The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Volume IV (of 8), by William Wordsworth

Lady Margaret, daughter and heiress of Lord Vesci, who married John, Lord Clifford—the Clifford of Shakespeare's Henry VI. He was killed at Ferrybridge near Knottingley in 1461. Their son was Henry, "the Shepherd-lord." His mother is buried in Londesborough Church, near Market Weighton.

Now Who is he that bounds with joy
On Carrock's side, a Shepherd-boy?

The Boy must part from Mosedale's groves,
And leave Blencathara's rugged coves.

There are many "Mosedales" in the English Lake District. The one referred to here is to the north of Blencathara or Saddleback.

And quit the flowers that summer brings
To Glenderamakin's lofty springs.

—Give Sir Lancelot Threlkeld praise!
·······
Thou tree of covert and of rest
For this young Bird that is distrest.

It was on Sir Lancelot Threlkeld's estates in Cumberland that the young Lord was concealed, disguised as a shepherd-boy. He was the "tree of covert" for the young "Bird" Henry Clifford. Compare The Waggoner, ll. 628-39 (vol. iii. p. 100)—

And see, beyond that hamlet small,
The ruined towers of Threlkeld-hall,
Lurking in a double shade,
By trees and lingering twilight made!
There, at Blencathara's rugged feet,
Sir Lancelot gave a safe retreat
To noble Clifford; from annoy
Concealed the persecuted boy,
Well pleased in rustic garb to feed
His flock, and pipe on shepherd's reed
Among this multitude of hills,
Crags, woodlands, waterfalls, and rills.

The old hall of Threlkeld has long been a ruin. Its only habitable part has been a farmhouse for many years.

And both the undying fish that swim
Through Bowscale-tarn did wait on him.

Bowscale Tarn is to the north of Blencathara. Its stream joins the Caldew river.

And into caves where Faeries sing
He hath entered.

Compare the previous reference to Blencathara's "rugged coves." There are many such on this mountain.

Alas! the impassioned minstrel did not know
How, by Heaven's grace, this Clifford's heart was framed:
How he, long forced in humble walks to go,
Was softened into feeling, soothed, and tamed.

After restoration to his ancestral estates, the Shepherd-lord preferred to live in comparative retirement. He spent most of his time at Barden Tower (see notes to The White Doe of Rylstone), which he enlarged, and where he lived with a small retinue. He was much at Bolton (which was close at hand), and there he studied astronomy and alchemy, aided by the monks. It is to the time when he lived at Threlkeld, however—wandering as a shepherd-boy, over the ridges and around the coves of Blencathara, amongst the groves of Mosedale, and by the lofty springs of Glenderamakin—that Wordsworth refers in the lines,

Love had he found in huts where poor men lie;
His daily teachers had been woods and rills,
The silence that is in the starry sky,
The sleep that is among the lonely hills.

He was at Flodden in 1513, when nearly sixty years of age, leading there the "flower of Craven."

From Penigent to Pendle Hill,
From Linton to long Addingham,
And all that Craven's coasts did till,
They with the lusty Clifford came.

when he, with spear and shield,
Rode full of years to Flodden-field.

The following is Sarah Coleridge's criticism of the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, in the editorial note to her father's Biographia Literaria (vol. ii. ch. ix. p. 152, ed. 1847):—

"The transitions and vicissitudes in this noble lyric I have always thought rendered it one of the finest specimens of modern subjective poetry which our age has seen. The ode commences in a tone of high gratulation and festivity—a tone not only glad, but comparatively even jocund and light-hearted. The Clifford is restored to the home, the honours and estates of his ancestors. Then it sinks and falls away to the remembrance of tribulation—times of war and bloodshed, flight and terror, and hiding away from the enemy—times of poverty and distress, when the Clifford was brought, a little child, to the shelter of a northern valley. After a while it emerges from those depths of sorrow—gradually rises into a strain of elevated tranquillity and contemplative rapture; through the power of imagination, the beautiful and impressive aspects of nature are brought into relationship with the spirit of him, whose fortunes and character form the subject of the piece, and are represented as gladdening and exalting it, whilst they keep it pure and unspotted from the world. Suddenly the Poet is carried on with greater animation and passion: he has returned to the point whence he started—flung himself back into the tide of stirring life and moving events. All is to come over again, struggle and conflict, chances and changes of war, victory and triumph, overthrow and desolation. I know nothing, in lyric poetry, more beautiful or affecting than the final transition from this part of the ode, with its rapid metre, to the slow elegiac stanzas at the end, when, from the warlike fervour and eagerness, the jubilant strain which has just been described, the Poet passes back into the sublime silence of Nature, gathering amid her deep and quiet bosom a more subdued and solemn tenderness than he had manifested before; it is as if from the heights of the imaginative intellect, his spirit had retreated into the recesses of a profoundly thoughtful Christian heart."

