaker 1: what is to come, but confident enriched at every glance.
27:33
Speaker 1: The more I see, the more delight my mind receives,
27:37
Speaker 1: or by reflection, can create. Truth justifies herself. And as
27:42
Speaker 1: she dwells with hope, who would not follow where she leads,
27:46
Speaker 1: nor let me pass unheeded? Other loves where no fear
27:50
Speaker 1: is and humbler sympathies already hath sprung up within my heart,
27:55
Speaker 1: A liking for the small gray horse that bears the
27:58
Speaker 1: paralytic man, and for the brute in scripture sanctified the
28:03
Speaker 1: patient brute on which the cripple in the quarry maimed,
28:07
Speaker 1: rides to and fro. I know them in their ways,
28:11
Speaker 1: the famous sheep dog first in all the vale, though
28:15
Speaker 1: yet to me a stranger, will not be a stranger long,
28:19
Speaker 1: Nor will the blind man's guide, meek and neglected thing
28:23
Speaker 1: of no renown, Soon will peep forth the primrose ere
28:27
Speaker 1: it fades. Friends, shall I have at dawn blackbird and
28:31
Speaker 1: thrush to rouse me and a hundred warblers more? And
28:35
Speaker 1: if those eagles to their ancient hold return Havelian's eagles
28:40
Speaker 1: with the pair from my own door, I shall be
28:43
Speaker 1: free to claim acquaintance as they sweep from cloud to cloud.
28:47
Speaker 1: The owl that gives the name to owlt crag have
28:50
Speaker 1: I heard whooping? And he soon will be a chosen
28:54
Speaker 1: one of my regards. See there the heifer and yon
28:58
Speaker 1: little croft belongs to one who holds it dear, with
29:01
Speaker 1: duteous care. She reared it, And in speaking of her charge,
29:05
Speaker 1: I heard her scatter some endearing words domestic and in
29:09
Speaker 1: spirit motherly, she being herself a mother happy beast, if
29:14
Speaker 1: the caresses of a human voice can make it so,
29:17
Speaker 1: and care of human hands, and ye is happy under
29:21
Speaker 1: nature's care. Strangers to me and all men, or at
29:25
Speaker 1: least strangers to all particular amity, all intercourse of knowledge
29:30
Speaker 1: or of love that parts the individual from his kind,
29:33
Speaker 1: whether in large communities, ye keep from year to year,
29:37
Speaker 1: not shunning man's abode, a settled residence, or be from
29:42
Speaker 1: far wild creatures, and of many homes that come the
29:46
Speaker 1: gift of winds, and whom the winds again take from
29:49
Speaker 1: us at your pleasure. Yet shall ye not want for
29:53
Speaker 1: this your own subordinate place in my affections? Witness the
29:57
Speaker 1: delight with which erewhile I saw the that multitude wheel
30:01
Speaker 1: through the sky, and see them now at rest, Yet
30:05
Speaker 1: not at rest upon the glassy lake they cannot rest.
30:09
Speaker 1: They gambole like young whelps, active as lambs, and overcome
30:14
Speaker 1: with joy they try all frolic motions, flutter, plunge, and
30:20
Speaker 1: beat the passive water with their wings. End of pages
30:24
Speaker 1: nineteen through thirty six. Recording by Andrea Fiuri, pages thirty
30:34
Speaker 1: seven through fifty four of The Recluse by William Wordsworth.
30:39
Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
30:44
Speaker 1: Andrea Fiuri, pages thirty seven through fifty four. Too distant
30:50
Speaker 1: are they for plain view, But lo, those little fountains
30:54
Speaker 1: sparkling in the sun betray their occupation, rising up first
30:59
Speaker 1: one and then another silver spout, as one or other
31:03
Speaker 1: takes the fit of glee. Fountains and spouts, yet somewhat
31:08
Speaker 1: in the guise of plaything fireworks that on festal nights
31:13
Speaker 1: sparkle about the feet of wanton boys. How vast the
31:17
Speaker 1: compass of this theater, Yet nothing to be seen but
31:20
Speaker 1: lovely pomp and silent majesty. The birch tree woods are
31:25
Speaker 1: hung with thousand diamond drops of melted hoar frost, every
31:29
Speaker 1: tiny knot in the bare twigs, each little butting place
31:33
Speaker 1: caused with its several beads, What myriads these upon one tree,
31:39
Speaker 1: While all the distant grove that rises to the summit
31:42
Speaker 1: of the steep shows like a mountain built of silver light.
