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The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 6 (of 8)

Chapter 38: ODE
By William Wordsworth
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British LiteraturePoetry

About This Book

A varied collection of lyric and narrative poems, odes, and meditative pieces that move between intimate responses to particular landscapes and broader classical or historical reflection. Recurring concerns include the relationship between humans and nature, memory and loss, spiritual contemplation, and reactions to public events; forms range from short lyrics and inscriptions to longer blank-verse meditations and dramatic scenes. Frequent classical allusions and moral questioning refract personal feeling into wider imaginative inquiry, while vivid depictions of rivers, hills, storms, and rural life provide concrete settings for elegiac, contemplative, and celebratory moods.

[153] 1837.

1816.
  .    .    .   my soul's desires!

FOOTNOTES:

[BL] The title of this Ode, when first published along with the Thanksgiving Ode, was Ode, composed in January 1816. In 1845 the date 1814 was given; but there seems no reason to distrust the earlier one.—Ed.

[BM] These lines were first inserted in the edition of 1827.—Ed.

[BN] Compare Ode, Intimations of Immortality, etc., stanza ix.—

But for those first affections,
Ed.
Those shadowy recollections.

[BO] Haydon painted Wellington on the field of Waterloo. Compare the sonnet which Wordsworth wrote on that picture, in 1840, beginning—

Ed.
By Art's hold privilege Warrior and War-horse stand.

[BP] The allusion is to the picture of the battle of Marathon, on the walls of the Stoa Poecile, in Athens. Compare the Effusion, in presence of Tell's Tower, in the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" (1820), st. i. and note.—Ed.

[BQ] In many places throughout Britain this was carried out. Statues to the memory of Wellington were erected in many towns, and buildings were named after him.—Ed.

[BR] In many places throughout Britain this was carried out. Statues to the memory of Wellington were erected in many towns, and buildings were named after him.—Ed.

[BS] The nine Muses, called the Pierides, from Pieria, near Olympus, where they were said to have been born, or first worshipped by the Thracians.—Ed.

[BT] Compare the first line of the Extract from the conclusion of a poem, composed in anticipation of leaving school (vol. i. p. 2)—

. Ed.
Dear native regions, I foretell>

[BU] Compare Schiller's Piccolomini, in S. T. Coleridge's version (act II. scene 4)—

The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The power, the beauty, and the majesty,
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and wat'ry depths; all these have vanished.
They live no longer in the faith of reason!
But still the heart doth need a language, still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old names,
And to yon starry world they now are gone,
Spirits or gods, that used to share this earth
With man as with their friend; and to the lover
Yonder they move, from yonder visible sky
Shoot influence down: and even at this day
'Tis Jupiter who brings whate'er is great,
Ed.
And Venus who brings everything that's fair!

ODE

Composed 1816.—Published 1816

Included in 1820 among the "Poems of the Imagination," afterwards placed among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.

I

Who rises on the banks of Seine,
And binds her temples with the civic wreath?
What joy to read the promise of her mien!
How sweet to rest her wide-spread wings beneath!
5
But they are ever playing,
And twinkling in the light,
And, if a breeze be straying,
That breeze she will invite;
And stands on tiptoe, conscious she is fair,
10
And calls a look of love into her face,
And spreads her arms, as if the general air
Alone could satisfy her wide embrace.
—Melt, Principalities, before her melt!
Her love ye hailed—her wrath have felt!
15
But She through many a change of form hath gone,
And stands amidst you now an armèd creature,
Whose panoply is not a thing put on,
But the live scales of a portentous nature;
19
That, having forced[154] its way from birth to birth,
Stalks round-abhorred by Heaven, a terror to the Earth!

II

I marked the breathings of her dragon crest;
My Soul, a sorrowful interpreter,
In many a midnight vision bowed
Before the ominous aspect of her spear;[155]
25
Whether the mighty beam, in scorn upheld,
Threatened her foes,—or, pompously at rest,
Seemed to bisect her orbèd shield,
As stretches a blue bar of solid cloud[156]
Across the setting sun and all the fiery west.[157]

III

30
So did she daunt the Earth, and God defy!
And, wheresoe'er she spread her sovereignty,
Pollution tainted all that was most pure.
—Have we not known—and live we not to tell—
That Justice seemed to hear her final knell?
35
Faith buried deeper in her own deep breast
Her stores, and sighed to find them insecure!
And Hope was maddened by the drops that fell
From shades, her chosen place of short-lived rest.[158]
Shame followed shame, and woe supplanted woe—
40
Is this the only change that time can show?
How long shall vengeance sleep? Ye patient Heavens, how long?
—Infirm ejaculation! from the tongue
Of Nations wanting virtue to be strong
Up to the measure of accorded might,
45
And daring not to feel the majesty of right!