Professor Henry Reed said of this poem—"Had he never written another ode, this alone would set him at the head of the lyric poets of England."—Ed.

1808

The reasons which have led me to assign The White Doe of Rylstone to the year 1808, are stated in a note to the poem (see p. 191). I infer that it was practically finished in April 1808, because Dorothy Wordsworth, in a letter to Lady Beaumont, dated April 20, 1808, says, "The poem is to be published. Longman has consented—in spite of the odium under which my brother labours as a poet—to give him 100 guineas for 1000 copies, according to his demand." She gives no indication of the name of the poem referred to. As it must, however, have been one which was to be published separately, she can only refer to The White Doe or to The Excursion; but the latter poem was not finished in 1808.

It is probable, from the remark made in a subsequent letter to Lady Beaumont, February 1810, that Wordsworth intended either to add to what he had written in 1808, or to alter some passages before publication; or by "completing" the poem, he may have meant simply adding the Dedication, which was not written till 1815.

All things considered, it seems the best arrangement that the poems of 1808 should begin with The White Doe of Rylstone. In the year 1891 I edited this poem for the Clarendon Press. A few additional details have come to light since then, and are introduced into the notes. S. T. Coleridge's criticism of the poem in Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. chap. xxii. p. 176 (edition 1817), should be consulted.—Ed.

THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE;

[The earlier half of this poem was composed at Stockton-upon-Tees, when Mrs. Wordsworth and I were on a visit to her eldest brother, Mr. Hutchinson, at the close of the year 1807. The country is flat, and the weather was rough. I was accustomed every day to walk to and fro under the shelter of a row of stacks, in a field at a small distance from the town, and there poured forth my verses aloud as freely as they would come. Mrs. Wordsworth reminds me that her brother stood upon the punctilio of not sitting down to dinner till I joined the party; and it frequently happened that I did not make my appearance till too late, so that she was made uncomfortable. I here beg her pardon for this and similar transgressions during the whole course of our wedded life. To my beloved sister the same apology is due.

When, from the visit just mentioned, we returned to Town-end, Grasmere, I proceeded with the poem; and it may be worth while to note, as a caution to others who may cast their eye on these memoranda, that the skin having been rubbed off my heel by my wearing too tight a shoe, though I desisted from walking, I found that the irritation of the wounded part was kept up, by the act of composition, to a degree that made it necessary to give my constitution a holiday. A rapid cure was the consequence. Poetic excitement, when accompanied by protracted labour in composition, has throughout my life brought on more or less bodily derangement. Nevertheless, I am at the close of my seventy-third year, in what may be called excellent health; so that intellectual labour is not necessarily unfavourable to longevity. But perhaps I ought here to add that mine has been generally carried on out of doors.

Let me here say a few words of this poem in the way of criticism. The subject being taken from feudal times has led to its being compared to some of Walter Scott's poems that belong to the same age and state of society. The comparison is inconsiderate. Sir Walter pursued the customary and very natural course of conducting an action, presenting various turns of fortune, to some outstanding point on which the mind might rest as a termination or catastrophe. The course I have attempted to pursue is entirely different. Everything that is attempted by the principal personages in The White Doe fails, so far as its object is external and substantial. So far as it is moral and spiritual it succeeds. The heroine of the poem knows that her duty is not to interfere with the current of events, either to forward or delay them, but

to abide
The shock, and finally secure
O'er pain and grief a triumph pure.

