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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse  »  68. From ‘The Prelude’

Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917.

William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

68. From ‘The Prelude’

I

THUS while the days flew by, and years passed on,

From Nature and her overflowing soul

I had received so much, that all my thoughts

Were steeped in feeling; I was only then

Contented, when with bliss ineffable

I felt the sentiment of Being spread

O’er all that moves and all that seemeth still;

O’er all that, lost beyond the reach of thought

And human knowledge, to the human eye

Invisible, yet liveth to the heart;

O’er all that leaps and runs, and shouts and sings,

Or beats the gladsome air; o’er all that glides

Beneath the wave, yea, in the wave itself,

And mighty depth of waters. Wonder not

If high the transport, great the joy I felt

Communing in this sort through earth and heaven

With every form of creature, as it looked

Towards the Uncreated with a countenance

Of adoration, with an eye of love.

One song they sang, and it was audible,

Most audible, then, when the fleshly ear,

O’ercome by humblest prelude of that strain,

Forgot her functions, and slept undisturbed.

II

—Of that external scene which round me lay,

Little, in this abstraction, did I see;

Remembered less; but I had inward hopes

And swellings of the spirit, was rapt and soothed,

Conversed with promises, had glimmering views

How life pervades the undecaying mind;

How the immortal soul with God-like power

Informs, creates, and thaws the deepest sleep

That time can lay upon her; how on earth,

Man, if he do but live within the light

Of high endeavours, daily spreads abroad

His being armed with strength that cannot fail.

III

Visionary power

Attends the motions of the viewless winds,

Embodied in the mystery of words:

There, darkness makes abode, and all the host

Of shadowy things work endless changes,—there,

As in a mansion like their proper home,

Even forms and substances are circumfused

By that transparent veil with light divine,

And, through the turnings intricate of verse,

Present themselves as objects recognized,

In flashes, and with glory not their own.

IV

Imagination—here the Power so called

Through sad incompetence of human speech,

That awful Power rose from the mind’s abyss

Like an unfathered vapour that enwraps,

At once, some lonely traveller. I was lost;

Halted without an effort to break through;

But to my conscious soul I now can say—

‘I recognize thy glory’: in such strength

Of usurpation, when the light of sense

Goes out, but with a flash that has revealed

The invisible world, doth greatness make abode,

There harbours; whether we be young or old,

Our destiny, our being’s heart and home,

Is with infinitude, and only there;

With hope it is, hope that can never die,

Effort, and expectation, and desire,

And something evermore about to be.

Under such banners militant, the soul

Seeks for no trophies, struggles for no spoils

That may attest her prowess, blest in thoughts

That are their own perfection and reward,

Strong in herself and in beatitude

That hides her, like the mighty flood of Nile

Poured from his fount of Abyssinian clouds

To fertilize the whole Egyptian plain.

V

The brook and road

Were fellow-travellers in this gloomy strait,

And with them did we journey several hours

At a slow pace. The immeasurable height

Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,

The stationary blasts of waterfalls,

And in the narrow rent at every turn

Winds thwarting winds, bewildered and forlorn,

The torrents shooting from the clear blue sky,

The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,

Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side

As if a voice were in them, the sick sight

And giddy prospect of the raving stream,

The unfettered clouds and region of the Heavens,

Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light—

Were all like workings of one mind, the features

Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree;

Characters of the great Apocalypse,

The types and symbols of Eternity,

Of first, and last, and midst, and without end.

VI

In some green bower

Rest, and be not alone, but have thou there

The One who is thy choice of all the world:

There linger, listening, gazing, with delight

Impassioned, but delight how pitiable!

Unless this love by a still higher love

Be hallowed, love that breathes not without awe;

Love that adores, but on the knees of prayer,

By heaven inspired; that frees from chains the soul,

Lifted, in union with the purest, best,

Of earth-born passions, on the wings of praise

Bearing a tribute to the Almighty’s Throne.

VII

This spiritual Love acts not nor can exist

Without Imagination, which, in truth,

Is but another name for absolute power

And clearest insight, amplitude of mind,

And Reason in her most exalted mood.

This faculty hath been the feeding source

Of our long labour: we have traced the stream

From the blind cavern whence is faintly heard

Its natal murmur; followed it to light

And open day; accompanied its course

Among the ways of Nature, for a time

Lost sight of it bewildered and engulphed;

Then given it greeting as it rose once more

In strength, reflecting from its placid breast

The works of man and face of human life;

And lastly, from its progress have we drawn

Faith in life endless, the sustaining thought

Of human Being, Eternity, and God.