William Wordsworth

The Prelude

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was one of the most famous of the English romantic poets.  In his long, autobiographical poem, The Prelude: Or Growth of a Poet's Mind, which he completed in 1805, he describes his rejection of an early fascination for politics and philosophy, and his embrace of the romantic view of the world.

Below are portions of the poem describing time he spent visiting and observing France during the Revolution, and how these experiences lead him to become a romantic poet.  Along the way I have provided a description of the themes of each section to help in your reading.

The Prelude is written in blank verse--that is, in lines without any set rhythm or rhyme.  It almost reads like prose.  When you read, bear in mind that it is meant to be spoken.  The punctuation will help you follow the ideas more than the line breaks.  Often it is wise to ignore the line breaks if there is no punctuation.

Referring to the fall of Robespierre and the end of the Terror, Wordsworth describes his fervent commitment to the revolutionary principles of equality, liberty and democracy.

From that time forth, Authority in France
Put on a milder face: Terror had ceased,
Yet everything was wanting that might give
Courage to them who looked for good by light
of rational Experience, for the shoots
And hopeful blossoms of a second spring:
Yet, in me, confidence was unimpaired;
The Senate's language, and the public acts
And measures of the Government, though both
Weak, and of heartless omen, had not power
To daunt me; in the People was my trust:
And, in the virtues which mine eyes had seen,
I knew that wound external could not take
Life from the young Republic; and new foes
Would only follow, in the path of shame,
Their brethren, and her triumphs be in the end
Great, universal, irresistible. . .

When Napoleon took power, and  the revolution turned from pusuit of liberty to pursuit of conquest and national glory, a disappointed  Wordsworth, out of pride for his old opinions, and his obstinate faith in the triumph of reason, still clung to his faith that eventually the revolution would end for the good.

But now, become oppressors in their turn,
Frenchmen had changed a war of self-defence
For one of conquest, losing sight of all
Which they had struggled for: up mounted now,
Openly in the eye of earth and heaven,
The scale of liberty.  I read her doom.
With anger vexed, with disappointment sore,
But not dismayed, nor taking to the shame
Of a false prophet.  While resentment rose,
Striving to hide, what nought could heal, the wounds
Of mortified presumption, I adhered
More firmly to old tenets, and, to prove
Their temper, strained them more: and thus, in heat
Of contest, did opinions every day
Grow into consequence, till round my mind
They clung, as if they were its life, nay more,
The very being of the immortal soul.

This was the time, when, all things tending fast
To deprivation, speculative schemes--
That promised to abstract the hopes of Man
Out of his feelings, to be fixed thenceforth
For ever in a purer element--
Found ready welcome.  Tempting region that
For Zeal to enter and refresh herself,
Where passions had the privilege to work,
And never hear the sound of their own names.
But, speaking more in charity, the dream
Flattered the young, pleased with extremes, nor least
With that which makes our Reason's naked self
The object of its fervour.  What delight!
How glorious! in self-knowledge and self-rule,
To look through all the frailties of the world
And, with a resolute mastery shaking off
Infirmities of nature, time, and place,
Build social upon personal Liberty,
Which, to the blind restraints of general laws,
Superior, magisterially adopts
One guide, the light of circumstances, flashed
Upon an independent intellect.
Thus expectation rose again; thus hope,
From her first ground expelled, grew proud once more.

 Wordsworth attempts to make rational sense of events in France, and failing to do so,  finally loses faith in reason itself as the means to truth.