This she does in obedience to her brother's injunction, as most suitable to a mind and character that, under previous trials, has been proved to accord with his. She achieves this not without aid from the communication with the inferior Creature, which often leads her thoughts to revolve upon the past with a tender and humanising influence that exalts rather than depresses her. The anticipated beatification, if I may so say, of her mind, and the apotheosis of the companion of her solitude, are the points at which the Poem aims, and constitute its legitimate catastrophe, far too spiritual a one for instant or widely-spread sympathy, but not, therefore, the less fitted to make a deep and permanent impression upon that class of minds who think and feel more independently, than the many do, of the surfaces of things and interests transitory, because belonging more to the outward and social forms of life than to its internal spirit. How insignificant a thing, for example, does personal prowess appear compared with the fortitude of patience and heroic martyrdom; in other words, with struggles for the sake of principle, in preference to victory gloried in for its own sake.—I. F.]

In trellised shed with clustering roses gay,[B]
And, Mary! oft beside our blazing fire,
When years of wedded life were as a day
Whose current answers to the heart's desire,
Did we together read in Spenser's Lay 5
How Una, sad of soul—in sad attire,
The gentle Una, of celestial birth,[1]
To seek her Knight went wandering o'er the earth.

Ah, then, Belovèd! pleasing was the smart,
And the tear precious in compassion shed 10
For Her, who, pierced by sorrow's thrilling dart,
Did meekly bear the pang unmerited;
Meek as that emblem of her lowly heart
The milk-white Lamb which in a line she led,—[C]
And faithful, loyal in her innocence, 15
Like the brave Lion slain in her defence.

Notes could we hear as of a faery shell
Attuned to words with sacred wisdom fraught;
Free Fancy prized each specious miracle,
And all its finer inspiration caught; 20
Till in the bosom of our rustic Cell,
We by a lamentable change were taught
That "bliss with mortal Man may not abide:"[D]
How nearly joy and sorrow are allied!

For us the stream of fiction ceased to flow, 25
For us the voice of melody was mute.
—But, as soft gales dissolve the dreary snow,
And give the timid herbage leave to shoot,
Heaven's breathing influence failed not to bestow
A timely promise of unlooked-for fruit, 30
Fair fruit of pleasure and serene content
From blossoms wild of fancies innocent.

It soothed us—it beguiled us—then, to hear
Once more of troubles wrought by magic spell;
And griefs whose aery motion comes not near 35
The pangs that tempt the Spirit to rebel:
Then, with mild Una in her sober cheer,
High over hill and low adown the dell
Again we wandered, willing to partake
All that she suffered for her dear Lord's sake. 40

Then, too, this Song of mine once more could please,
Where anguish, strange as dreams of restless sleep,
Is tempered and allayed by sympathies
Aloft ascending, and descending deep,
Even to the inferior Kinds; whom forest-trees 45
Protect from beating sunbeams, and the sweep
Of the sharp winds;—fair Creatures!—to whom Heaven
A calm and sinless life, with love, hath given.

This tragic Story cheered us; for it speaks
Of female patience winning firm repose; 50
And, of the recompense that [2] conscience seeks,
A bright, encouraging, example shows;
Needful when o'er wide realms the tempest breaks,
Needful amid life's ordinary woes;—
Hence, not for them unfitted who would bless 55
A happy hour with holier happiness.

He serves the Muses erringly and ill,
Whose aim is pleasure light and fugitive:
O, that my mind were equal to fulfil
The comprehensive mandate which they give— 60
Vain aspiration of an earnest will!
Yet in this moral Strain a power may live,
Belovèd Wife! such solace to impart
As it hath yielded to thy tender heart.

