His later poems are not nearly so famous or well-known as these poems which mostly come from his youth. He was inspired by a woman, which many a poet is, and he put together a Lucy. There's a series of Lucy poems, there are not many of them, but they're very, very beautiful. But Lucy was not a real person apparently, the biographers was with Moe. She was a composite probably of some. She is young, she does die young, and she means a lot. This figure that he's imagined means a lot from probably women that he knew earlier in his life. Let me find, she dwelt amidst untrodden ways, 119. Do any of you know that one? She dwelt amidst untrodden ways beside the springs of Dove. Dove is a little river up in the north, up in the north there. 119. Hold on. That's wrong. I can't read. I'm sorry. I've got to look her up, because the poem is too precious. Indexed first line. It's very small print, that's the wrong one. Excuse me. I've got to find this. She dwelt among the untrodden ways beside the springs of Dove, a maid whom there were none to praise, and very few to love. A violet by a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye, fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know, when Lucy ceased to be. But she is in her grave, and oh, the difference to me. Quite simple. Absolutely simple. Comparisons with the loneliness of this girl living in backwoods. Nobody knows her. Completely unknown. But she means, this figure, even if words were invented, it still means a great deal to it. Obviously. That's how he's writing, even if it's a bit fiction. Beside the springs of Dove, a maid whom there were none to praise, and very few to love. Like comparison. Like violet neath a mossy stone, half hidden from the eye, or like a star, fair as a star when only one is shining in the sky. Solitary beauty. She dwelt unknown, and few could know when Lucy ceased to be, but now she's in her grave, and oh, the difference to me. Simple, simple words. But quite touching. And then the next one on there is, a slumber did my spirit seal. 187, that should be. 187. And this is again Lucy, dead. The image is, the idea is, she's dead and buried, then she's rolling around like the whole world. She's spinning like the whole world. The whole world is spinning, and Lucy is spinning with the world. A slumber did my spirit seal. I had no human fears. She seemed a thing that could not feel the touch of earthly ears. No motion has she now, no force. She neither hears nor sees. Rolled round in earth's diurnal course, with rocks and stones and trees. Again, the idea of her going back to nature, obviously. And the idea of her reunion with the whole globe, spinning around. A slumber did my spirit seal. I had no human fears. She seemed, it's a kind of vision during his sleep, presumably. She seemed a thing that could not feel the touch of earthly ears. Death. She's dead. Death. But she has some life after death. See, the yearning for life after death, which is natural to the human soul. I don't know if being buried with rocks and stones and trees is really a kind of afterlife. But for words with it is, because he's thinking of the world turning around. He's got a kind of substitute for eternal life in God's paradise. It's, there's a shade of something religious in words with poetry. As I say, he, as one of his fruits was Father Faber, who made his way all the way back to God and the Catholic religion and became an outstanding priest. The solitary reaper. 289. He's on a tour of Scotland. And he sees again, again, it's a solitary reaper. A young woman reaping the harvest all on her own. 289. One moment. It's very beautiful. 289. One moment. This is not a sonnet. And again, it's, um, it's tetrameters. It's four beats the line.
And it's, they are eight line verses. In English, you can have eight line verses, nine, nine line verses, three line, two line. You can even have four word verses. How odd of God to choose the Jews. I think that's Belong. So that's, that's one beat to a line. How odd of God to choose the Jews. It's an eight word poem. How odd of God to choose the Jews. So that's just, those are, those are, those are two word lines. Four, two word lines making eight words. That's not really poetry. But it is expressive. By God, it's expressive. And it expresses a great mystery. You've got to hand it to whoever wrote it. I think it's Belong. It is a great mystery to tell the truth. How odd of God to choose the Jews. We're not calling God in question. Behold, how single in the field, yon solitary highland lass, reaping and singing by herself. Stop here or gently pass. Alone she cuts and binds the grain and sings a melancholy strain. Oh, listen, for the veil profound is overflowing with the sound.
