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Title: The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 8 (of 8)
Author: Wordsworth, William
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 8 (of 8)" ***
THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
VOL. VIII
[Illustration: _William Wordsworth_
_after Thomas Woolner_
_Printed by Ch Wittmann Paris_]
THE POETICAL WORKS
OF
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
EDITED BY
WILLIAM KNIGHT
VOL. VIII
[Illustration: _Gallow Hill_
_Yorkshire_]
London
MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD.
New York: Macmillan & Co.
1896
_All rights reserved._
CONTENTS
PAGE
1834
Lines suggested by a Portrait from the Pencil of F. Stone 1
The foregoing Subject resumed 6
To a Child 7
Lines written in the Album of the Countess of Lonsdale,
Nov. 5, 1834 8
1835
“Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant” 12
To the Moon 13
To the Moon 15
Written after the Death of Charles Lamb 17
Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg 24
Upon seeing a Coloured Drawing of the Bird of Paradise
in an Album 29
“Desponding Father! mark this altered bough” 31
“Four fiery steeds impatient of the rein” 31
To ---- 32
Roman Antiquities discovered at Bishopstone, Herefordshire 33
St. Catherine of Ledbury 34
“By a blest Husband guided, Mary came” 35
“Oh what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech!” 36
1836
November 1836 37
To a Redbreast--(In Sickness) 38
1837
“Six months to six years added he remained” 39
Memorials of a Tour in Italy, 1837--To Henry Crabb Robinson 41
I. Musings near Aquapendente, April, 1837 42
II. The Pine of Monte Mario at Rome 58
III. At Rome 59
IV. At Rome--Regrets--in Allusion to Niebuhr and other
Modern Historians 60
V. Continued 61
VI. Plea for the Historian 61
VII. At Rome 62
VIII. Near Rome, in Sight of St. Peter’s 63
IX. At Albano 64
X. “Near Anio’s stream, I spied a gentle Dove” 65
XI. From the Alban Hills, looking towards Rome 65
XII. Near the Lake of Thrasymene 66
XIII. Near the same Lake 67
XIV. The Cuckoo at Laverna 67
XV. At the Convent of Camaldoli 72
XVI. Continued 73
XVII. At the Eremite or Upper Convent of Camaldoli 74
XVIII. At Vallombrosa 75
XIX. At Florence 78
XX. Before the Picture of the Baptist, by Raphael,
in the Gallery at Florence 79
XXI. At Florence--From Michael Angelo 80
XXII. At Florence--From Michael Angelo 81
XXIII. Among the Ruins of a Convent in the Apennines 82
XXIV. In Lombardy 83
XXV. After leaving Italy 84
XXVI. Continued 85
At Bologna, in Remembrance of the late Insurrections,
1837.--I. 86
II. Continued 86
III. Concluded 87
“What if our numbers barely could defy” 87
A Night Thought 88
The Widow on Windermere Side 89
1838
To the Planet Venus 92
“Hark! ’tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest” 93
“’Tis He whose yester-evening’s high disdain” 94
Composed at Rydal on May Morning, 1838 94
Composed on a May Morning, 1838 97
A Plea for Authors, May 1838 99
“Blest Statesman He, whose Mind’s unselfish will” 101
Valedictory Sonnet 102
1839
Sonnets upon the Punishment of Death--
I. Suggested by the View of Lancaster Castle (on the
Road from the South) 103
II. “Tenderly do we feel by Nature’s law” 104
III. “The Roman Consul doomed his sons to die” 105
IV. “Is _Death_, when evil against good has fought” 106
V. “Not to the object specially designed” 106
VI. “Ye brood of conscience--Spectres! that frequent” 107
VII. “Before the world had past her time of youth” 107
VIII. “Fit retribution, by the moral code” 108
IX. “Though to give timely warning and deter” 109
X. “Our bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine” 109
XI. “Ah, think how one compelled for life to abide” 110
XII. “See the Condemned alone within his cell” 110
XIII. Conclusion 111
XIV. Apology 112
“Men of the Western World! in Fate’s dark book” 112
1840
To a Painter 114
On the same Subject 115
Poor Robin 116
On a Portrait of the Duke of Wellington upon the Field
of Waterloo, by Haydon 118
1841
Epitaph in the Chapel-Yard of Langdale, Westmoreland 120
1842
“Intent on gathering wool from hedge and brake” 122
Prelude, prefixed to the Volume entitled “Poems chiefly
of Early and Late Years” 123
Floating Island 125
“The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love” 127
“_A Poet!_--He hath put his heart to school” 127
“The most alluring clouds that mount the sky” 128
“Feel for the wrongs to universal ken” 129
In Allusion to various Recent Histories and Notices of
the French Revolution 130
Continued 131
Concluded 131
“Lo! where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance” 132
The Norman Boy 132
The Poet’s Dream 135
Suggested by a Picture of the Bird of Paradise 140
To the Clouds 142
Airey-Force Valley 146
“Lyre! though such power do in thy magic live” 147
Love lies Bleeding 148
“They call it Love lies bleeding! rather say” 150
Companion to the Foregoing 150
The Cuckoo-Clock 151
“Wansfell! this Household has a favoured lot” 153
“Though the bold wings of Poesy affect” 154