"Action is transitory—a step, a blow, 65
The motion of a muscle—this way or that—
'Tis done; and in the after-vacancy
We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed:
Suffering is permanent, obscure and dark,
And has the nature of infinity. 70
Yet through that darkness (infinite though it seem
And irremovable) gracious openings lie,
By which the soul—with patient steps of thought
Now toiling, wafted now on wings of prayer—
May pass in hope, and, though from mortal bonds 75
Yet undelivered, rise with sure ascent
Even to the fountain-head of peace divine."[E]

"They that deny a God, destroy Man's nobility: for certainly Man is of kinn to the Beast by his Body; and if he be not of kinn to God by his Spirit, he is a base ignoble Creature. It destroys likewise Magnanimity, and the raising of humane Nature: for take an example of a Dogg, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on, when he finds himself maintained by a Man, who to him is instead of a God, or Melior Natura. Which courage is manifestly such, as that Creature without that confidence of a better Nature than his own could never attain. So Man, when he resteth and assureth himself upon Divine protection and favour, gathereth a force and faith which human Nature in itself could not obtain."
Lord Bacon.[F]

From Bolton's old monastic tower [G]
The bells ring loud with gladsome power;
The sun shines [3] bright; the fields are gay
With people in their best array
Of stole and doublet, hood and scarf, 5
Along the banks of crystal Wharf,[4]
Through the Vale retired and lowly,
Trooping to that summons holy.
And, up among the moorlands, see
What sprinklings of blithe company! 10
Of lasses and of shepherd grooms,
That down the steep hills force their way,
Like cattle through the budded brooms;
Path, or no path, what care they?
And thus in joyous mood they hie 15
To Bolton's mouldering Priory.[H]

What would they there!—full fifty years
That sumptuous Pile, with all its peers,
Too harshly hath been doomed to taste
The bitterness of wrong and waste: 20
Its courts are ravaged; but the tower
Is standing with a voice of power,[I]
That ancient voice which wont to call
To mass or some high festival;
And in the shattered fabric's heart 25
Remaineth one protected part;
A Chapel, like a wild-bird's nest,
Closely embowered and trimly drest;[5][J]
And thither young and old repair,
This Sabbath-day, for praise and prayer. 30

Fast the church-yard fills;—anon
Look again, and they all are gone;
The cluster round the porch, and the folk
Who sate in the shade of the Prior's Oak![K]
And scarcely have they disappeared 35
Ere the prelusive hymn is heard:—
With one consent the people rejoice,
Filling the church with a lofty voice!
They sing a service which they feel:
For 'tis the sunrise now of zeal; 40
Of a pure faith the vernal prime—[6]
In great Eliza's golden time.

A moment ends the fervent din,
And all is hushed, without and within;
For though the priest, more tranquilly, 45
Recites the holy liturgy,
The only voice which you can hear
Is the river murmuring near.
—When soft!—the dusky trees between,
And down the path through the open green, 50
Where is no living thing to be seen;
And through yon gateway, where is found,
Beneath the arch with ivy bound,
Free entrance to the church-yard ground—
[7]Comes gliding in with lovely gleam, 55
Comes gliding in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream,
A solitary Doe!
White she is as lily of June,
And beauteous as the silver moon 60
When out of sight the clouds are driven
And she is left alone in heaven;
Or like a ship some gentle day
In sunshine sailing far away,
A glittering ship, that hath the plain 65
Of ocean for her own domain.

Lie silent in your graves, ye dead!
Lie quiet in your church-yard bed!
Ye living, tend your holy cares;
Ye multitude, pursue your prayers; 70
And blame not me if my heart and sight
Are occupied with one delight!
'Tis a work for sabbath hours
If I with this bright Creature go:
Whether she be of forest bowers, 75
From the bowers of earth below;
Or a Spirit for one day given,
A pledge [8] of grace from purest heaven.

What harmonious pensive changes
Wait upon her as she ranges 80
Round and through this Pile of state
Overthrown and desolate!
Now a step or two her way
Leads through [9] space of open day,
Where the enamoured sunny light 85
Brightens her that was so bright;[L]
Now doth a delicate shadow fall,
Falls upon her like a breath,
From some lofty arch or wall,
As she passes underneath: 90
Now some gloomy nook partakes
Of the glory that she makes,—
High-ribbed vault of stone, or cell,
With perfect cunning framed as well
Of stone, and ivy, and the spread 95
Of the elder's bushy head;
Some jealous and forbidding cell,
That doth the living stars repel,
And where no flower hath leave to dwell.