No nightingale did ever chaunt more valiant notes to weary bands. No, it's not more valiant, more welcome notes to weary bands. Of travellers in some shady haunt among Arabian sands. A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard in springtime from the cuckoo bird breaking the silence of the seas among the farthest Hebrides. Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow for old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago. Or is it some more humble lay, familiar matter of today? Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, that has been and may be again? What e'er the theme the maiden sang, as if her song could have no ending? I saw her singing at her work, and o'er the sickle bending, I listened, motionless and still, and as I mounted up the hill, the music in my heart I bore long after it was heard no more. It's, it's, ah, there you are. He's inspired to, to, she's just a Scottish girl doing the harvest. But it inspires, he's listening to her music, and the music speaks to him. And the music is speaking of something sad. He can pick up the sadness in the music. What is it? He asks himself. What kind of, what, what, what is, what's it about? And the, and then he goes romantic, the, um, um,
no nightingale had ever chaunt, more welcome notes to weary bands, of travellers in some shady haunt, among Arabian sands. Then, of course, Arabian was, was, carried mystery with it. Now it carries, was it, Saudi Arabia, war with Israel, oil, but Arabian then was, had different resonances.
A voice so thrilling ne'er was heard, in springtime from the cuckoo bird, breaking the silence of the seas, among the farthest Hebrides. Romantic, romantic is distance. I don't know what's there. It's mysterious. The distance is mysterious. So the farthest Hebrides. The Hebrides are the islands outlying from Scotland. And there are inner Hebrides and outer Hebrides. And their islands just out in, out in the Atlantic Ocean. So out in the farthest Hebrides. He's imagining a far, far away place. Will no one tell me what she sings? Perhaps the plaintive, which is an elegant word for sad, of course. The plaintive numbers flow for old, unhappy, far-off things, and battles long ago. Or is it some more humble lay, familiar matter of today, some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, that has been and may be again? What e'er the theme, the maiden sang as if her song could have no ending. I saw her singing at her work and o'er the sickle bending. I listened motionless and still.
And as I mounted up the hill, the music in my heart I bore, long after it was heard no more. To gain a resonance that when it's no longer heard, he's still hearing it. So that's Wordsworth.
And what more? I've got a longer poem if you can stand it.
Tintin Abbey. Do any of you know Tintin Abbey? Very vainly. Very vainly, yes. A few hands go up. It's a famous poem with a religious connection. Tintin Abbey is one of those busted monastery churches, which is out in the west. I think it's close to the Severn River. It's a beautiful spot. The monks chose their spots. And it's now a ruin, but it's very evocative. It's very beautiful and it's very evocative. The ruins are beautiful. The ruins are romantic. Ruins arouse feelings of what happened there, what went on. Well, the monks fighting one another and so on and so on. You've heard the story of... Yes, the monks were only allowed to talk once, once a year to one another. And this monk is singing false. So the one next to him whips around and says, crack! Next year, the one that was struck whips around. Crack! That is this neighbour from a year ago. The following year, the superior says, you too, stop fighting.
So, you know, what went on in the monasteries, there was a lot of very human things. St Augustine says, you meet with the best of men and the worst of men in monasteries.
The best of men and the worst. Oh, the devil is at work in monasteries. So it's not all as angelic as it looks, but you know, the record waltzing them, the record waltzing them. It's evocative. The ruins evoke. They always evoke. And the poets, the romantic poets like ruins because they evoke distant times, distant feelings. It's all broken now. It's now a ruin. What was it when it was in its heyday and so on and so on. So one minute, I'll try reading you with Tint and Abby. I'll interrupt maybe from time to time in case you lose the thread.
I think he's with his sister, Dorothy. And the two were very close. And he's traveling, possibly sightseeing, possibly looking for scenes that inspire his poems. So anyway, I've got to find it now. 205. This is again relatively his youth. A little longer. And there are no rhymes. This is simply what's called blank verse, which a lot of the Shakespeare plays are. It's iambic to tramitas. Now, what's that mean? An iambus is a Greek word. The Greeks, like in so many things of culture, they are the pioneers. They are the pioneers. Iambus. And it means a blank syllable and then a beat.
Whereas a troche, that must be another Greek word, is a beat and then a blank. So the two are reversed. Then a dactyl. And that's the Greek for finger, dactyl. So you've got beat, blank, blank. Dactyl.
These are various kinds of English, of English beat. Dactyl is beat and then two knuckles.
Tamtiti. That's tamtiti and that's titan. And then anapiste is the opposite to titan. So you, and you, the shepherd, the shepherd, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Assyrians came down like a wolf on the fold and their cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold and the sheen of their spheres could be tatatati, tatatata, tatatata, tatatata, galilee. So an anapiste is the reverse of a dactyl.