“Glad sight wherever new with old” 154
1843
“While beams of orient light shoot wide and high” 156
Inscription for a Monument in Crosthwaite Church, in
the Vale of Keswick 157
To the Rev. Christopher Wordsworth, D.D., Master of
Harrow School 162
1844
“So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive” 164
On the projected Kendal and Windermere Railway 166
“Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old” 167
At Furness Abbey 168
1845
“Forth from a jutting ridge, around whose base” 170
The Westmoreland Girl 172
At Furness Abbey 176
“Yes! thou art fair, yet be not moved” 176
“What heavenly smiles! O Lady mine” 177
To a Lady 177
To the Pennsylvanians 179
“Young England--what is then become of Old” 180
1846
Sonnet 181
“Where lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom’s creed” 182
To Lucca Giordano 183
“Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high” 184
Illustrated Books and Newspapers 184
Sonnet. To an Octogenarian 185
“I know an aged Man constrained to dwell” 186
“The unremitting voice of nightly streams” 187
“How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high” 188
On the Banks of a Rocky Stream 188
Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of
Early Childhood 189
POEMS
BY
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
AND BY
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH
NOT INCLUDED IN THE EDITION OF 1849-50
1787
Sonnet, on seeing Miss Helen Maria Williams weep at a
Tale of Distress 209
Lines written by William Wordsworth as a School Exercise
at Hawkshead, Anno Ætatis 14 211
1792 (or earlier)
“Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane” 214
“When Love was born of heavenly line” 215
The Convict 217
1798
“The snow-tracks of my friends I see” 219
The Old Cumberland Beggar (MS. Variants, not inserted
in Vol. I.) 220
1800
Andrew Jones 221
“There is a shapeless crowd of unhewn stones” 223
1802
“Among all lovely things my Love had been” 231
“Along the mazes of this song I go” 233
“The rains at length have ceas’d, the winds are still’d” 233
“Witness thou” 234
Wild-Fowl 234
Written in a Grotto 234
Home at Grasmere 235
“Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits” 257
1803
“I find it written of Simonides” 258
1804
“No whimsey of the purse is here” 258
1805
“Peaceful our valley, fair and green” 259
“Ah! if I were a lady gay” 262
1806
To the Evening Star over Grasmere Water, July 1806 263
Michael Angelo in Reply to the Passage upon his Statue
of Night sleeping 263
“Come, gentle Sleep, Death’s image tho’ thou art” 264
“Brook, that hast been my solace days and week” 265
Translation from Michael Angelo 265
1808
George and Sarah Green 266
1818
“The Scottish Broom on Bird-nest brae” 270
Placard for a Poll bearing an old Shirt 271
“Critics, right honourable Bard, decree” 271
1819
“Through Cumbrian wilds, in many a mountain cove” 272
“My Son! behold the tide already spent” 273
1820
Author’s Voyage down the Rhine 273
1822
“These vales were saddened with no common gloom” 275
Translation of Part of the First Book of the _Æneid_ 276
1823
“Arms and the Man I sing, the first who bore” 281
1826
Lines addressed to Joanna H. from Gwerndwffnant in June 1826 282
Holiday at Gwerndwffnant, May 1826 284
Composed when a Probability existed of our being obliged
to quit Rydal Mount as a Residence 289
“I, whose pretty Voice you hear” 295
1827
To my Niece Dora 297
1829
“My Lord and Lady Darlington” 298
1833
To the Utilitarians 299
1835
“Throned in the Sun’s descending car” 300
“And oh! dear soother of the pensive breast” 301
1836
“Said red-ribboned Evans” 301
1837
On an Event in Col. Evans’s Redoubted Performances in Spain 303
1838
“Wouldst thou be gathered to Christ’s chosen flock” 303
Protest against the Ballot, 1838 304
“Said Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud” 304
A Poet to his Grandchild 305
1840
On a Portrait of I.F., painted by Margaret Gillies 306
To I.F. 307
“Oh Bounty without measure, while the Grace” 308
1842
The Eagle and the Dove 309
Grace Darling 310
“When Severn’s sweeping flood had overthrown” 314
The Pillar of Trajan 314
1846
“Deign, Sovereign Mistress! to accept a lay” 319
1847
Ode, performed in the Senate-House, Cambridge, on the 6th of
July 1847, at the First Commencement after the Installation
of His Royal Highness the Prince Albert, Chancellor of the
University 320
To Miss Sellon 325
“The worship of this Sabbath morn” 325
BIBLIOGRAPHIES--
I. Great Britain 329
II. America 380
III. France 421
ERRATA AND ADDENDA LIST 431
INDEX TO THE POEMS 433
INDEX TO THE FIRST LINES 451
PREFATORY NOTE
The American Bibliography is almost entirely the work of Mrs. St. John
of Ithaca, and is the result of laborious and careful critical research
on her part. The French Bibliography is not so full. I have been
assisted in it mainly by M. Legouis at Lyons, and by workers at the
British Museum. I have also collected a German Bibliography, but it is
in too incomplete a state for publication in its present form.
