Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I.
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William Wordsworth >> Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I.
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LYRICAL BALLADS,
WITH OTHER POEMS.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
1800
By W. WORDSWORTH.
Quam nihil ad genium, Papiniane, tuum!
VOL. I.
SECOND EDITION.
CONTENTS.
Expostulation and Reply
The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject
Animal Tranquillity and Decay, a Sketch
The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman
The Last of the Flock
Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake of
Esthwaite
The Foster-Mother's Tale
Goody Blake and Harry Gill
The Thorn
We are Seven
Anecdote for Fathers
Lines written at a small distance from my House and sent me by my
little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed
The Female Vagrant
The Dungeon
Simon Lee, the old Huntsman
Lines written in early Spring
The Nightingale, written in April, 1798.
Lines written when sailing in a Boat at Evening
Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames
The Idiot Boy
Love
The Mad Mother
The Ancient Mariner
Lines written above Tintern Abbey
PREFACE.
The First Volume of these Poems has already been submitted to
general perusal. It was published, as an experiment which, I hoped,
might be of some use to ascertain, how far, by fitting to metrical
arrangement a selection of the real language of men in a state of
vivid sensation, that sort of pleasure and that quantity of pleasure
may be imparted, which a Poet may rationally endeavour to impart.
I had formed no very inaccurate estimate of the probable effect of
those Poems: I flattered myself that they who should be pleased with
them would read them with more than common pleasure: and on the
other hand I was well aware that by those who should dislike them
they would be read with more than common dislike. The result has
differed from my expectation in this only, that I have pleased a
greater number, than I ventured to hope I should please.
For the sake of variety and from a consciousness of my own weakness
I was induced to request the assistance of a Friend, who furnished me
with the Poems of the ANCIENT MARINER, the FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE, the
NIGHTINGALE, the DUNGEON, and the Poem entitled LOVE. I should not,
however, have requested this assistance, had I not believed that the
poems of my Friend would in a great measure have the same tendency
as my own, and that, though there would be found a difference, there
would be found no discordance in the colours of our style; as our
opinions on the subject of poetry do almost entirely coincide.
Several of my Friends are anxious for the success of these Poems
from a belief, that if the views, with which they were composed,
were indeed realized, a class of Poetry would be produced, well
adapted to interest mankind permanently, and not unimportant in the
multiplicity and in the quality of its moral relations: and on this
account they have advised me to prefix a systematic defence of the
theory, upon which the poems were written. But I was unwilling to
undertake the task, because I knew that on this occasion the Reader
would look coldly upon my arguments, since I might be suspected of
having been principally influenced by the selfish and foolish hope
of _reasoning_ him into an approbation of these particular Poems:
and I was still more unwilling to undertake the task, because
adequately to display my opinions and fully to enforce my arguments
would require a space wholly disproportionate to the nature of a
preface. For to treat the subject with the clearness and coherence,
of which I believe it susceptible, it would be necessary to give a
full account of the present state of the public taste in this country,
and to determine how far this taste is healthy or depraved; which
again could not be determined, without pointing out, in what manner
language and the human mind act and react on each other, and without
retracing the revolutions not of literature alone but likewise of
society itself. I have therefore altogether declined to enter
regularly upon this defence; yet I am sensible, that there would be
some impropriety in abruptly obtruding upon the Public, without a
few words of introduction, Poems so materially different from those,
upon which general approbation is at present bestowed.
It is supposed, that by the act of writing in verse an Author makes
a formal engagement that he will gratify certain known habits of
association, that he not only thus apprizes the Reader that certain
classes of ideas and expressions will be found in his book, but that
others will be carefully excluded. This exponent or symbol held
forth by metrical language must in different aeras of literature
have excited very different expectations: for example, in the age of
Catullus Terence and Lucretius, and that of Statius or Claudian, and
in our own country, in the age of Shakespeare and Beaumont and
Fletcher, and that of Donne and Cowley, or Dryden, or Pope. I will
not take upon me to determine the exact import of the promise which
by the act of writing in verse an Author in the present day makes to
his Reader; but I am certain it will appear to many persons that I
have not fulfilled the terms of an engagement thus voluntarily
contracted. I hope therefore the Reader will not censure me, if I
attempt to state what I have proposed to myself to perform, and also,
(as far as the limits of a preface will permit) to explain some of
the chief reasons which have determined me in the choice of my
purpose: that at least he may be spared any unpleasant feeling of
disappointment, and that I myself may be protected from the most
dishonorable accusation which can be brought against an Author,
namely, that of an indolence which prevents him from endeavouring to
ascertain what is his duty, or, when his duty is ascertained
prevents him from performing it.