Obviously another Greek word. The Greeks discovered all of these things. That's an anapiste. Now, we had in the last, well, occasionally, in, sorry, an iambic pentameter, an iambic pentameter will be, um, to be or not to be, that is the question. One, two, three, four, five. But, um, whether it is nobler to, whether it is nobler in the mind to somebody?
Suffer the slings. Suffer, that is. Whether it's never in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortress or to take arms against the sea of troubles and by opposing end them. Shakespeare varies so that it's not just titum, titum, titum, titum, titum, always. Wordsworth varies, but not as much as Shakespeare. The great master of English poetry is undoubtedly Shakespeare. He's got the greatest, um, variety of language and he's a superb dramatist and a superb poet, the best poet in the English language and of course also a world famous and undeservedly world famous dramatist. Nobody can imagine his range, the range of characters that he, completely different characters that he creates and so on. So, one moment, Tintinadi. Summers with the length of five long winters and again I hear these waters rolling from their mountain springs with a soft inland murmur. Once again do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs and on a wild secluded scene that, on a wild and secluded scene, impress the thoughts of more deep seclusion and connect the landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day has come when I again repose here under the dark sycamore and view these plots of soft cottage ground, these orchard tufts, which at this season with their unripe fruits are clad in one green hue and lose themselves amid groves and copses. Once again I see these hedgerows, hardly hedgerows, little lanes, little lines of sportive wood run wild, of sportive wood run wild, these pastoral farms, green to the very door and wreaths of smoke sent up in silence from among the trees. With some uncertain notice we might seem of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods or of some hermit's cave where by his fire the hermit where by his fire the hermit sits alone. Painting of the scene.
These beauteous forms through a long absence have not been to me as is a landscape to a blind man's eye, but oft in lonely rooms and mid the din of towns and cities I have owed to them in hours of weariness, sensations sweet, felt in the blood and felt along the heart, the man has got feeling, and passing even into my purer mind with tranquil restoration, nature restores him. Feelings too of unremembered pleasure, such perhaps as have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
That's a fairly modest view of what man is capable of, but there it is, it's valid, it's true. Now or less, I trust, to them I may have owed another gift, a vast bit more sublime, that blessed mood in which the burden of the mystery, in which the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world is lightened, that serene and blessed mood in which the affections gently lead us on, until the breath of this corporeal frame and even the motion of our human blood almost suspended, we are laid asleep in body and become a living soul, while with an eye made up, made quiet by the power of harmony and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. So he's commemorating the effect deep in himself of tranquility and quiet and restoration which recalling the scene out in the country at Tintin Abbey has made on him last time, he's remembering that, and it's typical that he is restored by memory of nature. He goes on, If this be but a vain belief, yet oh, how oft in darkness and amid the many shapes of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir unprofitable and the fever of the world have hung upon the beatings of my heart, how oft in spirit have I turned to thee, O Sylvan Y, the river Y, W-Y-E, thou wandereth through the woods, how often has my spirit turned to thee, and now with gleams of half-extinguished thought, with many recognitions, dim and faint, and somewhat of a... Oh, bother. One moment. Oh, I've lost it. Oh, would you like me to reload it for me? Yes, please. Don't have a talk.
I'm not very good at these questions. That's quite a short time to find our way there. That's all right. There we are. Thank you. No problem at all. And now with gleams of half-extinguished thought, with many recognitions dim and faint, and somewhat of a sad perplexity, the picture of the mind revives again, while here I stand, not only with a sense of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts that in this moment there is life and food for future years.
And so I dare to hope, though changed no doubt from what I was when first I came among these hills, when, like a roe, I bounded over the mountains by the sides of the deep rivers and the lonely streams. Whatever nature led, more like a man, wherever nature led, more like a man flying from something that he dreads than one who sought the thing he loved. For nature then, the coarser pleasures of my boyish days, and their glad animal movements all gone by.
Nature to me was all in all. I cannot paint what then I was. The sounding cataract haunted me like a passion. The tall rock, the mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, and the, the, the, the, the, oh! What's going, what's it, what's it? Might be a flick of the finger, I think. That's it. I'm happy to do it, I think. There we are. Let me see if I can find it for you. There we are. It's a stadium, if you know. Of course, yes, yeah, no problem. It's gone, I know. Oh!