The presence of this wandering Doe 100
Fills many a damp obscure recess
With lustre of a saintly show;
And, reappearing, she no less
Sheds on the flowers that round her blow
A more than sunny liveliness.[10] 105
But say, among these holy places,
Which thus assiduously she paces,
Comes she with a votary's task,
Rite to perform, or boon to ask?
Fair Pilgrim! harbours she a sense 110
Of sorrow, or of reverence?
Can she be grieved for quire or shrine,
Crushed as if by wrath divine?
For what survives of house where God
Was worshipped, or where Man abode; 115
For old magnificence undone;
Or for the gentler work begun
By Nature, softening and concealing,
And busy with a hand of healing?[M]
Mourns she for lordly chamber's hearth 120
That to the sapling ash gives birth;
For dormitory's length laid bare
Where the wild rose blossoms fair;[N]
Or altar, whence the cross was rent,
Now rich with mossy ornament?[11] 125
—She sees a warrior carved in stone,
Among the thick weeds, stretched alone;[O]
A warrior, with his shield of pride
Cleaving humbly to his side,
And hands in resignation prest, 130
Palm to palm, on his tranquil breast;
As little she regards the sight [12]
As a common creature might:
If she be doomed to inward care,
Or service, it must lie elsewhere. 135
—But hers are eyes serenely bright,
And on she moves—with pace how light!
Nor spares to stoop her head, and taste
The dewy turf with flowers bestrown;
And thus she fares, until at last [13] 140
Beside the ridge of a grassy grave
In quietness she lays her down;
Gentle [14] as a weary wave
Sinks, when the summer breeze hath died,
Against an anchored vessel's side; 145
Even so, without distress, doth she
Lie down in peace, and lovingly.

The day is placid in its going,
To a lingering motion bound,
Like the crystal stream now flowing 150
With its softest summer sound:[15]
So the balmy minutes pass,
While this radiant Creature lies
Couched upon the dewy grass,
Pensively with downcast eyes. 155
—But now again the people raise
With awful cheer a voice of praise;[16]
It is the last, the parting song;
And from the temple forth they throng,
And quickly spread themselves abroad, 160
While each pursues his several road.
But some—a variegated band
Of middle-aged, and old, and young,
And little children by the hand
Upon their leading mothers hung— 165
With mute obeisance gladly paid
Turn towards the spot, where, full in view,
The white Doe, to her service true,[17]
Her sabbath couch has made.

It was a solitary mound; 170
Which two spears' length of level ground
Did from all other graves divide:
As if in some respect of pride;
Or melancholy's sickly mood,
Still shy of human neighbourhood; 175
Or guilt, that humbly would express
A penitential loneliness.

"Look, there she is, my Child! draw near;
She fears not, wherefore should we fear?
She means no harm;"—but still the Boy, 180
To whom the words were softly said,
Hung back, and smiled, and blushed for joy,
A shamed-faced blush of glowing red!
Again the Mother whispered low,
"Now you have seen the famous Doe; 185
From Rylstone she hath found her way
Over the hills this sabbath day;
Her work, whate'er it be, is done,
And she will depart when we are gone;
Thus doth she keep, from year to year, 190
Her sabbath morning, foul or fair."

[18]Bright was [19] the Creature, as in dreams
The Boy had seen her, yea, more bright;
But is she truly what she seems?
He asks with insecure delight, 195
Asks of himself, and doubts,—and still
The doubt returns against his will:
Though he, and all the standers-by,
Could tell a tragic history
Of facts divulged, wherein appear 200
Substantial motive, reason clear,
Why thus the milk-white Doe is found
Couchant beside that lonely mound;
And why she duly loves to pace
The circuit of this hallowed place. 205
Nor to the Child's inquiring mind
Is such perplexity confined:
For, spite of sober Truth that sees
A world of fixed remembrances
Which to this mystery belong, 210
If, undeceived, my skill can trace
The characters of every face,
There lack not strange delusion here,
Conjecture vague, and idle fear,
And superstitious fancies strong, 215
Which do the gentle Creature wrong.