IV

Weak Spirits are there—who would ask,
Upon the pressure of a painful thing,
The lion's sinews, or the eagle's wing;
Or let their wishes loose, in forest-glade,
50
Among the lurking powers
Of herbs and lowly flowers,
Or seek, from saints above, miraculous aid—
That Man may be accomplished for a task
Which his own nature hath enjoined;—and why?
55
If, when that interference hath relieved him,
He must sink down to languish
In worse than former helplessness—and lie
Till the caves roar,—and, imbecility
Again engendering anguish,
60
The same weak wish returns, that had before deceived him.

V

But Thou, supreme Disposer! may'st[159] not speed
The course of things, and change the creed
Which hath been held aloft before men's sight
Since the first framing of societies,
65
Whether, as bards have told in ancient song,
Built up by soft seducing harmonies;
Or prest together by the appetite,
And by the power, of wrong.

The date of the composition of this Ode is uncertain. Wordsworth himself gives no clue: but it seems to refer to the rise of the French Republic, with its illusive promises of Liberty: the freedom of the many being sacrificed to the despotism of one. The Republic passed "through many a change of form." It became both tyrannous and aggressive. The "Principalities" of Europe "melted" before it. It stood forth "an armèd creature," and "a terror to the Earth." It in turn put down "Justice," "Faith," and "Hope" throughout Europe; and the writer of the Ode says,

How long shall vengeance sleep? Ye patient Heavens, how long?

The allusions in stanza iv. suggest that this Ode was written before Waterloo, and the final overthrow of the power of Napoleon, but it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the point with exactness from internal evidence.

The reference in the last stanza may be to the legend of Amphion moving stones, and building up the walls of Thebes, by the sound of his lyre; the stones advancing to their places, and being fitted together, as he played his instrument. Compare Tennyson's Amphion.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

[154] 1845.

1816.
That, having wrought    .    .    .

[155] 1827.

My soul in many a midnight vision bowed
1816.
Before the meanings which her spear expressed;

[156] 1827.

Seemed to bisect the orbit of her shield,
1816.
Like to a long blue bar of solid cloud

[157] 1845.

1816.
At evening stretched across the fiery West.
1827.
Across the setting sun, and through the fiery west.
1837.
Across the setting sun—and through all the fiery west.

[158] 1827.

   .    .    . short-lived rest,
1816.
Which, when they first received her, she had blest:

[159] 1827.

1816.
   .    .    .    .    . might'st    .    .    .

THE FRENCH ARMY IN RUSSIA, 1812-13[160]

Composed 1816.—Published 1816

This was first published in 1816 in the "Miscellaneous Pieces, referring chiefly to recent public Events," in the volume entitled Thanksgiving Ode, January 18, 1816, with other short pieces, etc. In 1820 it was placed among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty, Part II."—Ed.

Humanity, delighting to behold
A fond reflection of her own decay,
Hath painted Winter like a traveller old,
Propped on a staff, and, through the sullen day,
5
In hooded mantle, limping o'er the plain,[161]
As though his weakness were disturbed by pain:
Or, if a juster fancy should allow
An undisputed symbol of command,
The chosen sceptre is a withered bough,
10
Infirmly grasped within a palsied hand.
These emblems suit the helpless and forlorn;
But mighty Winter the device shall scorn.
For he it was—dread Winter! who beset,
Flinging round van and rear his ghastly net,
15
That host, when from the regions of the Pole
They shrunk, insane ambition's barren goal—
That host, as huge and strong as e'er defied
Their God, and placed their trust in human pride!
As fathers persecute rebellious sons,
20
He smote the blossoms of their warrior youth;
He called on Frost's inexorable tooth
Life to consume in Manhood's firmest hold;
Nor spared the reverend blood that feebly runs;
For why—unless for liberty enrolled
25
And sacred home—ah! why should hoary Age be bold?
Fleet the Tartar's reinless steed,
But fleeter far the pinions of the Wind,
Which from Siberian caves the Monarch freed,
And sent him forth, with squadrons of his kind,
30
And bade the Snow their ample backs bestride,
And to the battle ride.
No pitying voice commands a halt,
No courage can repel the dire assault;
Distracted, spiritless, benumbed, and blind,
35
Whole legions sink—and, in one instant, find
Burial and death: look for them—and descry,
When morn returns, beneath the clear blue sky,
A soundless waste, a trackless vacancy!