The English Bibliography is fuller than any of its predecessors; but
there is no such thing as finality in such work, especially when an
addition to the literature of the subject is made nearly every week.
Many kind friends, and coadjutors, have assisted me in it, amongst whom
I may mention Dr. Garnett of the British Museum, and _very specially_
Mr. Tutin, of Hull, and also Mr. John J. Smith, St. Andrews, and Mr.
Maclauchlan, Dundee. If I omit, either here or elsewhere, to record the
assistance which I have received from any one, in my efforts to make
this edition of Wordsworth as perfect as is possible at this stage of
literary criticism and editorship, I sincerely regret it; but many of
my correspondents have specially requested that no mention should be
made of their names or their services.
In the Preface to the first volume of this edition there was an
unfortunate omission. In returning the final proofs to press, I
accidentally transmitted an uncorrected one, in which two names did
not appear. They were those of Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, Dublin, and
Mr. S. C. Hill, of Hughli College, Bengal. The former kindly revised
most of the sheets of Volumes I. and II., and corrected errors,
besides making other valuable suggestions and additions. When his own
Clarendon Press edition of Wordsworth was being prepared for press,
Mr. Hutchinson asked permission to incorporate in it materials which
were not afterwards inserted. This I granted cordially, as a similar
permission had been given to Professor Dowden for his Aldine edition.
The unfortunate omission of Mr. Hutchinson’s name was not discovered
by me till after the issue of volumes I. and II. (which appeared
simultaneously), and it was first brought under my notice by Mr.
Hutchinson’s own letters to the newspapers. My debt to Mr. Hutchinson
is great; and, although I have already thanked him for the services
which he has rendered to the world in connection with Wordsworthian
literature, I may perhaps be allowed to repeat the acknowledgment now.
The revised sheets of Vols. I. and II. of this edition were, however,
submitted to others at the same time that they were sent to Mr.
Hutchinson; more especially to the late Mr. Dykes Campbell, and on his
death to Mr. Belinfante, and then to the late Mr. Kinghorn, all of whom
were engaged by my publishers to assist in the work entrusted to me.
They “turned on the microscope” on my own work, and Mr. Hutchinson’s;
and to them I have been indebted in many ways.
Mr. Hill’s services, in tracing the sources of numerous quotations from
other poets which occur in Wordsworth’s text, have been great. He sent
me his discoveries, unsolicited, and I wish to express very cordially
my indebtedness to him. To discover some of these quotations--there
are several hundreds of them--cost me much labour, before I had the
pleasure of hearing from, or knowing, Mr. Hill; and his assistance
in this matter has been greater than that of any other person. It
will be seen that I have failed--after much study and extensive
correspondence--to discover them all.
In addition to actual quotations--indicated by Wordsworth by inverted
commas in his poems--to trace parallel passages from other poets, or
phrases which may have suggested to him what he recast and glorified,
has seemed to me work not unworthy of accomplishment. At the same time,
and in the same connection, to discover the somewhat similar debts
of later poets to Wordsworth, and to indicate this here and there in
footnotes, may not be wholly useless to posterity.