31:47
Speaker 1: See yonder the same pageant, and again behold the universal
31:51
Speaker 1: imagery inverted, all its sun bright features touched as with
31:55
Speaker 1: the varnish, and the gloss of dreams, dream like the
31:59
Speaker 1: blender also of the whole harmonious landscape, all along the shore,
32:04
Speaker 1: the boundary lost, the lying invisible that parts the image
32:09
Speaker 1: from reality. And the clear hills, as high as they
32:12
Speaker 1: ascend heavenward, so deep piercing the lake below, admonished of
32:18
Speaker 1: the days of love to come. The raven croaks and
32:21
Speaker 1: fills the upper air with a strange sound of genial harmony.
32:26
Speaker 1: And in and all about that playful band incapable. Although
32:30
Speaker 1: they may be of rest, and in their fashion very rioters,
32:34
Speaker 1: there is a stillness, and they seem to make calm
32:38
Speaker 1: revelry in their calm abode them, leaving to their joyous hours.
32:42
Speaker 1: I pass pass with a thought the life of the
32:45
Speaker 1: whole year that is to come. The throng of woodland,
32:49
Speaker 1: flowers and lilies that will dance upon the waves. Say boldly, then,
32:54
Speaker 1: that solitude is not where these things are. He truly
32:58
Speaker 1: is alone, He of the multitude, whose eyes are doomed
33:02
Speaker 1: to hold a vacant commerce, day by day, with objects
33:05
Speaker 1: wanting life, repelling love. He by the vast metropolis, ammured,
33:12
Speaker 1: where pity shrinks from unremitting calls, where numbers overwhelm humanity,
33:18
Speaker 1: and neighborhood serves rather than to divide, than to unite,
33:22
Speaker 1: what sighs more deep than his, whose nobler will have
33:26
Speaker 1: long been sacrificed. Who must inhabit under a black sky,
33:31
Speaker 1: a city where if indifference to disgust yield not scorn
33:36
Speaker 1: or sorrow, living men are oft times to their fellow men,
33:40
Speaker 1: no more than to the forest hermit are the leaves
33:43
Speaker 1: that hang aloft in the myriads, Nay far less, for
33:48
Speaker 1: they protect his walk from sun and shower, swell his
33:52
Speaker 1: devotion with their voice, and storms and whisper while the
33:55
Speaker 1: stars twinkle among them. His lullaby from crowd streets, remote,
34:01
Speaker 1: far from the living and dead wilderness of the thronged world.
34:05
Speaker 1: Society is here a true community, a genuine frame of
34:09
Speaker 1: many into one incorporate that must be looked for here
34:14
Speaker 1: paternal sway, one household under God for high and low,
34:20
Speaker 1: one family, and one mansion to themselves, appropriate and divided
34:25
Speaker 1: from the world as if it were a cave. A
34:28
Speaker 1: multitude human and brute possessors, undisturbed of this recess, their
34:34
Speaker 1: legislative hall, their temple, and their glorious dwelling place. Dismissing
34:39
Speaker 1: therefore all Arcadian dreams, all golden fancies of the golden age,
34:46
Speaker 1: the bright array of shadowy thoughts from times that were
34:49
Speaker 1: before all time, or are to be ere time expire,
34:53
Speaker 1: The pageantry that stirs or will be stirring when our
34:57
Speaker 1: eyes are fixed on lovely objects, and we wish to
35:01
Speaker 1: part with all remembrance of a jarring world. Take we
35:05
Speaker 1: at once this one sufficient hope, What need of more,
35:09
Speaker 1: that we shall neither droop nor pine for want of
35:12
Speaker 1: pleasure in the life scattered about us, nor through want
35:16
Speaker 1: of aught that keeps in health. The insatiable mind that
35:20
Speaker 1: we shall have for knowledge and for love abundance, and
35:23
Speaker 1: that feeling as we do, how goodly, how exceedingly fair,
35:28
Speaker 1: how pure, from all reproach, is yon ethereal vault, and
35:33
Speaker 1: this deep veil, its earthly counterpart, by which and under
35:37
Speaker 1: which we are inclosed to breathe in peace, we shall
35:41
Speaker 1: moreover find if sound and what we ought to be ourselves,
35:46
Speaker 1: if rightly we observe and justly way, the inmates not