The French "retreat from Moscow was perhaps the most disastrous on record since the days of Xerxes.... On the night of 6th November, the temperature suddenly fell to that of the most rigorous winter. In that dreadful night thousands of men perished, and nearly all the horses, which compelled the abandonment of the greater part of the convoys. From this point the road began to be strewn with corpses, presenting the aspect of one continuous battlefield.... At Smolensk the cold was at 20 degrees of Réaumur." (Dyer's History of Modern Europe, vol. iv. pp. 518, 519.)—Ed.

VARIANTS:

[160] 1827.

The original title was Composed in Recollection of the Expedition of the French into Russia.
1816. February 1816.

[161] 1820.

Hath painted Winter like a shrunken, old,
And close-wrapt Traveller—through the weary day—
1816.
Propped on a staff, and limping o'er the Plain,

ON THE SAME OCCASION[162]

Composed 1816.—Published 1816

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.

Ye Storms, resound the praises of your King!
And ye mild Seasons—in a sunny clime,
Midway on some high hill, while father Time
Looks on delighted—meet in festal ring,
5
And loud and long of Winter's triumph sing!
Sing ye, with blossoms crowned, and fruits, and flowers,
Of Winter's breath surcharged with sleety showers,
And the dire flapping of his hoary wing!
Knit the blithe dance upon the soft green grass;
10
With feet, hands, eyes, looks, lips, report your gain;
Whisper it to the billows of the main,
And to the aërial zephyrs as they pass,
That old decrepit Winter—He hath slain
That Host, which rendered all your bounties vain!

VARIANTS:

[162] 1820.

The title in 1816 was
Sonnet on the same occasion. February 1816.

SIEGE OF VIENNA RAISED BY JOHN
SOBIESKI[BV]

February, 1816

Composed February 4, 1816.—Published 1816

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.

O, for a kindling touch from that pure flame
Which ministered, erewhile, to a sacrifice
Of gratitude, beneath Italian skies,
In words like these: "Up, Voice of Song! proclaim
5
Thy saintly rapture with celestial aim:
For lo! the Imperial City stands released[163]
From bondage threatened by the embattled East,
And Christendom respires;[164] from guilt and shame
Redeemed, from miserable fear set free
10
By one day's feat, one mighty victory.
—Chant the Deliverer's praise in every tongue!
The cross shall spread, the crescent hath waxed dim;
He conquering, as in joyful Heaven is sung,[165]
He conquering through God, and God by him." [BW]

VARIANTS:

[BV] 1816.

The title at first was February 1816.—Ed.

[163] 1837.

.    .    . touch of that pure flame
Which taught the offering of song to rise
From thy lone bower, beneath Italian skies,
Great Filicaia!—With celestial aim
It rose,—thy saintly rapture to proclaim,
1816.
Then, when the imperial city stood released

[164] 1837.

1816.
.    .    . respired; .    .    .

[165] 1837.

1816.
.    .    . —as in Earth and Heaven was sung—

FOOTNOTES:

[BW]

Ond' è ch' Io grido e griderò: giugnesti,
Guerregiasti, e vincesti;
Si, si, vincesti, o Campion forte e pio,
Per Dio vincesti, e per te vinse Iddio.

See Filicaia's Canzone, addressed to (Sir) John Sobieski, king of Poland, upon his raising the siege of Vienna. This, and his other poems on the same occasion, are superior perhaps to any lyrical pieces that contemporary events have ever given birth to, those of the Hebrew Scriptures only excepted.—W. W. (1816 and 1820.)

