Ad Vilmum Axiologum

This be the meed, that thy song creates a thousand-fold echo! Sweet as the warble of woods, that awakes at the gale of the morning! List! the Hearts of the Pure, like caves in the ancient mountains Deep, deep in the Bosom, and from the Bosom resound it, Each with a different tone, complete or in musical fragments-- All have welcomed thy Voice, and receive and retain and prolong it!

This is the word of the Lord! it is spoken and Beings Eternal Live and are borne as an Infant, the Eternal begets the Immortal-- Love is the Spirit of Life, and Music the Life of the Spirit!

The only justification for republishing this sonnet is that it is the earliest authoritative record of Wordsworth’s attempts in Verse. It is a much more authentic one than the Extract from the conclusion of a Poem, composed in anticipation of leaving School, or than the lines Written in very early Youth, and beginning

Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.

Wordsworth dated the former of these poems 1786, but I do not believe that he wrote that poem, and still less that he wrote “Calm is all nature,” etc., as we now have it, in that year. Doubtless he wrote verses on these two subjects; but the best evidence against the notion that the text, as we now have it, was written in 1786, is this 1787 sonnet on Miss Maria Williams. It is not only dated authoritatively, but it was published in 1787; and therefore serves (as nothing else can until we come to 1793) as evidence in regard to the development of his poetic power. The translation of Francis Wrangham’s lines--which he called The Birth of Love--in 1795, is further evidence in the same direction. No doubt there were many poor poetic utterances by Wordsworth later in life--failures in his manhood, as dismal as the “Walford Tragedy” was in his youth--but I think that the Lines written in very early Youth, and the Extract from the Poem composed in anticipation of leaving School, were rehandled by him, and the text greatly improved before they were first published. The late Mr. J. Dykes Campbell wrote to me in 1892: “Poets tell dreadful fibs about their early verses--as witness S.T.C. who declared he wrote The Advent of Love at fifteen! I know he didn’t, and am going to print one or two of his prize school verses of that age, which I have found in his own fifteen-year-old fist.”--ED.

I should add, in a footnote, that I have no knowledge of the source whence Mr. Campbell derived this; but I am sure that it must have reached him from an authentic one.--ED.

LINES WRITTEN BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AS A SCHOOL EXERCISE AT HAWKSHEAD, ANNO ÆTATIS 14

In the “Autobiographical Memoranda”--dictated at Rydal Mount in 1847--Wordsworth said, “The first verses which I wrote were a task imposed by my master: the subject The Summer Vacation, and of my own accord I added others upon Return to School. There was nothing remarkable in either poem; but I was called upon, among other scholars, to write verses upon the completion of the second century from the foundation of the school in 1585, by Archbishop Sandys. These verses were much admired, far more than they deserved, for they were but a tame imitation of Pope’s versification, and a little in his style. This exercise, however, put it into my head to compose verses from the impulse of my own mind; and I wrote, while yet a schoolboy, a long poem running upon my own adventures, and the scenery of the county in which I was brought up.”

The Summer Vacation, and the Return to School, were destroyed by Wordsworth.--ED.

And has the Sun his flaming chariot driven Two hundred times around the ring of heaven, Since Science first, with all her sacred train, Beneath yon roof began her heavenly reign? While thus I mused, methought, before mine eyes, The Power of EDUCATION seemed to rise; Not she whose rigid precepts trained the boy Dead to the sense of every finer joy; Nor that vile wretch who bade the tender age Spurn Reason’s law and humour Passion’s rage; But she who trains the generous British youth In the bright paths of fair majestic Truth: Emerging slow from Academus’ grove In heavenly majesty she seem’d to move. Stern was her forehead, but a smile serene “Soften’d the terrors of her awful mien.” Close at her side were all the powers, design’d To curb, exalt, reform the tender mind: With panting breast, now pale as winter snows, Now flushed as Hebe, Emulation rose; Shame follow’d after with reverted eye, And hue far deeper than the Tyrian dye; Last Industry appear’d with steady pace, A smile sat beaming on her pensive face. I gazed upon the visionary train, Threw back my eyes, return’d, and gazed again. When lo! the heavenly goddess thus began, Through all my frame the pleasing accents ran.

When Superstition left the golden light And fled indignant to the shades of night; When pure Religion rear’d the peaceful breast And lull’d the warring passions into rest, Drove far away the savage thoughts that roll In the dark mansions of the bigot’s soul, Enlivening Hope display’d her cheerful ray, And beam’d on Britain’s sons a brighter day, So when on Ocean’s face the storm subsides, Hush’d are the winds and silent are the tides; The God of day, in all the pomp of light, Moves through the vault of heaven, and dissipates the night; Wide o’er the main a trembling lustre plays, The glittering waves reflect the dazzling blaze; Science with joy saw Superstition fly Before the lustre of Religion’s eye; With rapture she beheld Britannia smile, Clapp’d her strong wings, and sought the cheerful isle. The shades of night no more the soul involve, She sheds her beam, and, lo! the shades dissolve; No jarring monks, to gloomy cell confined, With mazy rules perplex the weary mind; No shadowy forms entice the soul aside, Secure she walks, Philosophy her guide. Britain, who long her warriors had adored, And deemed all merit centred in the sword; Britain, who thought to stain the field was fame, Now honour’d Edward’s less than Bacon’s name. Her sons no more in listed fields advance To ride the ring, or toss the beamy lance; No longer steel their indurated hearts To the mild influence of the finer arts; Quick to the secret grotto they retire To court majestic truth, or wake the golden lyre; By generous Emulation taught to rise, The seats of learning brave the distant skies. Then noble Sandys, inspir’d with great design, Rear’d Hawkshead’s happy roof, and call’d it mine; There have I loved to show the tender age The golden precepts of the classic page; To lead the mind to those Elysian plains Where, throned in gold, immortal Science reigns; Fair to the view is sacred Truth display’d, In all the majesty of light array’d, To teach, on rapid wings, the curious soul To roam from heaven to heaven, from pole to pole, From thence to search the mystic cause of things And follow Nature to her secret springs; Nor less to guide the fluctuating youth Firm in the sacred paths of moral truth, To regulate the mind’s disorder’d frame, And quench the passions kindling into flame; The glimmering fires of Virtue to enlarge, And purge from Vice’s dross my tender charge. Oft have I said, the paths of Fame pursue, And all that virtue dictates, dare to do; Go to the world, peruse the book of man, And learn from thence thy own defects to scan; Severely honest, break no plighted trust, But coldly rest not here--be more than just; Join to the rigours of the sires of Rome The gentler manners of the private dome; When Virtue weeps in agony of woe, Teach from the heart the tender tear to flow; If Pleasure’s soothing song thy soul entice, Or all the gaudy pomp of splendid Vice, Arise superior to the Siren’s power, The wretch, the short-lived vision of an hour; Soon fades her cheek, her blushing beauties fly, As fades the chequer’d bow that paints the sky, So shall thy sire, whilst hope his breast inspires, And wakes anew life’s glimmering trembling fires, Hear Britain’s sons rehearse thy praise with joy, Look up to heaven, and bless his darling boy. If e’er these precepts quell’d the passions’ strife, If e’er they smooth’d the rugged walks of life, If e’er they pointed forth the blissful way That guides the spirit to eternal day, Do thou, if gratitude inspire thy breast, Spurn the soft fetters of lethargic rest. Awake, awake! and snatch the slumbering lyre, Let this bright morn and Sandys the song inspire.

I look’d obedience: the celestial Fair Smiled like the morn, and vanished into air.

This quotation I am unable to trace--ED.

1792 (or earlier)