35:50
Speaker 1: unworthy of their home, the dwellers of their dwelling, And
35:55
Speaker 1: if this were otherwise, we have within ourselves enough to
35:58
Speaker 1: fill the present day with joy, and overspread the future
36:02
Speaker 1: years with hope. Our beautiful and quiet home enriched already
36:07
Speaker 1: with a stranger whom we love deeply, a stranger of
36:11
Speaker 1: our father's house, a never resting pilgrim of the sea,
36:15
Speaker 1: who finds at last an hour to his content beneath
36:18
Speaker 1: our roof. And others whom we love will seek us also,
36:23
Speaker 1: sisters of our hearts, and one like them, a brother
36:27
Speaker 1: of our hearts, philosopher and poet, in whose sight these
36:32
Speaker 1: mountains will rejoice with open joy. Such is our wealth,
36:36
Speaker 1: O vail of peace. We are, and must be, with
36:39
Speaker 1: God's will, a happy band. Yet tis not to enjoy
36:44
Speaker 1: that we exist. For that end only something must be done.
36:49
Speaker 1: I must not walk in unreproved delight. These narrow bounds
36:53
Speaker 1: and think of nothing more, no duty that looks further,
36:57
Speaker 1: and no care. Each be has his office, lowly sum
37:02
Speaker 1: and common, yet all worthy, if fulfilled with zeal, acknowledgment
37:07
Speaker 1: that with the gift keeps pace a harvest. Answering to
37:11
Speaker 1: the seed of ill advised ambition and of pride, I
37:14
Speaker 1: would stand clear. But yet to me I feel an
37:18
Speaker 1: internal brightness is vouchsafed, that must not die, that must
37:22
Speaker 1: not pass away. Why does this inward luster fondly seek
37:27
Speaker 1: and gladly blend with outward fellowship? Why do they shine
37:31
Speaker 1: around me whom I love? Why do they teach me
37:35
Speaker 1: whom I thus revere? Strange question? Yet it answers not itself,
37:41
Speaker 1: that humble roof, embowered among the trees that calm fireside.
37:46
Speaker 1: It is not even in them, blessed as they are,
37:50
Speaker 1: to furnish a reply that satisfies and ends in perfect rest.
37:55
Speaker 1: Possessions have I that are solely mine, Something within which
37:59
Speaker 1: yet is shared by none, not even the nearest to me,
38:03
Speaker 1: and most dear, something which power and effort may impart.
38:08
Speaker 1: I would impart it. I would spread it wide, A
38:11
Speaker 1: mortal in the world which is to come forgave me
38:15
Speaker 1: if I add another claim, and would not wholly perish
38:19
Speaker 1: even in this lie down and be forgotten in the dust,
38:23
Speaker 1: I in the modest partners of my days, making a
38:26
Speaker 1: silent company, and death, love knowledge, all my manifold delights,
38:32
Speaker 1: all buried with me, without monument or profit, unto any
38:36
Speaker 1: but ourselves. It must not be if I, divinely taught,
38:42
Speaker 1: be privileged to speak as I have felt, of what
38:44
Speaker 1: in man is human or divine. While yet an innocent
38:49
Speaker 1: little one with a heart that doubtless wanted not its
38:52
Speaker 1: tender moods, I breathed for this I better recollect among
38:57
Speaker 1: wild appetites and blind desire, motions of savage instinct, my
39:02
Speaker 1: delight and exultation. Nothing at that time so welcome, no
39:07
Speaker 1: temptation half so dear as that which urged me to
39:10
Speaker 1: my daring feet, deep pools, tall trees, black chasms, and
39:16
Speaker 1: dizzy crags and tottering towers. I loved to stand and
39:21
Speaker 1: read their looks forbidding, read and disobey, sometimes in act
39:26
Speaker 1: and ever more in thought, with impulses that scarcely were
39:30
Speaker 1: by these surpassed in strength. I heard of danger, met
39:34
Speaker 1: or sought with courage, enterprise, forlorn by one sole keeper
39:40
Speaker 1: of his own intent, or by a resolute few, who,
39:44
Speaker 1: for the sake of glory fronted multitudes in arms. Yea,
39:49
Speaker 1: to this hour, I cannot read a tale of two
39:51
Speaker 1: brave vessels matched in deadly fight and fighting to the death.