Vienna, besieged in 1683 by Mahomet IV., was relieved by John Sobieski. The following is Dyer's account of it in his Modern Europe (vol. iii. p. 109):—"At one time Vienna seemed beyond the reach of human aid. The Turks sat down before it on 14th July, and such were their numbers that their encampment is said to have contained more than 100,000 tents. It was the middle of August before John Sobieski could leave Cracow with 25,000 men, and by the end of that month the situation of Vienna had become extremely critical. Provisions and ammunition began to fail; the garrison had lost 6000 men, and numbers died every day by pestilence, or at the hands of the enemy. It was not till 9th September that Sobieski and his Poles formed a junction on the plain of Tuln with the Austrian forces under the Duke of Lorraine, and the other German contingents. On 11th September, the allies reached the heights of Kahlenberg, within sight of Vienna, and announced their arrival to the beleaguered citizens by means of rockets. On the following day the Turks were attacked, and, after a few hours' resistance, completely routed.... The Turkish camp, with vast treasures in money, jewels, horses, arms, and ammunition, became the spoil of the victors."

The Italian poet Filicaia referred to by Wordsworth (Filicaja, Vincenzo), wrote six odes on the deliverance of Vienna by Sobieski. They were published in Florence in the following year, 1684, and established the writer's fame. Queen Christina of Sweden was much struck by them; and, being a generous patroness and admirer of letters, she enabled Filicaja to devote himself to poetry exclusively as his life-work. He wrote numerous patriotic sonnets and heroic odes, in Italian and in Latin.—Ed.

OCCASIONED BY THE BATTLE
OF WATERLOO[166]

(The last six lines intended for an Inscription.)

February, 1816

Composed February 4, 1816.—Published 1816

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.

Intrepid sons of Albion! not by you
Is life despised; ah no, the spacious earth
Ne'er saw a race who held, by right of birth,
So many objects to which love is due:
5
Ye slight not life—to God and Nature true;
But death, becoming death, is dearer far,
When duty bids you bleed in open war:
Hence hath your prowess quelled that impious crew.
Heroes!—for instant sacrifice prepared;
10
Yet filled with ardour and on triumph bent
'Mid direst shocks of mortal accident—
To you who fell, and you whom slaughter spared
To guard the fallen, and consummate the event,
Your Country rears this sacred Monument!

It need hardly be said that the intention of using the six last lines as an "Inscription" was never carried into effect. The infelicity of the second last line is fatal to its use on any "monument." The punctuation of the Sonnet as it appeared in The Champion, January 2, 1814, differs slightly from the above.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

[166] 1820.

1816.

The full title in 1816 was Inscription for a national monument in commemoration of the Battle of Waterloo.

OCCASIONED BY THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO[167]

February, 1816

Composed February 4, 1816.—Published 1816

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.

The Bard—whose soul is meek as dawning day,
Yet trained to judgments righteously severe,
Fervid, yet conversànt with holy fear,
As recognising one Almighty sway:
5
He—whose experienced eye can pierce the array
Of past events; to whom, in vision clear,
The aspiring heads of future things appear,
Like mountain-tops whose[168] mists have rolled away—
Assoiled from all encumbrance of our time,[BX]
10
He only, if such breathe, in strains devout
Shall comprehend this victory sublime;
Shall[169] worthily rehearse the hideous rout,
The triumph hail, which from their peaceful clime
Angels might welcome with a choral shout![170]

VARIANTS:

[167] 1837.

1816.

The title in 1816 was Occasioned by the same battle, February 1816

[168] 1820.

1816.
Like mountain-tops whence .    .    .

[169] 1837.

1816.
And .    .    .

[170] 1837.

Which the blest Angels, from their peaceful clime
1816.
Beholding, welcomed with a choral shout.

FOOTNOTES:

[BX] "From all this world's encumbrance did himself assoil."—Spenser. W. W. 1816.

In a MS. copy of the sonnet, Wordsworth wrote it thus: "In the above is a line taken from Spenser—

And hanging up his arms and warlike spoil,
Ed.
From all this world's encumbrance did himself assoil."

"EMPERORS AND KINGS, HOW OFT HAVE TEMPLES RUNG"

Composed 1816.—Published 1827

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.