The principal object then which I proposed to myself in these Poems
was to make the incidents of common life interesting by tracing in
them, truly though not ostentatiously, the primary laws of our nature:
chiefly as far as regards the manner in which we associate ideas in
a state of excitement. Low and rustic life was generally chosen
because in that situation the essential passions of the heart find a
better soil in which they can attain their maturity, are less under
restraint, and speak a plainer and more emphatic language; because
in that situation our elementary feelings exist in a state of
greater simplicity and consequently may be more accurately
contemplated and more forcibly communicated; because the manners of
rural life germinate from those elementary feelings; and from the
necessary character of rural occupations are more easily comprehended;
and are more durable; and lastly, because in that situation the
passions of men are incorporated with the beautiful and permanent
forms of nature. The language too of these men is adopted (purified
indeed from what appear to be its real defects, from all lasting and
rational causes of dislike or disgust) because such men hourly
communicate with the best objects from which the best part of
language is originally derived; and because, from their rank in
society and the sameness and narrow circle of their intercourse,
being less under the action of social vanity they convey their
feelings and notions in simple and unelaborated expressions.
Accordingly such a language arising out of repeated experience and
regular feelings is a more permanent and a far more philosophical
language than that which is frequently substituted for it by Poets,
who think that they are conferring honour upon themselves and their
art in proportion as they separate themselves from the sympathies of
men, and indulge in arbitrary and capricious habits of expression in
order to furnish food for fickle tastes and fickle appetites of
their own creation.[1]
[Footnote 1: It is worth while here to observe that the affecting
parts of Chaucer are almost always expressed in language pure and
universally intelligible even to this day.]
I cannot be insensible of the present outcry against the triviality
and meanness both of thought and language, which some of my
contemporaries have occasionally introduced into their metrical
compositions; and I acknowledge that this defect where it exists, is
more dishonorable to the Writer's own character than false
refinement or arbitrary innovation, though I should contend at the
same time that it is far less pernicious in the sum of its
consequences. From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be
found distinguished at least by one mark of difference, that each of
them has a worthy _purpose_. Not that I mean to say, that I always
began to write with a distinct purpose formally conceived; but I
believe that my habits of meditation have so formed my feelings, as
that my descriptions of such objects as strongly excite those
feelings, will be found to carry along with them a _purpose_. If in
this opinion I am mistaken I can have little right to the name of a
Poet. For all good poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings; but though this be true, Poems to which any value can be
attached, were never produced on any variety of subjects but by a
man who being possessed of more than usual organic sensibility had
also thought long and deeply. For our continued influxes of feeling
are modified and directed by our thoughts, which are indeed the
representatives of all our past feelings; and as by contemplating
the relation of these general representatives to each other, we
discover what is really important to men, so by the repetition and
continuance of this act feelings connected with important subjects
will be nourished, till at length, if we be originally possessed of
much organic sensibility, such habits of mind will be produced that
by obeying blindly and mechanically the impulses of those habits we
shall describe objects and utter sentiments of such a nature and in
such connection with each other, that the understanding of the being
to whom we address ourselves, if he be in a healthful state of
association, must necessarily be in some degree enlightened, his
taste exalted, and his affections ameliorated.