39:56
Speaker 1: But I am pleased more than a wise man ought
39:59
Speaker 1: to be. I wish fret, burn, and struggle, and in
40:03
Speaker 1: soulem there but me, Hath nature tamed and bade to
40:08
Speaker 1: seek for other agitations or be calm. Hath dealt with
40:12
Speaker 1: me as with a turbulent stream, some nursling of the mountains,
40:17
Speaker 1: which she leads through quiet meadows. After he has learnt
40:21
Speaker 1: his strength and had his triumph and his joy, his
40:25
Speaker 1: desperate course of tumult and of glee, that which in
40:29
Speaker 1: stealth by nature was performed, Hath reason sanctioned her deliberate voice.
40:34
Speaker 1: Hath said, be mild and cleaved to gentle things. Thy glory,
40:39
Speaker 1: in thy happiness, be there nor fear, though thou confide
40:44
Speaker 1: in me a want of aspirations that have been of
40:48
Speaker 1: foes to wrestle with, and victory to complete bounds, to
40:52
Speaker 1: be left darkness to be explored, all that inflame. Thy
40:56
Speaker 1: infant heart, the love, the longing contempt, the undawned quest.
41:03
Speaker 1: All shall survive. Though changed in their office, all shall lived.
41:08
Speaker 1: It is not in their power to die. Then farewell
41:11
Speaker 1: to the warrior's schemes. Farewell the forwardness of soul, which
41:16
Speaker 1: looks that way upon a less incitement than the cause
41:19
Speaker 1: of liberty endangered. And farewell that other hope, long mind,
41:24
Speaker 1: the hope to fill the heroic trumpet with the muse's breath.
41:29
Speaker 1: Yet in this peaceful veil we will not spend unheard
41:32
Speaker 1: of days. Though loving peaceful thought, a voice shall speak,
41:37
Speaker 1: and what will be the theme? On man, on nature,
41:41
Speaker 1: and on human life? Using in solitude, I oft perceive
41:46
Speaker 1: fair trains of imagery before me rise, accompanied by feelings
41:50
Speaker 1: of delight pure or with no unpleasing sadness mixed. And
41:55
Speaker 1: I am conscious of affecting thoughts and dear remembrances whose
42:00
Speaker 1: presence sues or elevates the mind. Intend to weigh the
42:04
Speaker 1: good and evil of our mortal state. To these emotions,
42:08
Speaker 1: whensoever they come, whether from breath of outward circumstance or
42:13
Speaker 1: from soul an impulse to herself, I would give utterance
42:18
Speaker 1: in numerous verse of truth of grandeur, beauty, love and hope,
42:25
Speaker 1: and melancholy fear subdued by faith of blessed consolations, in
42:30
Speaker 1: distress of mortal strength and intellectual power of joy, and
42:35
Speaker 1: widest commonality, spread of the individual mind that keeps her
42:39
Speaker 1: own in violate retirement, subject there to conscious only, and
42:45
Speaker 1: the law supreme of that intelligence which governs all I
42:48
Speaker 1: sing fit audience, let me find, though few so prayed,
42:53
Speaker 1: more gaining than he asked, the barred in holiest mood urania,
42:59
Speaker 1: I shall need thy guidance or a greater muse, if
43:03
Speaker 1: such descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven. For
43:07
Speaker 1: I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink deep and aloft,
43:11
Speaker 1: descending breathe in worlds to which the heaven of heavens
43:15
Speaker 1: is but a veil. All strength, all terror, single or
43:20
Speaker 1: in bands, that ever was put forth in personal form Jehovah,
43:25
Speaker 1: with his thunder and the choir of shouting angels, and
43:29
Speaker 1: the imperial thrones, I pass them, unalarmed, not chaos. Not
43:34
Speaker 1: the darkest pit of loest erebus, nor aught of blinder
43:38
Speaker 1: vacancy scooped out by help of dreams, can breed such
43:43
Speaker 1: fear and awees fall upon us often when we look
43:46
Speaker 1: into our minds, into the mind of man. My haunt
43:51
Speaker 1: and the main region of my song beauty, a living
43:55
Speaker 1: presence of the Earth, surpassing the most fair ideal forms,
43:59
Speaker 1: whose craft of delicate spirits hath composed from Earth's materials,
44:04
Speaker 1: waits upon my steps, pitches her tents before me as
44:08
Speaker 1: I move in hourly neighbor paradise in groves, illusion fortunate
44:14
Speaker 1: fields like those of old sought in the Atlantic main.