Terrible habit of technology, I'm afraid. Let me, uh, see if we can find it. Books are better. Indeed, books are more reliable, aren't they? Yes. Yes, I think it's, um, you can focus your, uh, your reading that way. I should do the trick. Let me see. I'm sorry for these interruptions, Tim Tim. It's very beautiful. It's, he's, he was there earlier in his childhood, and he remembers how he's running around and bouncing like a boy, and the boyishness is gone, but the deep thoughts, and the restoration in the city, when he goes back to life in the city, he remembers these, these country scenes, and they're nourishing, and they tranquilize, and he feeds on them, in his heart, in the big bad city. Yeats has got similar lines, uh, in the deep pavement's core. Did you, do you know that one? Oh, we didn't do Yeats enough. You didn't do Yeats enough. Yes, yes. Um, Wordsworth to Shelley. Wordsworth to Shelley, yes. Well, you did, you, you hit the high, a high point of English poetry. One moment, uh, what was it? Um, I'm sorry about this. Um, two oh five. Two oh five. These beauteous forms, though a long, through a long absence, have not been to me as is a landscape to a blind man's eye. But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din of towns and cities, I have owed to them, in hours of weariness, sensations sweet, felt in the blood and felt along the heart, and passing even into my purer mind, I with tranquil restoration. Feelings, too, of unremembered pleasure.
Such, perhaps, has no, have no slight or trivial influence on that best portion of a good man's life, his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love.
Nor less, I trust, to them I may have owed another gift, of aspect more sublime, that blessed mood, in which the burden of the mystery, in which the heavy and the weary weight of all this unintelligible world is lightened, that serene and blessed mood, in which the affections gently lead us on, until the breath of this corporeal frame, and even the motion of our human blood, almost suspended, we are laid asleep in body, and become a living soul. While with an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things. If this be but a vain belief, yet, oh, how oft, in darkness and amid the many shapes of joyless daylight, when the fretful stir unprofitable, and the fever of the world have hung upon the beatings of my heart, how often, spirit, have I turned to thee, O Sylvan, why? Thou wanderer through the woods, how often has my spirit turned to thee? And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, with many recognitions dim and faint, and somewhat of a sad perplexity, the picture of the mind revives again, while here I stand, not only with the sense of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts, that in this moment there is life and food for future years. And so I dare to hope, though change no doubt, from what I was when first I came among these hills, when like a row I bounded o'er the mountains by the side of the deep rivers and the lonely streams, wherever nature led, more like a man fleeing from something that he dreads, than one who sought the thing he loved. For nature then, the course of pleasures of my boyish days, and their glad animal movements all gone by.
Nature was to me an all in all, I cannot paint what then I was. The sounding cataract haunted me like a passion. The tall rock, the mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, their colours and their forms, were then to me an appetite, a feeling and a love, that had no need of a remoter charm, by thought supplied, nor any interest unborrowed from the eye. That time is past, and all its aching joys are now no more, and all its dizzy raptures. Not for this faint eye, nor mourn, nor murmur, other gifts have followed, for such loss I would believe abundant recommends. For I have learned to look our nature not as in the hour of thoughtless youth, but hearing often times the still sad music of humanity, nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power to chasten and subdue. And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling in the light of setting suns, and the round ocean, and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man, a motion and the spirit, that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things. Therefore am I still a lover of the meadows and the woods and mountains, and of all that we behold from this green earth, of all the mighty world of eye and ear, both what they half create and what perceive, well pleased to recognize in nature and the language of the senses, the anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart and soul, and of all my moral being. Nor perchance, if I were not thus taught, should I the more suffer my genial spirits to decay. For thou art with me here upon the banks of this fair river, thou my dearest friend, my dear dear friend, and in thy voice I catch the language of my former heart, and read the former pleasures in the shooting lights of thy wild eyes. O yet a little while may I behold in thee what I was once, my dear dear sister, and this prayer I make knowing that nature never did betray the heart that loved her. Tis her privilege through all the years of this our life to lead from joy to joy, for she can so inform the mind that is within us, so impress with quietness and beauty, and so feed with lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all the dreary intercourse of daily life shall ever prevail against us, or disturb our cheerful faith, that all which we behold is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon shine on thee in thy solitary warp, and let the misty mountains winds be free to blow against thee, and in after years, when these wild ecstasies shall be matured into a sober pleasure, when thy mind shall be a mansion for all lovely forms, thy memory be as a dwelling place for all sweet sounds and harmonies, O then, if solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts of tender joy will thou remember me, and these my exhortations? Nor perchance, if I should be, where I no more can hear thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams of past existence, wilt thou then forget that on the banks of this delightful stream we stood together, and that I, so long a worshipper of nature, hither came, unwearied in that service, rather say with warmer love, or with far deeper zeal of holier love, nor wilt thou then forget that after many wanderings, many years of absence, then steep woods and lofty cliffs, and this green pastoral landscape, were to me more dear, both for themselves and for thy seed.
