Francis Wrangham

The text received his final corrections in the year eighteen thirty-two.

Wordsworth's reluctance to publish these portions of his great poem, The Recluse, other than the Excursion during his lifetime, was a matter of surprise to his friends, to whom he or the ladies of his household had read portions of it.

In the year eighteen nineteen, Charles Lamb wrote to him, "If, as you say, the wagoner in some sort came at my call, oh, for a potent voice to call forth the recluse from his profound dormitory, where he sleeps forgetful of his foolish charge, the world." The Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Enger, volume two, page twenty-six.

The admission made in the letter of May first, eighteen oh five, is noteworthy.

Time, place, and manners do I seek, and those are found in plenteous store, but nowhere such as may be singled out with steady choice; no little band of yet remembered names, whom I, in perfect confidence, might hope to summon back from lonesome banishment, and make them dwellers in the hearts of men now living, or to live in future years.

Sometimes the ambitious power of choice, mistaking proud spring-tide swellings for a regular sea, will settle on some British theme: some old romantic tale by Milton left unsung More often turning to some gentle place within the groves of chivalry, I pipe to shepherd swains, or, seated harp in hand amid reposing knights by a river side or fountain, listen to the grave reports of dire enchantments faced and overcome by the strong mind, and tales of warlike feats, where spear encountered spear, and sword with sword fought, as if conscious of the blazonry that the shield bore, so glorious was the strife: whence inspiration for a song that winds through ever-changing scenes of votive quest, wrongs to redress, harmonious tribute paid to patient courage and unblemished truth, to firm devotion, zeal unquenchable, and Christian meekness hallowing faithful loves.

Sometimes more sternly moved, I would relate how vanquished Mithridates northward passed, and, hidden in the cloud of years, became Odin, the father of a race by whom perished the Roman empire; how the friends and followers of Sertorius, out of Spain flying, found shelter in the Fortunate Isles, and left their usages, their arts and laws, to disappear by a slow gradual death, to dwindle and to perish one by one, starved in these narrow bounds: but not the soul of liberty, which fifteen hundred years survived, and when the European came with skill and power that might not be withstood, did, like a pestilence, maintain its hold, and wasted down by glorious death that race of natural heroes.

Or I would record how, in tyrannic times, some high-souled man, unnamed among the chronicles of kings, suffered in silence for truth's sake; or tell how that one Frenchman, through continued force of meditation on the inhuman deeds of those who conquered first the Indian Isles, went single in his ministry across the ocean, not to comfort the oppressed, but like a thirsty wind to roam about withering the oppressor: how Gustavus sought help at his need in Gallicalia's mines: how Wallace fought for Scotland, left the name of Wallace to be found like a wild flower all over his dear country, left the deeds of Wallace like a family of ghosts to people the steep rocks and river banks, her natural sanctuaries, with a local soul of independence and stern liberty.

Caverns there were within my mind which sun could never penetrate, yet did there not want store of leafy arbors where the light might enter in at will.

Companionships, friendships, acquaintances were welcome all.

We sauntered, played, or rioted.

We talked unprofitable talk at morning hours, drifted about along the streets and walks, read lazily in trivial books, went forth to gallop through the country in blind zeal of senseless horsemanship, or on the breast of Cam sailed boisterously, and let the stars come forth, perhaps without one quiet thought.