My obligations to my friend, Mr. Dykes Campbell, are greater than I can
adequately express. He supplied me with much material, drawn from many
quarters; and, although he did not always mention his sources, I had
implicit confidence in him, both as a literary man and a friend. After
his death, through the kindness of Mrs. Campbell, I examined some MS.
volumes of _Wordsworthiana_ written by him, which were of much use to
me.
Some of these were from unknown sources, which I should perhaps have
traced out before making use of them, but, in all my Wordsworth work, I
have acted from first to last on the legal opinion of a distinguished
Judge, that the heir of the writer of literary work could alone
authorise its subsequent publication; and, since the heirs of the Poet
had kindly given me permission to collect and publish his works, I did
so, with a view to the benefit of posterity.
Some of Mr. Campbell’s material was derived from MSS. now in the
possession of Mr. T. Norton Longman, and I have to express my sincere
regret that in the earlier volumes I copied from Mr. Campbell’s
transcripts of these MSS.--which were lent to him on the condition
that no public use should be made of them without Mr. Longman’s
permission--some variations of the text, without mentioning the source
whence they were derived.
I was unaware that these MSS. were lent to Mr. Campbell with the
condition attached, and regret very much that I am unable to trust my
memory to indicate now what variations of text I have quoted from them.
But I may add that Mr. Longman is about to publish a work which will
enable Wordsworth students to become practically acquainted with the
contents of his MSS.
In reference to the poems not published by Wordsworth or his sister
during their lifetime, I have included in this volume not only fugitive
pieces printed in Magazines and elsewhere, but also those which have
been since recovered from numerous manuscript sources. They are of
varying merit. It would be interesting to know, and to record in every
instance, where these manuscripts now are; but this is impossible. In
many cases the manuscripts have recently changed ownership. I have
obtained a sight of many of them, and have been granted permission to
transcribe them, from the fortunate possessors of large autograph
collections, and also from dealers in autographs; but, after the sale
of manuscripts at public auction-rooms, it is, as a rule, impossible to
trace them.
In many cases the MS. variants which have been published in previous
volumes occur in copies of the poems, transcribed by the Wordsworth
household in private letters to friends. I have occasionally indicated
this in footnotes; but, to have done so always would have disfigured
the pages, and frequently the notes would have been longer than the
text. To trace the present possessors of the MSS. would be well-nigh
impossible. It is perhaps worth mentioning that in several cases
Wordsworth entered as “misprints” in future editions, what some of his
editors have considered “new readings.” _E.g._ in _The Excursion_, book
ix. l. 679, “wild” demeanour, instead of “mild” demeanour.
On Nov. 4, 1893, Mr. Aubrey de Vere wrote to me--
“I earnestly hope that, in your ‘monumental edition,’ you will
restore the _Ode, Intimations of Immortality_, to the place
which Wordsworth always assigned to it, that of the High Altar
of his poetic Cathedral; remitting Quillinan’s laureate Ode
on an unworthy, because ‘occasional,’ subject to an Appendix,
as a work that at the time of publication was attributed to
Wordsworth, but was written by another, though it probably
was seen by him, and had a line or two of his in it, and
corrections by him.
“This is certainly the truth; and I should think that he
probably himself told all that truth to the officials, when
transmitting the Ode; but that they concealed the circumstance;
and that Wordsworth, then profoundly depressed in spirits, gave
no more thought to the subject, and soon forgot all about it.…
“Yours very sincerely,
“AUBREY DE VERE.”
It was in compliance with Mr. Aubrey de Vere’s request that, in this
edition, I departed, in a single instance, from the chronological
arrangement of the poems.
It may not be too trivial a detail to mention that I gladly gave
permission to other editors of Wordsworth to make use of any of the
material which I discovered, and brought together, in former editions;
_e.g._ to Mr. George, in Boston, for his edition of _The Prelude_ (in
which, if the reader, or critic, compares my original edition with his
notes, he will see what Mr. George has done); and to Professor Dowden,
Trinity College, Dublin, for his most admirable Aldine edition. For the
latter--which will always hold a high place in Wordsworth literature--I
placed everything asked from me at the disposal of Mr. Dowden.
While these sheets are passing through the press, Dr. Garnett, of the
British Museum--one of the kindest and ablest of bibliographers--has
forwarded to me a contribution, previously sent by him to _The
Academy_, and printed in its issue of January 2, 1897.