You get clearly his sense of nature, and that nature acts as a healing force in the city, and that his consolation is in nature, and his religion is nature, his religion really, his real religion is nature.
You were going to say something? No, probably about the camera.
Okay, that's Wordsworth. It's a sane, peaceful spirit, harmonious, quiet, there doesn't seem to be much violence, or anger, or upset, or passion, but it is a tranquil spirit. And the Victorians fed off these poets. They had an inadequate religion, the Anglican religion. If you have an adequate religion, you don't sort of need the poets, although they have their own beauty, they have their own way of expressing things. A sense of something far more deeply interfused. When he's asleep and reminding nature, he has this sense comes to him of the meaning of life, of the depths of life. It's inklings of God that come to him through nature, and these feed him and satisfy him, and make him content. When there's some deep pavements, core... Yeats writes about how, when he's in the city of London, he remembers his Irish background and the Irish countryside, and it keeps him going in the big bad city of London. This was around 1900.
Same thing. And of course, at the weekends, people flock out to the country, and feed on nature. They go to the mountains, they go to the springs, they go to the beach. But people in the big city need nature, because they're human. And he says, you know, it's my human soul is being fed with these these memories of tranquil nature, and so on and so on. Any questions? Anybody? Yes.
When he talks about Our Lady being our tainted nature's solitary boast, how could he have not become a Catholic having such a clear understanding? Our tainted nature's solitary boast? Yes.
He must have, he probably thought the agronism was enough. I don't know. I don't know his story. I really am not an expert at Wordsworth. But I was asked to continue to talk about one of the poets, or some of the poets. He hated Catholicism, actually. He said, he at one point said, I would spill my blood to save the Church of England from Roman Catholicism. I think it's something inherited from his childhood, which is strange that Carl Bonneum had actually said, well, he was almost a Catholic, despite his own consciousness. No, that's it. That's the classic English prejudice, which is deep in the English soul for many years. Emancipation came in 1829, thanks to all of the Irish that had come over to work on the... Which Wordsworth opposed, he opposed the Emancipation Act. Yes. He hated the French, despite the fact he almost married a French woman. Yes. So yeah, a lot of contradictions there. Yes. Well, maybe it's not contradictions. It's this prejudice against Catholicism, which was which was stamped on the English soul by Henry VIII and Elizabeth. And they did a number on on Catholicism in England. It still exists today as well. It still exists today. It still exists today, that's right. Despite Vatican II. If it's diminished, it's only because of Vatican II, and Vatican II is not a real diminution. No. Vatican II. Vatican II crippled Catholicism, so the Anglicans are not nearly so upset with the crippled Catholicism as with the real Catholicism. Yes. The real Catholicism beats them into a cocked hat. Indeed. Indeed. It's the real thing, and they're false. They're hedge priests. But if it's... When Catholicism becomes as bogus as Anglicanism, then we're buddies. Hobbling us. Then we're friends. Yes. We can afford to be friends because they're no longer superior to us. But when Catholicism was Catholicism, the Anglicans resented it because it showed them up. Just like the the modernists, exactly like the modernists, bitterly resented Archbishop of the Fair because he showed them up. They had betrayed and he hadn't. And today the resistance shows up the SSPX. So the SSPX doesn't like the resistance. Mark, the resistance is not much to boast about quite honestly, but it does hang on to the truth. It hangs on to what the Archbishop was hanging on to and in the way in which the Archbishop hanged on to it rather than the way that the
society is hanging on to it. The society is letting go of it and becoming correspondingly more popular and acceptable in the mainstream church. Exactly the same. It's the same process, in fact. Yes. Is it a resentment, a sort of bitterness, would you say? This, you know, for example, the Anglicans hating Catholicism? There's a bit... It turns to a bitterness, yes. Because I've betrayed and my conscience is rebuking me. And the example of people who haven't betrayed hits on my conscience.
