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

looked upon him and was calmed and cheered; The ghastly colour from his lips had fled; In his deportment, shape, and mien, appeared Elysian beauty, melancholy grace, 95 Brought from a pensive though a happy place.

He spake of love, such love as Spirits feel In worlds whose course is equable and pure; No fears to beat away--no strife to heal-- The past unsighed for, and the future sure; 100 Spake of heroic arts in graver mood Revived, with finer harmony pursued;[8]

Of all that is most beauteous--imaged there In happier beauty; more pellucid streams, An ampler ether, a diviner air, 105 And fields invested with purpureal gleams; Climes which the sun, who sheds the brightest day Earth knows, is all unworthy to survey.

Yet there the Soul shall enter which hath earned That privilege by virtue.--"Ill," said he, 110 "The end of man's existence I discerned, Who from ignoble games and revelry Could draw, when we had parted, vain delight, While tears were thy best pastime, day and night;

"And while my youthful peers before my eyes 115 (Each hero following his peculiar bent) Prepared themselves for glorious enterprise By martial sports,--or, seated in the tent, Chieftains and kings in council were detained; What time the fleet at Aulis lay enchained.[A] 120

"The wished-for wind was given:--I then revolved The oracle, upon the silent sea;[9] And, if no worthier led the way, resolved That, of a thousand vessels, mine should be The foremost prow in pressing to the strand,-- 125 Mine the first blood that tinged the Trojan sand.

"Yet bitter, oft-times bitter, was the pang When of thy loss I thought, belovèd Wife! On thee too fondly did my memory hang, And on the joys we shared in mortal life,-- 130 The paths which we had trod--these fountains, flowers; My new-planned cities, and unfinished towers.

"But should suspense permit the Foe to cry, 'Behold they tremble!--haughty their array, Yet of their number no one dares to die?' 135 In soul I swept the indignity away: Old frailties then recurred:--but lofty thought, In act embodied, my deliverance wrought.

"And Thou, though strong in love, art all too weak In reason, in self-government, too slow; 140 I counsel thee by fortitude to seek Our blest re-union in the shades below. The invisible world with thee hath sympathised; Be thy affections raised and solemnised.

"Learn, by a mortal yearning, to ascend 145 Seeking[10] a higher object. Love was given, Encouraged, sanctioned, chiefly for that[11] end; For this the passion to excess was driven-- That self might be annulled; her bondage prove The fetters of a dream, opposed to love."-- 150

Aloud she shrieked! for Hermes re-appears! Round the dear Shade she would have clung--'tis vain: The hours are past--too brief had they been years; And him no mortal effort can detain: Swift, toward the realms that know not earthly day, 155 He through the portal takes his silent way, And on the palace-floor a lifeless corse She lay.

Thus, all in vain exhorted and reproved, She perished; and, as for a wilful crime, By the just Gods whom no weak pity moved, 160 Was doomed to wear out her appointed time, Apart from happy Ghosts, that gather flowers[12] Of blissful quiet 'mid unfading bowers.

--Yet tears to human suffering are due; And mortal hopes defeated and o'erthrown 165 Are mourned by man, and not by man alone, As fondly he believes.--Upon the side Of Hellespont (such faith was entertained) A knot of spiry trees for ages grew From out the tomb of him for whom she died; 170 And ever, when such stature they had gained That Ilium's walls were subject to their view, The trees' tall summits withered at the sight; A constant interchange of growth and blight![C]

After meeting the Wordsworths at Charles Lamb's, on the 9th May 1815, Henry Crabb Robinson wrote in his _Diary_: "It is the mere power which he is conscious of exerting in which he delights, not the production of a work in which men rejoice on account of the sympathies and sensibilities it excites in them. Hence, he does not much esteem his _Laodamia_, as it belongs to the inferior class of poems founded on the affections." (See _Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence_, vol. i. p. 482.)

Wordsworth wrote thus to Walter Savage Landor, from Rydal Mount, on the 21st of January 1824:--