That bearded, staff-supported Sire—
Who in his boyhood often fed [20]
Full cheerily on convent-bread
And heard old tales by the convent-fire, 220
And to his grave will go with scars,
Relics of long and distant wars—[21]
That Old Man, studious to expound
The spectacle, is mounting [22] high
To days of dim antiquity; 225
When Lady Aäliza mourned
Her Son,[P] and felt in her despair
The pang of unavailing prayer;
Her Son in Wharf's abysses drowned,
The noble Boy of Egremound.[Q] 230
From which affliction—when the grace
Of God had in her heart found place—[23]
A pious structure, fair to see,
Rose up, this stately Priory!
The Lady's work;—but now laid low; 235
To the grief of her soul that doth come and go,
In the beautiful form of this innocent Doe:
Which, though seemingly doomed in its breast to sustain
A softened remembrance of sorrow and pain,
Is spotless, and holy, and gentle, and bright; 240
And glides o'er the earth like an angel of light.

Pass, pass who will, yon chantry door;[R]
And, through the chink in the fractured floor
Look down, and see a griesly sight;
A vault where the bodies are buried upright![S] 245
There, face by face, and hand by hand,
The Claphams and Mauleverers stand;
And, in his place, among son and sire,
Is John de Clapham, that fierce Esquire,
A valiant man, and a name of dread 250
In the ruthless wars of the White and Red;
Who dragged Earl Pembroke from Banbury church
And smote off his head on the stones of the porch!
Look down among them, if you dare;
Oft does the White Doe loiter there, 255
Prying into the darksome rent;
Nor can it be with good intent:
So thinks that Dame of haughty air,
Who hath a Page her book to hold,
And wears a frontlet edged with gold. 260
Harsh thoughts with her high mood agree—
Who counts among her ancestry [24]
Earl Pembroke, slain so impiously!

That slender Youth, a scholar pale,
From Oxford come to his native vale, 265
He also hath his own conceit:
It is, thinks he, the gracious Fairy,
Who loved the Shepherd-lord to meet [T]
In his wanderings solitary:
Wild notes she in his hearing sang, 270
A song of Nature's hidden powers;
That whistled like the wind, and rang
Among the rocks and holly bowers.
'Twas said that She all shapes could wear;
And oftentimes before him stood, 275
Amid the trees of some thick wood,
In semblance of a lady fair;
And taught him signs, and showed him sights,
In Craven's dens, on Cumbrian [25] heights;
When under cloud of fear he lay, 280
A shepherd clad in homely grey;
Nor left him at his later day.
And hence, when he, with spear and shield,
Rode full of years to Flodden-field,
His eye could see the hidden spring, 285
And how the current was to flow;
The fatal end of Scotland's King,
And all that hopeless overthrow.
But not in wars did he delight,
This Clifford wished for worthier might; 290
Nor in broad pomp, or courtly state;
Him his own thoughts did elevate,—
Most happy in the shy recess
Of Barden's lowly [26] quietness.[U]
And choice of studious friends had he 295
Of Bolton's dear fraternity;
Who, standing on this old church tower,
In many a calm propitious hour,
Perused, with him, the starry sky;
Or, in their cells, with him did pry 300
For other lore,—by keen desire
Urged to close toil with chemic fire;[27]
In quest belike of transmutations
Rich as the mine's most bright creations.[28]
But they and their good works are fled, 305
And all is now disquieted—
And peace is none, for living or dead!

Ah, pensive Scholar, think not so,
But look again at the radiant Doe!
What quiet watch she seems to keep, 310
Alone, beside that grassy heap!
Why mention other thoughts unmeet
For vision so composed and sweet?
While stand the people in a ring,
Gazing, doubting, questioning; 315
Yea, many overcome in spite
Of recollections clear and bright;
Which yet do unto some impart
An undisturbed repose of heart.
And all the assembly own a law 320
Of orderly respect and awe;
But see—they vanish one by one,
And last, the Doe herself is gone.

Harp! we have been full long beguiled
By vague thoughts, lured by fancies wild;[29] 325
To which, with no reluctant strings,
Thou hast attuned thy murmurings;
And now before this Pile we stand
In solitude, and utter peace:
But, Harp! thy murmurs may not cease— 330
A Spirit, with his angelic wings,
In soft and breeze-like visitings,
Has touched thee—and a Spirit's hand:[30]
A voice is with us—a command
To chant, in strains of heavenly glory, 335
A tale of tears, a mortal story!

1808

THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE;

Or, The Fate of the Nortons