Therefore, I'm angry and bitter. If you had a market of mathematics, and you had all kinds of different mathematics on one huge... in one huge marketplace or on one huge tent, and one kind of mathematics said two and two is five, another has said two and two is seven, another said two and two is twenty, and so on and so on and so on. And there was one stall where it said two and two is four. That one stall would be absolutely unpopular with all the others, because that one stall, being the truth to which people are bound to come back, will put the others out of business, will finish by putting the others out of business. That's why the true Catholicism is always resented, in whatever age, by whatever enemies. Did you have the same mentality towards Catholicism when you were an Anglican? Kind of, yes. It was quiet, but it was there. You know, an Englishman doesn't get near Catholicism, this strange thing. Johnny Forerunner. Sorry? Johnny Forerunner. Johnny Forerunner. Johnny Forerunner. Yes, yeah. Distance of Rome, I suppose. I don't know, but it was, it's an English prejudice. Yes, it was English. Rome and Catholics were strange creatures. One didn't want to know too much about them. They're not English, and so on. It's strange that it didn't exist before the Reformation, that it was an attitude born entirely out of the iconoclasm of the...
No, it is certainly born out, it's because
Protestantism was a real break. Yes. And that's what a lot of people in the new church don't want to admit that Vatican II is a rupture. They try to deny that it's a rupture. Hermeneutic of continuity. Yes. As opposed to the hermeneutic of rupture.
And it's an illusion. You can't mix two and a four with two and two or five or anything else. Yes. Not even with two and two or six million.
Bellop said the Reformation caused the isolation of the soul. So... Yes. That's basically what happens in English. Isolation of the soul. Yes, the soul is cut off and it goes dead. Whereas Wordsworth's soul is obviously, still responding and deeply at least to nature. Tintin shows, Tintinabic, the lines lit above Tintinabic, show how much nature meant to him and what it meant to him. And it's understandable.
But it also shows he's not got a real handle on God. It's an inkling. It's a deep and strong inkling. Well, what were those lines? One moment. What page was it? Two or five. It's a strong inkling. I wanted to stop and comment, but I didn't.
Where is it? It's here, definitely. They are deep and true lines. It's when he's slumbering that this sense comes upon him, creeps upon him, of something really deep. But he said it. That's a good line. The still sad music of humanity. Yes. But hearing oftentimes the still sad music of humanity. No harsh nor grating, though of ample power to chase them subdue. And I have felt a presence that disturbs him with the joy of elevated thoughts, a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean, and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man, a motion and a spirit that impels all thinking things, all object of all thought, and rolls through all things. He's describing God.
Therefore I am I still a lover of the meadows and the woods and mountains, and of all that we behold from this green earth, of all the mighty world of eye and ear, both what they half create and what perceive. Well pleased to recognize the nature and the language of the sense, the author of my purest thoughts, the nurse, the guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul of all my moral being. He's talking about God. He's not talking in religious language. But that description of who he senses behind these tranquil and calm and healing feelings, it's, it's, it is God. And then, you know, in the 20th century it becomes feelings. Can anybody sing feelings to us? Father Shazal sings feelings brilliantly.
It's all, it's all become feelings. And when the feelings are not connected, they're connected to nature. But then when they drive a motorway through nature, it's the end of nature, it's the end of this nature that fed Wordsworth. And then men come to think of nature as simply an obstacle in the way of the motorway. And it's something, nature is not something to be worked with, something to be loved, something to rest one's heart on. Nature becomes something to plant a new housing estate, just completely destroying the view, but it makes me a lot of money. That's what nature becomes. That's Descartes, the French philosopher Descartes. Nature must no longer be loved. Nature must be made to sit up and beg. I think he has an expression like that. It's pretty great. And so you get the brutalizing of nature, which, which is, which is, which is where we're at. So any, any other questions? Yes. Question for me. Wordsworth always found a way of bypassing his religious prejudices through, you know, the old idea of the old idea of English prejudice against Roman, tapping into a sort of deeper meaning through his poetry. And I wondered if you have any, um, well, we managed to do that, I suppose. Well, uh, that, Tintinem is probably the, the, the deepest of, that I know of this poem, that I know of this poem. Yes. Yes. Um, it is beautiful. It's expressed beautifully. And it is a substitute religion. Ah, yes. I think, I think you'd have to say. It's a substitute, nature is a substitute religion. When you kick out God, he leaves a big gap, because he's big.