I have said that each of these poems has a purpose. I have also
informed my Reader what this purpose will be found principally to be:
namely to illustrate the manner in which our feelings and ideas are
associated in a state of excitement. But speaking in less general
language, it is to follow the fluxes and refluxes of the mind when
agitated by the great and simple affections of our nature. This
object I have endeavoured in these short essays to attain by various
means; by tracing the maternal passion through many of its more
subtle windings, as in the poems of the IDIOT BOY and the MAD MOTHER;
by accompanying the last struggles of a human being at the approach
of death, cleaving in solitude to life and society, as in the Poem
of the FORSAKEN INDIAN; by shewing, as in the Stanzas entitled WE
ARE SEVEN, the perplexity and obscurity which in childhood attend
our notion of death, or rather our utter inability to admit that
notion; or by displaying the strength of fraternal, or to speak more
philosophically, of moral attachment when early associated with the
great and beautiful objects of nature, as in THE BROTHERS; or, as in
the Incident of SIMON LEE, by placing my Reader in the way of
receiving from ordinary moral sensations another and more salutary
impression than we are accustomed to receive from them. It has also
been part of my general purpose to attempt to sketch characters
under the influence of less impassioned feelings, as in the OLD MAN
TRAVELLING, THE TWO THIEVES, &c. characters of which the elements
are simple, belonging rather to nature than to manners, such as
exist now and will probably always exist, and which from their
constitution may be distinctly and profitably contemplated. I will
not abuse the indulgence of my Reader by dwelling longer upon this
subject; but it is proper that I should mention one other
circumstance which distinguishes these Poems from the popular Poetry
of the day; it is this, that the feeling therein developed gives
importance to the action and situation and not the action and
situation to the feeling. My meaning will be rendered perfectly
intelligible by referring my Reader to the Poems entitled POOR SUSAN
and the CHILDLESS FATHER, particularly to the last Stanza of the
latter Poem.
I will not suffer a sense of false modesty to prevent me from
asserting, that I point my Reader's attention to this mark of
distinction far less for the sake of these particular Poems than
from the general importance of the subject. The subject is indeed
important! For the human mind is capable of excitement without the
application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very
faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this,
and who does not further know that one being is elevated above
another in proportion as he possesses this capability. It has
therefore appeared to me that to endeavour to produce or enlarge
this capability is one of the best services in which, at any period,
a Writer can be engaged; but this service, excellent at all times,
is especially so at the present day. For a multitude of causes
unknown to former times are now acting with a combined force to
blunt the discriminating powers of the mind, and unfitting it for
all voluntary exertion to reduce it to a state of almost savage
torpor. The most effective of these causes are the great national
events which are daily taking place, and the encreasing accumulation
of men in cities, where the uniformity of their occupations produces
a craving for extraordinary incident which the rapid communication
of intelligence hourly gratifies. To this tendency of life and
manners the literature and theatrical exhibitions of the country have
conformed themselves. The invaluable works of our elder writers, I
had almost said the works of Shakespeare and Milton, are driven into
neglect by frantic novels, sickly and stupid German Tragedies, and
deluges of idle and extravagant stories in verse.--When I think upon
this degrading thirst after outrageous stimulation I am almost
ashamed to have spoken of the feeble effort with which I have
endeavoured to counteract it; and reflecting upon the magnitude of
the general evil, I should be oppressed with no dishonorable
melancholy, had I not a deep impression of certain inherent and
indestructible qualities of the human mind, and likewise of certain
powers in the great and permanent objects that act upon it which are
equally inherent and indestructible; and did I not further add to
this impression a belief that the time is approaching when the evil
will be systematically opposed by men of greater powers and with far
more distinguished success.
Having dwelt thus long on the subjects and aim of these Poems, I
shall request the Reader's permission to apprize him of a few
circumstances relating to their _style_, in order, among other
reasons, that I may not be censured for not having performed what I
never attempted. Except in a very few instances the Reader will find
no personifications of abstract ideas in these volumes, not that I
mean to censure such personifications: they may be well fitted for
certain sorts of composition, but in these Poems I propose to myself
to imitate, and, as far as possible, to adopt the very language of
men, and I do not find that such personifications make any regular
or natural part of that language. I wish to keep my Reader in the
company of flesh and blood, persuaded that by so doing I shall
interest him. Not but that I believe that others who pursue a
different track may interest him likewise: I do not interfere with
their claim, I only wish to prefer a different claim of my own.
