No More Learning

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: See the 'Memoirs of Wordsworth', vol. i. p. 156. --Ed. ]

[Footnote B: See 'Recollections of the Lakes', etc. , pp. 130-137, Works,
vol. ii. , edition of 1862. --Ed. ]





* * * * *





"BLEAK SEASON WAS IT, TURBULENT AND BLEAK" [A]


Composed (probably) in 1800. --Published 1851




Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak,
When hitherward we journeyed, side by side,
Through burst of sunshine and through flying showers,
Paced the long vales, how long they were, and yet
How fast that length of way was left behind, 5
Wensley's rich vale and Sedbergh's naked heights.
The frosty wind, as if to make amends
For its keen breath, was aiding to our steps,
And drove us onward like two ships at sea;
Or, like two birds, companions in mid-air, 10
Parted and reunited by the blast.
Stern was the face of nature; we rejoiced
In that stern countenance; for our souls thence drew
A feeling of their strength.
The naked trees,
The icy brooks, as on we passed, appeared 15
To question us, "Whence come ye? To what end? "




This poem refers to a winter journey on foot, which Wordsworth and his
sister took from Sockburn to Grasmere, by Wensleydale and Askrigg; and,
since he has left us an account of this journey, in a letter to
Coleridge, written a few days after their arrival at Grasmere--a letter
in which his characterisation of Nature is almost as happy as it is in
his best poems--some extracts from it may here be appended.

"We left Sockburn last Tuesday morning. We crossed the Tees by
moonlight in the Sockburn fields, and after ten good miles riding came
in sight of the Swale. It is there a beautiful river, with its green
banks and flat holms scattered over with trees. Four miles further
brought us to Richmond, with its huge ivied castle, its friarage
steeple, its castle tower resembling a huge steeple. . . . We were now in
Wensleydale, and D. and I set off side by side to foot it as far as
Kendal. . . . We reached Askrigg, twelve miles, before six in the
evening, having been obliged to walk the last two miles over hard
frozen roads.