Infant. Hell-shaped hole. Yes, it is. He's big. So, you know, he leaves a big gap. Nature abhors a vacuum, and all kinds of things come into the gap. Sport, drugs, sex, you name it. Um, and none of them will, none of them work. None of them can. I can remember a verse from an Anglican hymn. I don't remember much of the Anglican hymns, but this one I remember. How sweet the hours I once enjoyed, how sweet their memories still, but they have left an aching void. Um, they've left an aching void that something can never fill. Something like that. Um, the, the time can never fill. I forget. Anyway, um, God is a big gap. And the, the, the, the liberals crusade to fill it with just about anything. As long as it gets filled. As long as God gets shut out, the liberals are happy. Mm-hmm. It's about it. Because they're crusading to get rid of God. It's terrible, but that's what they're about. And do you think the Romantics were the first attempting to do that, do you think? Or they were, or were they in a long line of succession? I, I think it, it, it, the Romantics rose with industrialism. Yes. Industrialism was, was arose first in England. It's not to England's glory that it did, but it was in the first, it took place first in England. And industrialism cut human beings off from the land and cut them off from nature. Yes. And Wordsworth is artificially going back to nature. The farmer who works without, without ever having read, works in nature, spends all his life in and made the things of nature. Horses, manure, um, cows, the sky, rain, and so on. Um, he doesn't write poetry, but he's in nature and in tune with nature automatically. He's, he's, as long as he doesn't have too many machines, he's in pretty close contact with nature. He's working with nature. He's not working against nature. Industrialism is starting to work against nature. The machines and their way car couldn't care less about them. Everything works with this. So Wordsworth is in a way, the Romantics, it's an artificial, it's somehow an artificial commemoration of natural things. Yes. And that commemoration won't solve the drive against it of the modern world. Because the modern world goes on denying God, and is not interested in the sense of something far more deeply interfused. I want to get rid of what it is that's far more deeply interfused. I don't want to go to sleep and have these dreamy pictures, these dreamy consolations. Dreamy, not in a bad sense, but very much a dream. He asks with his sister, if this is, if this is all just a dream, too bad. It's, it's very good. I love it. And it does me a lot of good. He said that, right? In these lines. Do you know, let's find them. If this be vanity, or if this be, what, I don't know how to say, if this be vanity, if this be fiction, if this be, what did he say? It was towards the beginning.
If this be but a vain belief, yet, oh, how often darkness and amid the many shapes of joyless daylight, when the fearful stir unprofitable and the fever of the world have hung upon the beatings of my heart, how often, spirit, have I turned to thee, O Sylvan, why? So he has, he has retained enough normal, of a normal soul in him to need consolation in the big bad city. And he finds it in his thoughts of the country. People, but modern city dwellers, they don't say there's a problem in the city. They, or they deny there's a problem. They may feel a problem, but they deny it. Because they don't have an answer. Wordsworth had an answer. The modern city dweller no longer. So he, he denies that there's a problem. He says, it's not a problem. He says, I ate too much green cheese last night. And therefore, I've had these dreams of God.
Therefore, I've had these, these ideas of God during the night. And that's all baloney. It was the green cheese that was the problem. And I don't have a problem. I've got rid of God, and I'm well rid of him. And thank goodness. And I will plunge on in my godless life. That's most people today. And, but the Victorians fed on Wordsworth because they were like him. They were closer to nature. They were, they were less undermined than their naturalness. Whatever was natural in them was less, less undermined by industrialism, which was only getting going. But the more it got going, the more it took over. And now we're so overwhelmed with the wonder of machines that we want to plant machines inside our own frame in order to become controllable for the rich oligarchs who run the world. So time is passing. It's half past five.
Topic: Bishop Williamson - William Wordsworth talk (Read 79 times)