I have no means of knowing--or of ultimately discovering--whether that
sonnet, printed as Wordsworth’s, is really his. Dr. Garnett says, in
his letter to me, “The verses were undoubtedly in Wordsworth’s hand”;
and, he adds, “I think they should be preserved, because they are
Wordsworth’s, and as an additional proof of his regard for Camoens,
whom he enumerates elsewhere among great sonnet-writers. I have added
a version of the quatrains, that the piece may be complete. From the
character of the handwriting, the lines would seem to have been written
down in old age; and I am not quite certain of the word which I have
transcribed as ‘Austral.’”
Vasco, whose bold and happy mainyard spread
Sunward thy sails where dawning glory dyed
Heaven’s Orient gate; whose westering prow the tide
Clove, where the day star bows him to his bed:
Not sterner toil than thine, or strife more dread,
Or nobler laud to nobler lyre allied,
His, who did baffled Polypheme deride;
Or his, whose scaring shaft the Harpy fled.
Camoens, he the accomplished and the good,
Gave to thy fame a more illustrious flight
Than that brave vessel, though she sailed so far.
Through him her course along the Austral flood
Is known to all beneath the polar star,
Through him the Antipodes in thy name delight.
WILLIAM KNIGHT.
WORDSWORTH’S POETICAL WORKS
1834
LINES
SUGGESTED BY A PORTRAIT FROM THE PENCIL OF F. STONE
Composed 1834.--Published 1835
[This Portrait has hung for many years in our principal sitting-room,
and represents J. Q.[1] as she was when a girl. The picture, though it
is somewhat thinly painted, has much merit in tone and general effect:
it is chiefly valuable, however, from the sentiment that pervades
it. The anecdote of the saying of the monk in sight of Titian’s
picture was told in this house by Mr. Wilkie, and was, I believe,
first communicated to the public in this poem, the former portion of
which I was composing at the time. Southey heard the story from Miss
Hutchinson, and transferred it to the _Doctor_; but it is not easy to
explain how my friend Mr. Rogers, in a note subsequently added to his
_Italy_, was led to speak of the same remarkable words having many
years before been spoken in his hearing by a monk or priest in front
of a picture of the Last Supper, placed over a Refectory-table in a
convent at Padua.--I.F.]
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.
Beguiled into forgetfulness of care
Due to the day’s unfinished task; of pen
Or book regardless, and of that fair scene
In Nature’s prodigality displayed
Before my window, oftentimes and long 5
I gaze upon a Portrait whose mild gleam
Of beauty never ceases to enrich
The common light; whose stillness charms the air,
Or seems to charm it, into like repose;
Whose silence, for the pleasure of the ear, 10
Surpasses sweetest music. There she sits
With emblematic purity attired
In a white vest, white as her marble neck
Is, and the pillar of the throat would be
But for the shadow by the drooping chin 15
Cast into that recess--the tender shade,
The shade and light, both there and every where,
And through the very atmosphere she breathes,
Broad, clear, and toned harmoniously, with skill
That might from nature have been learnt in the hour 20
When the lone shepherd sees the morning spread
Upon the mountains. Look at her, whoe’er
Thou be that, kindling with a poet’s soul,
Hast loved the painter’s true Promethean craft
Intensely--from Imagination take 25
The treasure,--what mine eyes behold see thou,
Even though the Atlantic ocean roll between.
A silver line, that runs from brow to crown
And in the middle parts the braided hair,
Just serves to show how delicate a soil 30
The golden harvest grows in; and those eyes,
Soft and capacious as a cloudless sky
Whose azure depth their colour emulates,
Must needs be conversant with upward looks,
Prayer’s voiceless service; but now, seeking nought 35
And shunning nought, their own peculiar life
Of motion they renounce, and with the head
Partake its inclination towards earth
In humble grace, and quiet pensiveness
Caught at the point where it stops short of sadness. 40
Offspring of soul-bewitching Art, make me
Thy confidant! say, whence derived that air
Of calm abstraction? Can the ruling thought
Be with some lover far away, or one
Crossed by misfortune, or of doubted faith? 45
Inapt conjecture! Childhood here, a moon
Crescent in simple loveliness serene,
Has but approached the gates of womanhood,
Not entered them; her heart is yet unpierced
By the blind Archer-god; her fancy free: 50
The fount of feeling, if unsought elsewhere,
Will not be found.
Her right hand, as it lies
Across the slender wrist of the left arm
Upon her lap reposing, holds--but mark
How slackly, for the absent mind permits 55
No firmer grasp--a little wild-flower, joined
As in a posy, with a few pale ears
Of yellowing corn, the same that overtopped
And in their common birthplace sheltered it
’Till they were plucked together; a blue flower 60
Called by the thrifty husbandman a weed;
But Ceres, in her garland, might have worn
That ornament, unblamed. The floweret, held
In scarcely conscious fingers, was, she knows,
(Her Father told her so) in youth’s gay dawn 65
Her Mother’s favourite; and the orphan Girl,
In her own dawn--a dawn less gay and bright,
Loves it, while there in solitary peace
She sits, for that departed Mother’s sake.