There will also be found in these volumes little of what is usually
called poetic diction; I have taken as much pains to avoid it as
others ordinarily take to produce it; this I have done for the
reason already alleged, to bring my language near to the language of
men, and further, because the pleasure which I have proposed to
myself to impart is of a kind very different from that which is
supposed by many persons to be the proper object of poetry. I do not
know how without being culpably particular I can give my Reader a
more exact notion of the style in which I wished these poems to be
written than by informing him that I have at all times endeavoured
to look steadily at my subject, consequently I hope it will be found
that there is in these Poems little falsehood of description, and
that my ideas are expressed in language fitted to their respective
importance. Something I must have gained by this practice, as it is
friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely good sense; but
it has necessarily cut me off from a large portion of phrases and
figures of speech which from father to son have long been regarded
as the common inheritance of Poets. I have also thought it expedient
to restrict myself still further, having abstained from the use of
many expressions, in themselves proper and beautiful, but which have
been foolishly repeated by bad Poets till such feelings of disgust
are connected with them as it is scarcely possible by any art of
association to overpower.
If in a Poem there should be found a series of lines, or even a
single line, in which the language, though naturally arranged and
according to the strict laws of metre, does not differ from that of
prose, there is a numerous class of critics who, when they stumble
upon these prosaisms as they call them, imagine that they have made
a notable discovery, and exult over the Poet as over a man ignorant
of his own profession. Now these men would establish a canon of
criticism which the Reader will conclude he must utterly reject if he
wishes to be pleased with these volumes. And it would be a most easy
task to prove to him that not only the language of a large portion
of every good poem, even of the most elevated character, must
necessarily, except with reference to the metre, in no respect
differ from that of good prose, but likewise that some of the most
interesting parts of the best poems will be found to be strictly the
language of prose when prose is well written. The truth of this
assertion might be demonstrated by innumerable passages from almost
all the poetical writings, even of Milton himself. I have not space
for much quotation; but, to illustrate the subject in a general
manner, I will here adduce a short composition of Gray, who was at
the head of those who by their reasonings have attempted to widen
the space of separation betwixt Prose and Metrical composition, and
was more than any other man curiously elaborate in the structure of
his own poetic diction.
In vain to me the smiling mornings shine,
And reddening Phoebus lifts his golden fire:
The birds in vain their amorous descant join,
Or chearful fields resume their green attire:
These ears alas! for other notes repine;
_A different object do these eyes require;
My lonely anguish melts no heart but mine;
And in my breast the imperfect joys expire;_
Yet Morning smiles the busy race to cheer,
And new-born pleasure brings to happier men;
The fields to all their wonted tribute bear;
To warm their little loves the birds complain.
_I fruitless mourn to him that cannot hear
And weep the more because I weep in vain._
It will easily be perceived that the only part of this Sonnet which
is of any value is the lines printed in Italics: it is equally
obvious that except in the rhyme, and in the use of the single word
"fruitless" for fruitlessly, which is so far a defect, the language
of these lines does in no respect differ from that of prose.
Is there then, it will be asked, no essential difference between the
language of prose and metrical composition? I answer that there
neither is nor can be any essential difference. We are fond of
tracing the resemblance between Poetry and Painting, and, accordingly,
we call them Sisters: but where shall we find bonds of connection
sufficiently strict to typify the affinity betwixt metrical and
prose composition? They both speak by and to the same organs; the
bodies in which both of them are clothed may be said to be of the
same substance, their affections are kindred and almost identical,
not necessarily differing even in degree; Poetry [2] sheds no tears
"such as Angels weep," but natural and human tears; she can boast of
no celestial Ichor that distinguishes her vital juices from those of
prose; the same human blood circulates through the veins of them both.
[Footnote 2: I here use the word "Poetry" (though against my own
judgment) as opposed to the word Prose, and synonomous with metrical
composition. But much confusion has been introduced into criticism
by this contradistinction of Poetry and Prose, instead of the more
philosophical one of Poetry and Science. The only strict antithesis
to Prose is Metre.]