 After what hath been
Already said of patriotic love,
Suffice it here to add, that, somewhat stern
In temperament, withal a happy man,
And theretofore bold to look on painful things,
Free likewise of the world, and thence more bold,
I summoned my best skill, and toiled, intent
To anatomise the frame of social life;
Yea, the whole body of society
Searched to its heart.  Share with me, Friend! the wish
That some dramatic tale, endued [endowed] with shapes
Livelier, and flinging out less guarded words
Than suit the work we fashion, might set forth
What then I learned, or think I learned, of truth,
And the errors into which I fell, betrayed
By present objects, and by reasonings false
From their beginnings, inasmuch as drawn
Out of a heart that had been turned aside
From Nature's way by outward accidents,
And which was thus confounded, more and more
Misguided, and misguiding.  So I fared,
Dragging all precepts, judgments, maxims, creeds,
Like culprits to the bar; calling the mind,
Suspiciously, to establish in plain day
Her titles and her honours; now believing,
Now disbelieving; endlessly perplexed
With impulse, motive, right and wrong, the ground
Of obligation, what the rule and whence
The sanction; till, demanding formal proof,
And seeking of conviction, and, in fine [finally],
Sick, wearied out with contrarieties,
Yielded up moral questions in despair.

This was the crisis of that strong disease,
This the soul's last and lowest ebb; I drooped,
Deeming our blessed reason of least use
Where wanted most: "The lordly attributes
Of will and choice," I bitterly exclaimed,
"What are they but a mockery of a Being
Who hath in no concerns of his a test
Of good and evil;  knows not what to fear
Or hope for, what to covet or to shun;
And who, if those could be discerned, would yet
Be little profited, would see, and ask
Where is the obligation to enforce?"
. . . .

 Wordsworth summarizes his poem, and describes how he finally came to rediscover a sense of an inner communion with nature, and a creative imagination that is truer than any political commitment or philosophical theory.

Long time have human ignorance and guilt
Detained us, on what spectacles of woe
Compelled to look, and inwardly oppressed
With sorrow, disappointment, vexing thoughts,
Confusion of the judgment, zeal decayed,
And, lastly, utter loss of hope itself
And things to hope for!  Not with these began
Our song, and not with these our song must end.
Ye motions of delight, that haunt the sides
of the green hills; ye breezes and soft airs,
Whose subtle intercourse with breathing flowers,
Feelingly watched, might teach Man's haughty race
How without injury to take, to give
Without offence; ye who, as if to show
The wondrous influence of power gently used,
Bend the complying heads of lordly pines,
And, with a touch, shift the stupendous clouds
Through the whole compass of the sky; ye brooks,
Muttering along the stones, a busy noise
By day, a quiet sound in silent night;
Ye waves, that out of the great deep steal forth
In a calm hour to kiss the pebbly shore,
Not mute, and then retire, fearing no storm;
And you, ye groves, whose ministry it is
To impose the covert of your shades,
Even as a sleep, between the heart of man
And outward troubles, between man himself,
Not seldom, and his own uneasy heart:
Oh! that I had a music and a voice
Harmonious as your own, that I might tell
What ye have done for me.  The morning shines,
Nor heedeth Man's perverseness; Spring returns,--
I saw the Spring return, and could rejoice,
In common with the children of her love,
Piping on boughs, or sporting on fresh fields,
Or boldly seeking pleasure nearer heaven
On wings that navigate cerulean skies.
So neither were complacency, nor peace,
Nor tender yearnings, wanting for my good
Through these distracted times; in Nature still
Glorying, I found a counterpoise in her,
Which, when the spirit of evil reached its height,
Maintained for me a secret happiness.

Wordsworth comes to believe that poetry can unlock the higher nature of mankind more than history and politics.
. . . .
Dare I avow that wish was mine to see,
And hope that future times would to see,
The man to come, parted, as by a gulf,
From him who had been; that I could no more
Trust the elevation which had made me one
With the great family that still survives
To illuminate the abyss of ages past,
Sage warrior, patriot, hero; for it seemed
That their best virtues were not free from taint
Of something false and weak, that could not stand
The open eye of Reason.  Then I said,
"Go to the Poets, they will speak to thee
More perfectly of purer creatures;
. . . .
. . . .  I had known
Too forcibly, too early in my life,
Visitings of imaginative power
For this [the times of fervor for revolution] to last: I shook the habit off
Entirely and for ever, and again
In Nature's presence stood, as now I stand,
A sensitive being a creative soul.