Emperors and Kings, how oft have temples rung
With impious thanksgiving, the Almighty's scorn!
How oft above their altars have been hung
Trophies that led the good and wise to mourn
5
Triumphant wrong, battle of battle born,
And sorrow that to fruitless sorrow clung!
Now, from Heaven-sanctioned victory, Peace is sprung;[BY]
In this firm hour Salvation lifts her horn.
Glory to arms! But, conscious that the nerve
10
Of popular reason, long mistrusted, freed
Your thrones, ye Powers, from duty fear to swerve![171]
Be just, be grateful; nor, the oppressor's creed
Reviving, heavier chastisement deserve
Than ever forced unpitied hearts to bleed.

VARIANTS:

[171] 1832.

1827.
Your Thrones, from duty, Princes! fear to swerve;

FOOTNOTES:

[BY] From the position of this sonnet in the edition of 1827, as well as from manifest internal evidence, it refers, like the two previous ones, to the battle of Waterloo. Illustrations of the first six lines of the sonnet are too numerous in mediæval history to require detailed allusion.—Ed.

FEELINGS OF A FRENCH ROYALIST,[172]

On the Disinterment of the Remains of The Duke D'Enghien

Composed 1816.—Published 1816.

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty."—Ed.

Dear Reliques! from a pit of vilest mould
Uprisen—to lodge among ancestral kings;
And to inflict shame's salutary stings
On the remorseless hearts of men grown old
5
In a blind worship; men perversely bold
Even to this hour,—yet, some shall now forsake
Their monstrous Idol if the dead e'er spake,
To warn the living; if truth were ever told
By aught redeemed out of the hollow grave:[173]
10
O murdered Prince! meek, loyal, pious, brave!
The power of retribution once was given:
But 'tis a rueful thought that willow bands
So often tie the thunder-wielding hands
Of Justice sent to earth from highest Heaven!

The Duc d'Enghien, grandson of the Prince de Condé, and only son of the Duc de Bourbon, born at Chantilly in 1772, commanded the corps of Emigrés gathered on the Rhine by his grandfather. After the peace of Luneville, he retired to Ettenheim, near Strasburg, in German territory. There he married the Princess Charlotte of Rohan-Rochefort, and lived peacefully as a private citizen. He was, though wholly innocent, suspected by Napoleon of complicity in the plot of Pichegru, Cadoudal (one of the Chouans), Moreau, and others, to overthrow him as first Consul, and to restore the Bourbon dynasty. "The Duke was residing at Ettenheim, in the neutral territory of Baden, when Bonaparte, in violation of international law and the rights of the German Empire, caused him to be seized on the night of 15th March by a party of French gens d'armes, and to be carried to the castle of Vincennes, where, after a sort of mock trial, he was shot in the fosse of the fortress, March 21st" (1804).—Dyer's Modern Europe (vol. iv. p. 378). The whole of the proceedings against the Duc d'Enghien were illegal (as was confessed by the presiding judge), and his execution was one of the blackest stains on the character of Napoleon. After the Restoration, in 1814, his remains were disinterred by order of Louis XVIII., and buried in the chapel of the castle at Vincennes, where the restored king erected a monument to his memory. The "pit of vilest mould" mentioned in the sonnet, is, of course, the moat of the castle, and the phrase "to lodge among ancestral kings," refers to Vincennes having been a royal residence, where many princes died and were buried, e.g. Queen Jeanne (wife of Philippe le Bel), Louis le Hutin, and Charles le Bel. Vincennes is close to Paris, the fortress being only about five miles south-east of the Louvre. The chapel, which has a fine Gothic front, was begun in 1248, and was finished in 1552. The monument to the Duc d'Enghien is in the old Sacristy. It consists of four figures in marble, representing the Duke, supported by Religion and bewailed by France, while Vengeance waits behind. It was executed by Deseine.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

[172] The first line of the title was added in the edition of 1836, and continued afterwards.

[173] 1840.

Even to this hour; yet at this hour they quake;
And some their monstrous Idol shall forsake,
If to the living truth was ever told
1816.
By aught surrendered from the hollow grave:
1837.
To warn the living, truth were ever told

DION

(See Plutarch)

Composed 1816.—Published 1820

[This poem was first introduced by a stanza that I have since transferred to the Notes, for reasons there given,[BZ] and I cannot comply with the request expressed by some of my friends that the rejected stanza should be restored. I hope they will be content if it be, hereafter, immediately attached to the poem, instead of its being degraded to a place in the Notes.—I. F.]

FOOTNOTE: