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Morton Marcus: And with those very grand dramatic tones from Beethoven, we introduce tonight's subject on the Poetry Show. This is Mort Marcus. Tonight, I'm going to do something actually I've never done before, which is amazing

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when I think about it. I've been thinking the last several days about what many people out there -- you listener, driving to and from San Jose, Monterey, or somewhere in the county -- think of as the great revolutionaries in the world of poetry. And

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certainly what comes to your mind are such contemporary poets, let's say, as Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Gary Snyder, who will be interviewed next week, but they are not so, and there have been others before them. And it just

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impressed me tonight that the main one I'm going to be talking about tonight, maybe the greatest revolutionary in the art of English poetry who has ever lived. It is because of him that Ginsberg, and Snyder, and Eliot, and Pound can be who they

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were, in fact, who Walt Whitman can be who he was. He was an amazing man, he wrote a revolutionary manifesto, which poets have followed ever since, most of them not even knowing that he wrote it, unless they really studied English

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literature. And yesterday, in the year 1798, he wrote a poem would become one of the standards of English poetry. In fact, many of his poems will become the standards- are the standards of English poetry. And I would like to talk to you

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about some of his ideas and read a number of his poems, many of which are fairly long, tonight, to celebrate the day that he walked through the Lake District on July the 13th, 1798, and came upon the rooms of an old abbey and wrote a poem there as he

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walked with his sister, Dorothy, and I'm talking about William Wordsworth, who that year with his friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge -- another one of the greatest poets in English literature -- together wrote a preface to a series of poems

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they did called, "Lyrical Ballads." It was to revolutionize the poetry of its time, but more than that it was to revolutionize thought not only in poetry, but in culture and many of the things that we believe in the United States, in

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fact that we believe here in California especially, we owe to William Wordsworth and his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge, as they thought about the nature of the human being and the nature of poetry. Let me just give you some examples of what I

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mean here. In the 1780s, and 90s, and throughout the 17th century, and before that, poetry was thought to have very, very definite kinds of language, it was supposed to be elevated, have a

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special diction, and used artful figures of speech, it was aimed at the educated and that is mostly at the upper classes, or almost continually in the upper classes. It followed a hierarchy of poetry, which came supposedly from ancient Greece, in which

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the epic was the highest form of poetry, the tragic followed that, the comic followed that, the satire, the pastoral, and then the lowest of all poetry forms, the lyric. Everything was to be guided, especially in the 18th century, by the mind and by

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artifice. William Wordsworth came along and his revolutionary manifesto said this, that there is no hierarchy of poetic genres. And in fact, by saying this, he would elevate the lyric, not only the most popular, but the most important

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form of poem in English from that point on. He said there was no fifth subject matter, as the earlier poems had said, that our subject matter and language, that special diction, which was for the upper classes, really did not allow a full range of

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poetry which should come from incidence of common life, which included peasants, children, outclass- outcasts, criminals, and even idiot children. They would have been treated not only seriously, but they were to be treated as tragic figures, and

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what kind of language would we use? We would use a language that was the everyday language spoken between men -- well, you can say as spoken between men and women, and if he was alive today Wordsworth would agree with you. It was a language that

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was spoken in the marketplace, a language that was spoken in the home, and it obviously included people of the lower ranks. He said that instead of being artful, one should be sincere. And in fact, instead of using reason, poetry, all good poetry,

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to quote him, is a spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings. In other words, the emotions were the basis of poetry. All this sound familiar to you? All that seemed to come from people like Whitman, and seemed to come like a people like

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Ginsberg, it was a hundred years before, more than a hundred years before in Ginsberg's case and, of course, around fifty, sixty years before Whitman. He was immensely influential, therefore, in expanding the range of serious literature to

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include the common people, and the ordinary things and events of our lives. He saw literature -- and here's one of the big changes in his whole conception of art -- he saw literature as keeping people emotionally alive, and morally sensitive to

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the world around them. And he said, this was especially important at a time of increasing technological and urban life. That sounds like our world: High technology, urban life, continuous speed, communications between all of

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the continents. The poet, he said, was not a priest, was not someone who stood above the world of the common man. He said the poet was a man among men, or, as we would do it today, a man or a woman, among men or women. He adopted the plain

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style, it was a naked poetry that was to be understood by the common man. And that really is what he brought to poetry, he and Coleridge, though Coleridge would break with some of his ideas after the third revision of this preface to the, "Lyrical

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Ballads." If you're interested in this, go to the 1802 preface of the, "Lyrical Ballads," by Wordsworth and Coleridge. You can find most of this, I'm sure, in any library. So what I would like to do tonight is to read you some of these poems and

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realize that nothing had been written like this before. He also said of poetry, for you you g poets out there, that poetry as a "spontaneous overflo of emotion recollecte in tranquility." In other word , he said, we really shouldn't t

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y to write a poem when we h ve a strong experience, but we s ould wait with it and let it fe ment or mature inside us and then come out in a sponta eous overflow of language. He wa not saying, by the way, that here should be no art to poetry

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His poetry is very, very fu l of great forms, rhyme forms a you can hear. Let me just read ou a very, very simple lyric, hich is very, very famous, but t king into account these ideas t at I gave you. Here from 180

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I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD, and listen to how clear this language is. I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o'er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host of golden

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daffodils; beside the lake, beneath the trees, fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way, they stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay: ten thousand

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saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee: a poet could not but be gay, in such a jocund company: I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought what wealth the show to

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me had brought: for oft, when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude; and then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.

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One of his great themes is the fact that there is a huge separation between the natural world and the world of machines or the world of cities. And he really felt that one -- and you could tell that from the last poem that I read, "I Wandered

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Lonely As A Cloud" -- that one really has to go back to nature, one has to become one with nature to feel whole again, to get a sense of the world. And I want to read you a poem first, and then I'll read it again. He called this, "Composed Upon

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Westminster Bridge," September 3rd, 1802. I'm going to read this poem, and then I'm going to analyze a few very, very quickly and simply because it is simple and then I'll read it for you again. And so here he is, writing this on Westminster

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Bridge in 1802. He is, at this point, though, let me see how old he was- anyway, he was, 1802, he would be thirty-two years old. Earth has not any thing to show more fair: dull would he be of

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soul who could pass by a sight so touching in its majesty: This city now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning; silent, bare, ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie open unto the fields, and to the sky; all bright and glittering

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in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep in his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: dear God! The very houses seem asleep; and all that mighty

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heart is lying still! Now what I just read you was not just a poem, but was one of the most difficult sonnets that one can write in English. It's a petrarchan sonnet which continues its rhyme scheme down

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through the first eight lines by using only two rhymes, and then uses two rhymes for the rest of the poem. It is written in iambic pentameter. At the same time, though, it very interestingly shows you Wordsworth's ideas, and that is,

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the city is beautiful and wonderous because it is not a functioning city, it does not have the bang and the slam of machines, the smokestacks are not belching coal gas and coal dust. So let me read it to you again and notice how he does

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this. He paints the city as though it is part of a sleeping pastoral nature. So again, listen to the rhymes. I'll tell you what they are, they are: fair, by, bare, where, lie, sky, air, steep, hill, will, asleep, deep, etc, etc. So, and it seems

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so natural, it seems like, again, a man talking. COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE, and of course, Westminster Bridge is in London, so he is looking at London from the bridge.

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Earth has not any thing to show more fair: dull would he be of soul who could pass by a sight so touching in its majesty: this city now doth where- I'm sorry, let me start again. Earth has not any thing to show more fair: dull would he be of

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soul who could pass by a sight so touching in its majesty: this city now doth, like a garment, wear the beauty of the morning; silent, bare, ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie open unto the fields, and to the sky; all bright and glittering

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in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: dear God! The very houses seem asleep; and all that mighty

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heart is lying still! Let's get into this nature theme because it's a very, very big theme. And I'm going to read again, as I said, some long poems, but notice how clear they are. Here's one of his most

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famous and it's called, "Resolution and Independence," and he is out walking in nature. In fact, the poem seems very much like Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony in many ways. He's walking out in nature and it's a wonderful, beautiful day, and

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suddenly, he has the unhappy thought about: it's so beautiful and the world is wonderful, but what happens when bad things happen? What's happened to those poets like Chatterton and like Robert Burns, who have bad times in their later years and die? In

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fact, Chatterton died at a very young age, he wasn't even twenty. What happens with the other side of life? The dark side of life? And as he asked this question, he comes upon a man who seems to be so ancient, he seems to have his nose touch

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the ground, he is so bent over, and he is a person who gathers leeches. And these leeches were felt to, in medical times, to be able to bleed patients, so he would sell them to doctors, and they could bleed their patients of any of the diseases of the

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humors and put the body back in function. But listen to how plain this language is and again, this is a rather extended poem, so do listen again. It's about nature, the power one can find in nature, and it's in this very, very plain language. And

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here is the poet, musing as he walks through nature: RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDCENCE There was a roaring in the wind all night; the rain came heavily and fell in floods; but now the sun is rising calm and bright.

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The birds are singing in the distant woods; over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods. The Jay makes answer as the Magpie chatters and all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters. All things that love the sun are out of doors;

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the sky rejoices in the morning's birth; the grass is bright with rain-drops -- on the moors, the hare is running races in her mirth, and with her feet she from the plashy earth raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun, runs with her all the way,

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wherever she doth run. I was a traveller then upon the moor. I saw the hare that raced about with joy; I heard the woods and distant waters roar, or heard them not, as happy as a boy: the pleasant season did my heart employ. My old remembrances went

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from me wholly and all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy. But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might of joys in minds that can no further go, as high as we have mounted in delight in our dejection do we sink as low. To me that morning did it happen

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so and fears and fancies thick upon me came, dim sadness -- and blind thoughts, I knew not, nor could name. I heard the sky-lark warbling in the sky, and I bethought me of the playful hare: even such a happy child of earth am I; even as these

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blissful creatures do I fare; far from the world I walk and from all care. But there may come another day to me -- solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty. My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought, as if life's business

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were a summer mood, as if all needful things would come unsought to genial faith, still rich in genial good; but how can he expect that others should build for him, sow for him, and at his call love him, who for himself will take no heed at

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all? I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, the sleepless soul that perished in his pride. Of him who walked in glory -- that's Robert Burns. Of him who walked in glory and in joy following his plough, along the mountain-side: by our own

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spirits are we deified, we poets in our youth begin in gladness; but thereof come in the end despondency and madness. Now, whether it were by peculiar grace, a leading from above, a something given, yet it befell that, in this lonely place, when

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I with these untoward thoughts had striven, beside a pool bare to the eye of heaven I saw a man before me unawares: the oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs. As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie couched on the bald top of an eminence,

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wonder to all who do the same espy, by what means it could thither come, and whence, so that it seems a thing endued with sense: like a sea-beast crawled forth, that on a shelf of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself; such seemed this

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man, not all alive nor dead, nor all asleep -- in his extreme old age: his body was bent double, feet and head coming together in life's pilgrimage, as if some dire constraint of pain, or rage of sickness felt by him in times long past, a more than human

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weight upon his frame had cast. Himself he propped, limbs, body, and pale face upon a long grey staff of shaven wood: and, still as I drew near with gentle pace, upon the margin of that moorish flood, motionless as a cloud the old man stood, that heareth not

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the loud winds when they call, and moveth all together, if it move at all. At length, himself unsettling, he the pond stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look upon the muddy water, which he conned, as if he had been reading in a book: and now a

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stranger's privilege I took and drawing to his side, to him did say, "This morning gives us promise of a glorious day." A gentle answer did the old man make, in courteous speech which forth he slowly drew: and him with further words I thus

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bespake, "What occupation do you there pursue? This is a lonesome place for one like you." Ere he replied, a flash of mild surprise broke from the sable orbs of his yet-vivid eyes. His words came feebly, from a feeble chest, but each in solemn order

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followed each, with something of a lofty utterance drest -- choice word and measured phrase, above the reach of ordinary men; a stately speech; such as grave livers do in Scotland use, religious men, who give to God and man their dues. He told,

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that to these waters he had come to gather leeches, being old and poor: employment hazardous and wearisome! And he had many hardships to endure: from pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor, housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance; And

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in this way he gained an honest maintenance. The old man, still stood talking by my side, but now his voice to me was like a stream scarce heard; nor word from word could I divide, and the whole body of the man did seem like one whom I had met

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with in a dream; or like a man from some far region sent, to give me human strength, by apt admonishment. My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills and hope that is unwilling to be fed; cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills, and mighty

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poets in their misery dead. Perplexed, and longing to be comforted, my question eagerly did I renew, "How is it that you live, and what is it you do?" He with a smile did then his words repeat and said that, gathering leeches, far and wide, he

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travelled; stirring thus about his feet the waters of the pools where they abide. "Once I could meet with them on every side; but they have dwindled long by slow decay, yet still I persevere, and find them where I may." While he was talking thus,

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the lonely place, the old man's shape, and speech -- all troubled me: in my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace about the weary moors continually, wandering about alone and silently. While I these thoughts within myself pursued, he,

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having made a pause, the same discourse renewed. And soon with this he other matter blended, cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind, but stately in the main. And, when he ended, I could have laughed myself to scorn to find in that decrepit

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man so firm a mind. "God," said I, "be my help and stay secure; I'll think of the Leech-gatherer on the lonely moor!" Now, what words were they saying in that poem is that this old man who is almost a part of nature again, who pursues one of

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the lowest forms of self-maintenance, if you want to call it that using Wordsworth's words, shows him that when you start to think of the things that go wrong in this life, you've got to take your strength in the fact that you persevere

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and move on, it will be considered later on an almost stiff upper lip philosophy, but a philosophy that lets one know that one is part of nature. And I will read one or two other poems, and then when we come back, I'm going to read one of

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the great odes of all time, and I think one of the great philosophical poems of the English language, which is, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality," by Wordsworth, and if there's time after that, "Tintern Abbey," the poem that

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he wrote in- on July 13th, 1798, more than one hundred- no, two hundred and six years ago yesterday. So, let me just read his talk about writing the sonnet and again, just listen to the beauty of these first lines. It's again a sonnet and he's

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talking about the sonnet in it and how you need control. So, all you people who are just writing out there without any controls, realize that though Wordsworth was talking about spontaneous overflow of emotions, when you do it in

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recollected and tranquility, you are using tremendous control and poetic powers. NUNS FRET NOT IN THEIR CONVENT'S NARROW ROOM And hermits are contented with their cells and students with

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their pensive citadels. Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom, sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom, high as the highest peak of Furness-fells, will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells. In truth, the prison, into which we doom

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ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me, in sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound within the sonnet’s scanty plot of ground; pleased if some souls (for such there needs must be) who have felt the weight of too much liberty, should find brief

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solace there, as I have found. And in preparation for the next half hour, this very, very simple poem, one of the many, many symbolic short lyrics that he is known for:

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MY HEART LEAPS UP, again, notice the simplicity, the conversational tone, and the very very lyrical qualities of just looking at nature very simply. This was all extremely new when he came up with these poems.

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My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky: so was it when my life began; so is it now when I am a man. So be it when I shall grow old, or let me die! The child is father of the man; and I could wish my days to be bound each to each by natural

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piety. We'll take a break and we will be back. Good evening again, this is Mort Marcus and before we get into the second half hour of the poetry show, let me make some

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announcements here. There will be a poetry reading in the Santa Cruz poetry series on Tuesday, July 23rd, George Lober and Aaron Baker will be reading. For more information, to find out location and time on that Tuesday, July 23rd. You can get

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in touch with Poetry Santa Cruz via internet, and I would anyway if you want to know any of the poetry that is happening around the county, certainly I would just go and put this number down so that you could find out this very, very wonderful bulletin

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board. It's www.PoetrySantaCruz.org. Very simple. And Poetry Santa Cruz is the name of the organization headed by our own Dennis Morton. And, again, it's all spelled out just as Poetry Santa Cruz, but it's www.PoetrySantaCruz.org,

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George Lober, Aaron Baker, presentation of Poetry Santa Cruz on Tuesday, July 23rd. Then "From the Bookshelf tonight," which is of course hosted by the inimitable Billie Harris. We have our -- it says here "dearly beloved" and I certainly will

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second that -- Patrice Vecchione, who is the wonderful local author and teacher and more than that, a very marvelous poet who was once with me the host of the Poetry Show, and she will be reading from her really marvelous book on the art of

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writing, and is really an incredible book and it's doing very, very well. She's also just edited a new anthology, as you know, she's edited several. This one's called, "The Body Eclectic," an anthology of poems, edited by Patrice

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Vecchione, so that will be right after the show at nine o'clock. Now, KUSP thanks our community of contributing listeners for supporting our thirty years of service to the Central Coast. This and every program on KUSP is supported by our contributing

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listeners and we thank you. Also, be aware that every Wednesday in July, saxophonist John Coltrane will be honored in "Tell Me How Long Trane's Been Gone," a five-part series. So tune in on nine o'clock, nine o'clock on Wednesday for the

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next program in Okay, we have been talking about William Wordsworth and if you've just tuned in, I'm going to reiterate several of the things that I said about him and that is that Wordsworth was the great

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revolutionary in poetry and thought that you and I think existed all along. The language of poetry in the 18th century, as I said before, was a very heightened language, it was a very artificial language, it was done in forms and with tropes --

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that is with metaphors and figures of speech -- and a heightened diction that was aimed at the classes of the nobility and the very educated, the stuff that you could write about. Well, if you remember, for example, in tragedy, the

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tragic heroes was always above the crowd, he was a nobleman, he was a hero. And the genres of poetry were epic first -- Homer, think of the Iliad and the Odyssey -- tragedy, comedy, satire, pastoral, and one of the lowest was lyric, and this was

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an emotional song of the moment. Well, with the publishing of the preface of the, "Lyrical Ballads," in 1798, William Wordsworth totally turned this all around. At this time, he was twenty-eight years old himself, working with Samuel Taylor

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Coleridge, that he said, no, there is no hierarchy of genres. No, there is no fit subject matter for poetry, all subject matter is fit for poetry: incidents from common everyday life, incidents from the world of peasants, children, outcast,

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criminals should be treated seriously, and even at times, tragically. And it should be done in an everyday language spoken by people in the common- in the marketplace and at home, not elevated by any means. And instead of artificialness, there

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should be a sincerity in language, and that all good poetry did not come from reason dilettantly put down, but all good poetry is a spontaneous overflow of powerful emotions or powerful feelings, and therefore, he brings in the

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emotional quality of poetry, which certainly had been liked in the 18th century. He is immensely influential in expanding the range, therefore, of serious literature to include the common people and ordinary things and events. And he, of

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course, will influence words- Whitman enormously, and all the poets who we think are revolutionary in this century. He also said that nature was where we once more could find our wholeness in ourselves, and that the world was becoming much

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more dominated by urban life, by machines, by the factory system. And he said, "Only by going back to nature, do we relieve ourselves of the stress of living this life." Well, it sounds very similar to the life we are leading now, more than

00:39:27.230 - 00:39:42.010

two hundred years later. And it is very, very interesting that we, especially in California, say that we have to go on vacations by going camping, by going into the national parks. I would dare say

00:39:42.010 - 00:39:59.410

that the whole idea of national parks and people visiting them on vacation to feel whole again and regain their strength in nature, in good part comes from the ideas of William Wordsworth. He also said that a poet was not a priest but a man among men and

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he employed a plain style, a very simple, naked language again, that is, the language of people in the marketplace, and at home, and of the common world. So, with these ideas, let me read what I think is maybe the greatest philosophical poem

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in the English language, and there are going to be people out there who can call me up and disagree with on this. And it is a very interesting poem because what it talks about -- and I may stop after each section, it is fairly long -- it talks about

00:40:39.880 - 00:40:56.800

the very things that I've been talking about but it goes much farther. It says that we can appreciate nature and we lose this appreciation, but why do we lose this appreciation? And he comes to the idea that when we are young, we still have

00:40:56.800 - 00:41:19.810

memories of being heavenly beings, and that, before we are born, we are pure with with platonic ideas and beings, pure souls, and as we grow, as the body surrounds us and becomes our prison, we lose this sense of the world. We can refine,

00:41:20.260 - 00:41:38.440

redefine it in nature, first without thinking about it when we are young, but then we have to think about it and remember it. So let me read this poem because it is so beautifully written that you can really see how poetry and idea can come

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together, it does not happen very often. And I will just read every section, and when I think a section might be confusing to you, I'll go back and I will say a few words about it. But here, he talks about the time when he was young and everything was

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wonderful in nature. And it is- this is the first part of: ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD ONE: There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, the earth, and every common sight, to me did seem apparelled in

00:42:15.460 - 00:42:37.240

celestial light, the glory and the freshness of a dream. It is not now as it hath been of yore -- turn wheresoe'er I may, by night or day, the things which I have seen now can see no more- I can see no more.

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So he's saying that things were once wonderfully beautiful, but he can't see them anymore in that beautiful light. And he goes on to say in: PART TWO

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The rainbow comes and goes, and lovely is the rose, the moon doth with delight look round her when the heavens are bare, waters on a starry night are beautiful and fair; the sunshine is a glorious birth, but yet I know, where'er I go, that there

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hath passed away a glory from the earth. Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song, and while the young lambs bound as to the tabor's sound, to me alone there came a thought of grief: a timely utterance gave that thought

00:43:28.030 - 00:43:45.670

relief, and I again am strong: the cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; no more shall grief of mine the season wrong; I hear the echoes through the mountains throng, the winds come to me from the fields of sleep, and all the earth is gay;

00:43:46.150 - 00:44:07.240

land and sea give themselves up to jollity, and with the heart of May doth every beast keep holiday -- thou Child of Joy, shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy. So what he said then in sections two and three is that though

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this wonder has passed from his eyes about the earth, he's had a thought, which has once more revived that wonder in him, but he doesn't tell us what it is yet. He just says that he once more is feeling it and then he calls out to a shepherd and says

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shout and run around me in thy joy. And then in: PART FOUR, now he talks again to nature. Ye blessed creatures, I have heard the call ye to each other make; I see the heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; my

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heart is at your festival, my head hath its coronal, the fulness of your bliss, I feel -- I feel it all. Oh evil day! If I were sullen while Earth herself is adorning, this sweet May-morning, and the children are culling on every side in a

00:45:03.100 - 00:45:23.110

thousand valleys far and wide, fresh flowers; while the sun shines warm, and the babe leaps up on his mother's arm -- I hear, I hear, with joy I hear! -- but there's a tree, of many, one, a single field which I have looked upon, both of them speak

00:45:23.110 - 00:45:43.330

of something that is gone. The pansy at my feet doth the same tale repeat: whither is fled the visionary gleam? Where is it now, the glory and the dream? And so even as he once more celebrates nature, the sense as

00:45:43.330 - 00:46:02.290

he looks at a tree, as he looks at the flower, the pansy at his feet, something is missing, something has left, and as he ruminates now, in part five, he goes into the philosophical rumination of what happens to us as we grow from youth to

00:46:02.290 - 00:46:22.210

maturity, what we lose. Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: the soul that rises with us, our life's star, hath had elsewhere its setting, and cometh from afar: not in entire forgetfulness, and not in utter

00:46:22.210 - 00:46:43.480

nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home. Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy, but he beholds the light, and whence it flows, he sees it in his joy.

00:46:44.590 - 00:47:02.500

The youth, who daily farther from the east must travel, still is Nature's Priest, and by the vision splendid is on his way attended. At length the man perceives it die away, and fade into the light of common day.

00:47:04.540 - 00:47:23.800

So he says, we come from afar, and the soul, which is our life star, has set elsewhere and comes from a long way away. But still in youth, we trail these clouds of glory, this wonder that he had. But as we grow, the prison closes around us, that's

00:47:23.800 - 00:47:38.520

the body and everything fades and this is where he had found themselves earlier in the poem and then he reflects in: PART SIX Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own; yearnings

00:47:38.520 - 00:47:53.730

she hath in her own natural kind, and even with something of a mother's mind, and no unworthy aim, the homely nurse doth all she can to make her foster-child, her inmate man, forget the glories he hath

00:47:53.730 - 00:48:10.630

known, and that imperial palace whence he came. So even nature chooses and can make you forget the world that you had when you were pure soul before you were born. And then he looks at the child and he says this in:

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PART SEVEN Behold the child among his new-born blisses, a six years' darling of a pigmy size! See, where 'mid work of his own hand he lies, fretted by sallies of his mother's kisses, with light

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upon him from his father's eyes! See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, some fragment from his dream of human life, shaped by himself with newly-learned art, a wedding or a festival, a mourning or a funeral; and this hath now his

00:48:44.140 - 00:49:03.310

heart, and unto this he frames his song: then will he fit his tongue to dialogues of business, love, or strife; but it will not be long ere this be thrown aside, and with new joy and pride the little actor cons another part; filling from

00:49:03.310 - 00:49:23.140

time to time his "humorous stage" with all the persons, down to palsied age, that life brings with her in her equipage, as if his whole vocation were endless imitation. So that he looks at the child and projects in him, growing,

00:49:23.140 - 00:49:37.960

growing into the world of business from his games, his games becoming plans of how he will exist in the world, as though his entire life is just imitating what he sees. And he goes on in:

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SECTION EIGHT to say: Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie thy soul's immensity; thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep thy heritage, thou eye among the blind, that, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal

00:49:55.420 - 00:50:15.310

deep, haunted for ever by the eternal mind -- mighty prophet! Seer blest! On whom those truths do rest, which we are toiling all our lives to find, in darkness lost, the darkness of the grave. Thou, over whom thy immortality broods like the day,

00:50:15.430 - 00:50:33.640

a master o'er a slave, a presence which is not to be put by; thou little child, yet glorious in the might of heaven-born freedom on thy being's height. Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke the years to bring the

00:50:33.640 - 00:50:49.660

inevitable yoke, thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight, and custom lie upon thee with a weight, heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!

00:50:49.000 - 00:51:09.820

So section eight questions, you know, the child and saying, you know, look, child, you have such a wonderful world, you're almost in touch with your soul, you're almost in touch with a mystical wonder of the essence of nature, not its outward show, but the

00:51:09.820 - 00:51:26.530

very sense of what nature is all about and all you think about is growing old too soon. And I'm sure many of you out there remember your parents saying, enjoy your youth, don't try to grow up too soon. But he says, you know, the child does. Why do

00:51:26.530 - 00:51:43.390

you do that? And he continues in: SECTION NINE, one of the longest sections of the poem. O joy! that in our embers is something that doth live, that nature yet remembers what was so fugitive! The thought of our

00:51:43.390 - 00:52:01.780

past years in me doth breed perpetual benediction: not indeed for that which is most worthy to be blest; delight and liberty, the simple creed of childhood, whether busy or at rest, with new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast

00:52:01.780 - 00:52:20.530

-- not for these I raise the song of thanks and praise but for those obstinate questionings of sense and outward things, fallings from us, vanishings; blank misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realised, high instincts before

00:52:20.530 - 00:52:39.220

which our mortal nature did tremble like a guilty thing surprised. But for those first affections, those shadowy recollections, which, be they what they may are yet the fountain-light of all our day, are yet a master-light

00:52:39.220 - 00:52:57.400

of all our seeing; uphold us, cherish, and have power to make our noisy years seem moments in the being of the eternal silence: truths that wake, to perish never; which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour, nor man, nor boy, nor all that

00:52:57.400 - 00:53:16.660

is at enmity with joy, can utterly abolish or destroy! Hence in a season of calm weather though inland far we be, our souls have sight of that immortal sea which brought us hither, can in a moment travel thither, and see

00:53:16.660 - 00:53:35.620

the children sport upon the shore, and hear the mighty waters rolling evermore. And he says that there is another joy. And it is not the same joy as when we were young and part of nature and could

00:53:35.620 - 00:53:54.880

really see to the core of nature in the sense of what our soul was part, but there is the outward mind that can appreciate and understand what this transformation is, and therefore, can intellectually come to a sense of the wonder of

00:53:54.880 - 00:54:09.970

the world we have come from, and he continues in: PART TEN Then sing, ye birds, sing, sing a joyous song and let the young lambs bound as to the tabor's sound! We in thought will join

00:54:09.970 - 00:54:26.380

your throng, ye that pipe and ye that play, ye that through your hearts to-day feel the gladness of the May! What though the radiance which was once so bright be now for ever taken from my sight, though nothing can bring back

00:54:26.380 - 00:54:48.280

the hour of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower; we will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind; in the primal sympathy which having been must ever be; in the soothing thoughts that spring out of human suffering;

00:54:48.640 - 00:55:05.260

in the faith that looks through death, in years that bring the philosophic mind. And there he says that we can appreciate nature now with a philosophical mind, that we can appreciate through thought what

00:55:05.290 - 00:55:17.530

the whole structure of the universe is all about. And he ends in: SECTION ELEVEN And o, ye fountains, meadows, hills, and groves, forebode not

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any severing of our loves! Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might. I only have relinquished one delight to live beneath your more habitual sway. I love the brooks which down their channels fret, even more than when I tripped lightly as

00:55:35.290 - 00:55:56.410

they; the innocent brightness of a new-born day is lovely yet; the clouds that gather round the setting sun do take a sober colouring from an eye that hath kept watch o'er man's mortality. Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to

00:55:56.410 - 00:56:24.710

the human heart by which we live, thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears, to me the meanest flower that blows can give thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears. And so we have Wordsworth's, "Ode to Immortality," which was

00:56:24.710 - 00:56:49.580

written in 1802, actually, it took two years to write, constant revisions till 1804. And then things take a terrible change. Wordsworth has been writing his greatest poetry through the 1790s, through, "Lyrical Ballads," which comes

00:56:49.580 - 00:57:09.050

out in 1798, as I said, gets revised, more poems get added up through 1802 and 1804. He's sharing the book with Coleridge, his good friend at this time, who has "Kubla Khan" and "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" as part of this epic book, which I

00:57:09.050 - 00:57:27.410

mean really has to be considered the howl of its time. I can't stress the comparison between what this book meant to the poet's who would immediately follow him -- people like Keats and Shelley -- and all the others down through the years

00:57:27.440 - 00:57:54.260

who would really be affected by it. But something happens that changes everything for him. And on February 5th, 1805, Captain John Wordsworth, his brother, is killed at sea. And in 1807, having come to grips in some way with the death of his brother --

00:57:54.260 - 00:58:16.940

his mother and father had died by the time he was thirteen -- Wordsworth writes a poem which will change him forever. And literally, though, a lot of people say that this biographical poem he wrote is really his great work; I don't

00:58:16.940 - 00:58:34.070

agree with that at all. It's called- of course I can't find what I want. "The Prelude," but I think it's way too verbose and in fact, I don't like Wordsworth at all when he uses blank verse and that's why I haven't read, "Tintern Abbey," which really

00:58:34.250 - 00:58:59.840

kicked off this whole program. He writes these stanzas on a painting of Peel Castle in a storm by Sir George Beaumont, who was also his patron. And it shows this pile or this castle in a storm, weathering the storm. And from this, he turns

00:58:59.840 - 00:59:19.160

from nature, because nature can be so destructive, it isn't only sunny days with birds singing, and flowers blooming, it can become so destructive, it even destroyed his father. I mean, you know, sorry, his brother. And he looks at the painting and

00:59:19.550 - 00:59:35.840

he writes this poem. Well, this is the idea that he is looking at the painting and writing this poem, and he will write almost no poems worth mentioning after this date, and he will live all the way to 1850, more and more renowned, but turning out

00:59:35.840 - 00:59:47.240

nothing. THE ELEGIAC STANZAS SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE IN A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT, and he had visited the castle.

00:59:49.910 - 01:00:06.470

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged pile! Four summer weeks I But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer, and frequent dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day, and all the while thy form was sleeping on a glassy sea. So pure the sky, so

01:00:06.470 - 01:00:29.180

quiet was the air! So like, so very like, was day to day! Whene'er I looked, thy image still was there; it trembled, but it never passed away. How perfect was the calm! It seemed no sleep, no mood, which season takes away, or brings: I could

01:00:29.180 - 01:00:46.010

have fancied that the mighty deep was even the gentlest of all gentle things. Ah! then, if mine had been the painter's sights of what is to be borne! Such sights, or worse, as are hand, to express what then I saw and add the gleam, the light

01:00:46.010 - 01:01:09.080

that never was, on sea or land, the consecration, and the poet's dream. I would have planted thee, thou hoary pile amid a world how different from this I see. Beside a sea that could not cease to smile on tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. Thou

01:01:09.080 - 01:01:26.630

shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine, of peaceful years, a chronicle of heaven -- of all the sunbeams that did ever shine the very sweetest had to thee been given. A picture had it been of lasting ease, Elysian quiet, without

01:01:26.630 - 01:01:41.120

toil or strife, no motion but the moving tide, a breeze, or before me here -- not without hope we suffer and we mourn. merely silent nature's breathing life. Such, in the fond illusion of my heart, such picture would I at that time have made: and

01:01:41.120 - 01:01:58.220

seen the soul of truth in every part, a steadfast peace that might not be betrayed. And then he goes on to talk about how the picture that Beaumont has painted really gives the true essence of the

01:01:58.220 - 01:02:25.620

work of nature which has the dark side that destroys. And he then ends the poem with a British stiff upper lip by saying this: But it is a different Wordsworth, a Wordsworth whose

01:02:25.620 - 01:02:44.520

great revolutionary statements in the preface would last as long as today and probably forever, and influence life in the West, and even in the East, but he himself would live a miserable life. This is Mort Marcus, stay tuned for the

01:02:44.520 - 01:02:58.950

wonderful Patrice Vecchione reading from her book about the spirit of poetry, which again, s really an outgrowth of the ork of the person I read to you onight, William Wordsworth, in is wonderful poetry and the reface to the, "Lyrical

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allads."