44:18
Speaker 1: Why should they be a history only of departed things,
44:21
Speaker 1: or a mere fiction of what never was? For the
44:25
Speaker 1: discerning intellect of man, when wedded to this goodly universe
44:29
Speaker 1: in love and holy passion, shall find these a simple
44:33
Speaker 1: produce of the common day. I, long before the blissful
44:36
Speaker 1: hour arrives, would chant in lonely peace, the espousal verse
44:41
Speaker 1: of this great consummation, and by words which speak of
44:46
Speaker 1: nothing more than what we are, would I arouse the
44:49
Speaker 1: sensual from their sleep of death, and win the vacant
44:52
Speaker 1: in the vein to noble raptures. While my voice proclaims
44:56
Speaker 1: how exquisitely the individual mind and the progressive powers, perhaps
45:01
Speaker 1: no less of the whole species, to the external world
45:04
Speaker 1: is fitted, and how exquisitely too theme this but little
45:09
Speaker 1: heard of among men. The external world is fitted to
45:12
Speaker 1: the mind, and the creation. By no lower name can
45:16
Speaker 1: it be called, which they, with blended might accomplish. This
45:21
Speaker 1: is our high argument, such grateful haunts foregoing. If I
45:26
Speaker 1: oft must turn elsewhere, to travel near the tribes and
45:30
Speaker 1: fellowships of men, and see ill sights of maddening passions
45:34
Speaker 1: mutually inflamed, must hear humanity in fields and groves pipe
45:39
Speaker 1: solitary anguish, or must hang brooding over the fierce confederate
45:44
Speaker 1: storm of sorrow, barricaded evermore within the walls of cities.
45:49
Speaker 1: May these sounds have their authentic comment, that even these
45:53
Speaker 1: hearing I be not downcast or forlorn, descend prophetic spirit
45:59
Speaker 1: that inspire marest the human soul of universal earth, dreaming
46:03
Speaker 1: on things to come, and dost possess a metropolitan temple
46:07
Speaker 1: in the hearts of mighty poets upon me, bestow a
46:11
Speaker 1: gift of genuine insight, that my song, with star like
46:15
Speaker 1: virtue in its place, may shine, shedding benignant influence, and
46:19
Speaker 1: secure itself from all malevolent effect of those mutations that
46:23
Speaker 1: extend their sway throughout the nether sphere. And if with
46:27
Speaker 1: this I mix more lowly matter with the thing contemplated,
46:32
Speaker 1: Describe the mind and man contemplating, and who and what
46:36
Speaker 1: he was, the transitory being that beheld this vision, when
46:40
Speaker 1: and where and how he lived? Be not this labor useless.
46:45
Speaker 1: If such theme may sort with highest objects, then dread Power,
46:51
Speaker 1: whose gracious favor is the primal source of all illumination.
46:56
Speaker 1: May my life express the image of a better time.
46:59
Speaker 1: More Wise desires and simpler manners nurse my heart and
47:04
Speaker 1: genuine freedom, All pure thoughts be with me. So shall
47:09
Speaker 1: thy unfailing love guide and support and cheer me to
47:13
Speaker 1: the end. End of pages thirty seven through fifty four.
47:19
Speaker 1: Recording by Andrea Fiori W W W dot A N
47:25
Speaker 1: D r e A f I O r E dot
47:30
Speaker 1: name End of the Recluse by William Wordsworth,