No More Learning

i. 1889). --Ed.





* * * * *





"ON NATURE'S INVITATION DO I COME"


Composed (probably) in 1800. --Published 1851




On Nature's invitation do I come,
By Reason sanctioned. Can the choice mislead,
That made the calmest, fairest spot of earth,
With all its unappropriated good,
My own, and not mine only, for with me 5
Entrenched--say rather peacefully embowered--
Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot,
A younger orphan of a home extinct,
The only daughter of my parents dwells:
Aye, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir; 10
Pause upon that, and let the breathing frame
No longer breathe, but all be satisfied.
Oh, if such silence be not thanks to God
For what hath been bestowed, then where, where then
Shall gratitude find rest? Mine eyes did ne'er 15
Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind
Take pleasure in the midst of happy thoughts,
But either she, whom now I have, who now
Divides with me this loved abode, was there,
Or not far off. Where'er my footsteps turned, 20
Her voice was like a hidden bird that sang;
The thought of her was like a flash of light
Or an unseen companionship, a breath
Or fragrance independent of the wind.
In all my goings, in the new and old 25
Of all my meditations, and in this
Favourite of all, in this the most of all. . . .
Embrace me then, ye hills, and close me in.
Now in the clear and open day I feel
Your guardianship: I take it to my heart; 30
'Tis like the solemn shelter of the night.
But I would call thee beautiful; for mild,
And soft, and gay, and beautiful thou art,
Dear valley, having in thy face a smile,
Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased, 35
Pleased with thy crags, and woody steeps, thy lake,
Its one green island, and its winding shores,
The multitude of little rocky hills,
Thy church, and cottages of mountain-stone
Clustered like stars some few, but single most, 40
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats,
Or glancing at each other cheerful looks,
Like separated stars with clouds between.




This Grasmere cottage is identified, much more than Rydal Mount, with
Wordsworth's "poetic prime. " It had once been a public-house, bearing
the sign of the Dove and Olive Bough--and as such is referred to in 'The
Waggoner'--from which circumstance it was for a long time, and is now
usually, called "Dove Cottage. " A small two storied house, it is
described somewhat minutely--as it was in Wordsworth's time--by De
Quincey, in his 'Recollections of the Lakes', and by the late Bishop of
Lincoln, in the 'Memoirs' of his uncle.

"The front of it faces the lake; behind is a small plot of orchard and
garden ground, in which there is a spring and rocks; the enclosure
shelves upwards towards the woody sides of the mountains above it. "
[A]

The following is De Quincey's description of it, as he saw it in the
summer of 1807.

"A white cottage, with two yew trees breaking the glare of its white
walls" (these yews still stand on the eastern side of the cottage). "A
little semi-vestibule between two doors prefaced the entrance into
what might be considered the principal room of the cottage. It was an
oblong square, not above eight and a half feet high, sixteen feet
long, and twelve broad; wainscoted from floor to ceiling with dark
polished oak, slightly embellished with carving. One window there
was--a perfect and unpretending cottage window, with little diamond
panes, embowered at almost every season of the year with roses; and,
in the summer and autumn, with a profusion of jasmine, and other
fragrant shrubs. . . . I was ushered up a little flight of stairs,
fourteen in all, to a little drawing-room, or whatever the reader
chooses to call it. Wordsworth himself has described the fireplace of
this room as his

'Half-kitchen and half-parlour fire.