This is our week for the ramble, our Word of the Week, but I promise I won’t do too much of that today. Well, maybe a little. When I look back on my boyhood, so much of which was devoured by school, where I learned almost nothing, the times that stir my heart the most when I recall them now had no noise in them. Sounds they did have, but that’s different. So my father and I sometimes went up to the top of the mountain overlooking our town. In those days, there were no houses there. The Army had built an automated watch-tower, to keep an eye on flights from Russia, I suppose, but the whole area around it, a hundred acres at least, was the treeless knob of a sort of glacial humpback. I shouldn’t say “treeless,” because there were scrub white birches, but they hardly count. We went there to pick blueberries. I could hear, from fifty yards away, the tumble of berries into his pail. We didn’t talk, because that gets in the way of picking, but it was better that way. We didn’t have to talk. Our collie, not on a leash, would sniff around, tramping here and there in the bushes — to scare off the snakes, my father said, though the only poisonous snake we had in that area was the copperhead, and I never saw one, myself. I did see an innocent three-foot-long black snake once; almost stepped on it while I was ambling down a hill as it was sunning itself on a rock. But when we picked those blueberries, there was nothing in the world but us, the scrub bushes, a good dog, and the sky. If it was silent, it was like the silence of a deep, cool well, full of life.
If people fall away from God, it may be that they have fallen away from creation first, the work of God. And I’m not talking about what’s picturesque. There was a strange little pool of water sprung up out of nowhere in the woods on the hill above our house — first a cemetery, with its own human mysteries etched into stone, worn but still legible after a hundred years, and then a deer path that led to this pool. It was never more than a foot and a half deep. The whole of it would take only three or four steps to cross. But the water was absolutely clear, and it flowed downhill in a little trickle, maybe a nice little spill in spring, while in summer the “creek” might be dried up, apparently, except that if you poked your finger into its bed, you’d get to some moist sand very soon. At the bottom of the pool there were green and red water-plants, whose names I don’t know. I loved this place. There were no fish; some dragonflies maybe, but that was all. Well, in the last 20 years they’ve put in a subdivision of big expensive and mostly childless houses, altering the terrain, shifting the water table, so the pool is no more. But nothing leaves the memory or the sight or the foreknowledge of God, for whom all times are present; and we trust that nothing good shall ever quite be lost.
But there’s another kind of rambling that today’s poet, William Wordsworth, was adept at, something we really don’t have a name for. You can call it, I guess, rambling among those awesome creatures we call human beings. It’s hard for us to imagine now, because we don’t commonly happen upon fellow travelers putting up their feet at a wayside inn, and falling into long conversation by the fire as the evening turns to night.
Or we don’t do what Wordsworth here says he did, which was to hang about an old peddler when he wasn’t as old as he is now, to talk, to listen to the man’s stories, and to drink from his wisdom without knowing that that’s what he was doing. We don’t then seek the old man out when we’re grown up, to go for a ramble in the fields, talking. The peddler himself, you see, was just such a rambler — a visitor to man and woman and child, with an eye to see, an ear to hear their tales, a mind to remember, and a soul to cherish with gratitude all that was good, and to bear with and to forgive all that was not.
Your neighbor, said C. S. Lewis, is the most holy being you are likely to meet on this side of the grave. It was easier to see that that was true, when such experiences as Wordsworth describes were still imaginable.
The scene is a wayside. The poet is a grown man, and he’s caught up with a peddler he knew when he was a boy. Without more ado, then — let us be on the road.
Upon that open moorland stood a grove, The wished-for port to which my course was bound. Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms, Appeared a roofless Hut; four naked walls That stared upon each other! -- I looked round, And to my wish and to my hope espied The Friend I sought; a Man of reverend age, But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired. There was he seen upon the cottage-bench, Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep; An iron-pointed staff lay at his side. Him had I marked the day before -- alone And stationed in the public way, with face Turned toward the sun then setting, while that staff Afforded, to the figure of the man Detained for contemplation or repose, Graceful support; his countenance as he stood Was hidden from my view, and he remained Unrecognized; but, stricken by the sight, With slackened footsteps I advanced, and soon A glad congratulation we exchanged At such unthought-of meeting. -- For the night We parted, nothing willingly; and now He by appointment waited for me here, Under the covert of these clustering elms. We were tried Friends: amid a pleasant vale, In the antique market-village where was passed My school-time, an apartment he had owned, To which at intervals the Wanderer drew, And found a kind of home or harbor there. He loved me, from a swarm of rosy boys Singled out me, as he in sport would say, For my grave looks, too thoughtful for my years. As I grew up, it was my best delight To be his chosen comrade. Many a time, On holidays, we rambled through the woods: We sat -- we walked; he pleased me with report Of things which he had seen; and often touched Abstrusest matter, reasonings of the mind Turned inward; or at my request would sing Old songs, the product of his native hills; A skillful distribution of sweet sounds, Feeding the soul, and eagerly imbibed As cool refreshing water, by the care Of the industrious husbandman, diffused Through a parched meadow-ground, in time of drought. Still deeper welcome found his pure discourse; How precious, when in riper days I learned To weigh with care his words, and to rejoice In the plain presence of his dignity! Oh! many are the Poets that are sown By Nature; men endowed with highest gifts, The vision and the faculty divine; Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse, (Which, in the docile season of their youth, It was denied them to acquire, through lack Of culture and the inspiring aid of books, Or haply by a temper too severe, Or a nice backwardness afraid of shame) Nor having e'er, as life advanced, been led By circumstance to take unto the height The measure of themselves, these favored Beings, All but a scattered few, live out their time, Husbanding that which they possess within, And go to the grave, unthought of. Strongest minds Are often those of whom the noisy world Hears least; else surely this Man had not left His graces unrevealed and unproclaimed. But, as the mind was filled with inward light, So not without distinction had he lived, Beloved and honored--far as he was known. And some small portion of his eloquent speech, And something that may serve to set in view The feeling pleasures of his loneliness, His observations, and the thoughts his mind Had dealt with--I will here record in verse; Which, if with truth it correspond, and sink Or rise as venerable Nature leads, The high and tender Muses shall accept With gracious smile, deliberately pleased, And listening Time reward with sacred praise.
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