If it be affirmed that rhyme and metrical arrangement of themselves
constitute a distinction which overturns what I have been saying on
the strict affinity of metrical language with that of prose, and
paves the way for other distinctions which the mind voluntarily
admits, I answer that the distinction of rhyme and metre is regular
and uniform, and not, like that which is produced by what is usually
called poetic diction, arbitrary and subject to infinite caprices
upon which no calculation whatever can be made. In the one case
the Reader is utterly at the mercy of the Poet respecting what
imagery or diction he may choose to connect with the passion,
whereas in the other the metre obeys certain laws, to which the
Poet and Reader both willingly submit because they are certain,
and because no interference is made by them with the passion but
such as the concurring testimony of ages has shewn to heighten
and improve the pleasure which co-exists with it. It will now
be proper to answer an obvious question, namely, why, professing
these opinions have I written in verse? To this in the first place
I reply, because, however I may have restricted myself, there is
still left open to me what confessedly constitutes the most valuable
object of all writing whether in prose or verse, the great and
universal passions of men, the most general and interesting of
their occupations, and the entire world of nature, from which I am
at liberty to supply myself with endless combinations of forms and
imagery. Now, granting for a moment that whatever is interesting in
these objects may be as vividly described in prose, why am I to be
condemned if to such description I have endeavoured to superadd the
charm which by the consent of all nations is acknowledged to exist
in metrical language? To this it will be answered, that a very small
part of the pleasure given by Poetry depends upon the metre, and
that it is injudicious to write in metre unless it be accompanied
with the other artificial distinctions of style with which metre is
usually accompanied, and that by such deviation more will be lost
from the shock which will be thereby given to the Reader's
associations than will be counterbalanced by any pleasure which he
can derive from the general power of numbers. In answer to those who
thus contend for the necessity of accompanying metre with certain
appropriate colours of style in order to the accomplishment of its
appropriate end, and who also, in my opinion, greatly under-rate the
power of metre in itself, it might perhaps be almost sufficient to
observe that poems are extant, written upon more humble subjects,
and in a more naked and simple style than what I have aimed at,
which poems have continued to give pleasure from generation to
generation. Now, if nakedness and simplicity be a defect, the fact
here mentioned affords a strong presumption that poems somewhat less
naked and simple are capable of affording pleasure at the present day;
and all that I am now attempting is to justify myself for having
written under the impression of this belief.
But I might point out various causes why, when the style is manly,
and the subject of some importance, words metrically arranged will
long continue to impart such a pleasure to mankind as he who is
sensible of the extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart.
The end of Poetry is to produce excitement in coexistence with an
overbalance of pleasure. Now, by the supposition, excitement is an
unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas and feelings do not
in that state succeed each other in accustomed order. But if the
words by which this excitement is produced are in themselves powerful,
or the images and feelings have an undue proportion of pain connected
with them, there is some danger that the excitement may be carried
beyond its proper bounds. Now the co-presence of something regular,
something to which the mind has been accustomed when in an unexcited
or a less excited state, cannot but have great efficacy in tempering
and restraining the passion by an intertexture of ordinary feeling.
This may be illustrated by appealing to the Reader's own experience
of the reluctance with which he comes to the re-perusal of the
distressful parts of Clarissa Harlowe, or the Gamester. While
Shakespeare's writings, in the most pathetic scenes, never act upon
us as pathetic beyond the bounds of pleasure--an effect which is in
a great degree to be ascribed to small, but continual and regular
impulses of pleasurable surprise from the metrical arrangement.--On
the other hand (what it must be allowed will much more frequently
happen) if the Poet's words should be incommensurate with the passion,
and inadequate to raise the Reader to a height of desirable
excitement, then, (unless the Poet's choice of his metre has been
grossly injudicious) in the feelings of pleasure which the Reader
has been accustomed to connect with metre in general, and in the
feeling, whether chearful or melancholy, which he has been
accustomed to connect with that particular movement of metre, there
will be found something which will greatly contribute to impart
passion to the words, and to effect the complex end which the Poet
proposes to himself.
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