--Not from a source less sacred is derived 70
(Surely I do not err) that pensive air
Of calm abstraction through the face diffused
And the whole person.
Words have something told
More than the pencil can, and verily
More than is needed, but the precious Art 75
Forgives their interference--Art divine,
That both creates and fixes, in despite
Of Death and Time, the marvels it hath wrought.
Strange contrasts have we in this world of ours!
That posture, and the look of filial love 80
Thinking of past and gone, with what is left
Dearly united, might be swept away
From this fair Portrait’s fleshly Archetype,
Even by an innocent fancy’s slightest freak
Banished, nor ever, haply, be restored 85
To their lost place, or meet in harmony
So exquisite; but _here_ do they abide,
Enshrined for ages. Is not then the Art
Godlike, a humble branch of the divine,
In visible quest of immortality, 90
Stretched forth with trembling hope?--In every realm,
From high Gibraltar to Siberian plains,
Thousands, in each variety of tongue
That Europe knows, would echo this appeal;
One above all, a Monk who waits on God 95
In the magnific Convent built of yore
To sanctify the Escurial palace. He--
Guiding, from cell to cell and room to room,
A British Painter (eminent for truth
In character,[2] and depth of feeling, shown 100
By labours that have touched the hearts of kings,
And are endeared to simple cottagers)--
Came, in that service, to a glorious work,[3]
Our Lord’s Last Supper, beautiful as when first
The appropriate Picture, fresh from Titian’s hand, 105
Graced the Refectory: and there, while both
Stood with eyes fixed upon that masterpiece,
The hoary Father in the Stranger’s ear
Breathed out these words:--“Here daily do we sit,
Thanks given to God for daily bread, and here 110
Pondering the mischiefs of these restless times,
And thinking of my Brethren, dead, dispersed,
Or changed and changing, I not seldom gaze
Upon this solemn Company unmoved
By shock of circumstance, or lapse of years, 115
Until I cannot but believe that they--
They are in truth the Substance, we
the Shadows.”[4]
So spake the mild Jeronymite, his griefs
Melting away within him like a dream
Ere he had ceased to gaze, perhaps to speak: 120
And I, grown old, but in a happier land,
Domestic Portrait! have to verse consigned
In thy calm presence those heart-moving words:
Words that can soothe, more than they agitate;
Whose spirit, like the angel that went down 125
Into Bethesda’s pool, with healing virtue
Informs the fountain in the human breast
Which[5] by the visitation was disturbed.
----But why this stealing tear? Companion mute,
On thee I look, not sorrowing; fare thee well, 130
My Song’s Inspirer, once again farewell![6]
[1] Jemima Quillinan, the eldest daughter of Edward Quillinan,
Wordsworth’s future son-in-law. The portrait was taken when she was a
school-girl, and while her father resided at Oporto.--ED.
[2] Wilkie. See the Fenwick note.--ED.
[3] 1837.
Left not unvisited a glorious work,
1835.
[4] “When Wilkie was in the Escurial, looking at Titian’s famous
picture of the Last Supper, in the Refectory there, an old Jeronymite
said to him: ‘I have sate daily in sight of that picture for now nearly
three score years; during that time my companions have dropt off, one
after another--all who were my seniors, all who were my contemporaries,
and many, or most of those who were younger than myself; more than one
generation has passed away, and there the figures in the picture have
remained unchanged! I look at them till I sometimes think that they are
the realities, and we but shadows!’
I wish I could record the name of the monk by whom that natural feeling
was so feelingly and strikingly expressed.
The shows of things are better than themselves,
says the author of the tragedy of Nero, whose name also I could wish
had been forthcoming; and the classical reader will remember the lines
of Sophocles:
ὁρῶ γὰρ ἡμᾶς οὐδὲν ὄντας ἄλλο, πλὴν
εἴδωλ’, ὅσοιπερ ζῶμεν, ὴ κούφην σκιάν.
These are reflections which should make us think
Of that same time when no more change shall be
But steadfast rest of all things, firmly stayd
Upon the pillars of Eternity,
That is contrain to mutability;
For all that moveth doth in change delight:
But henceforth all shall rest eternally
With Him that is the God of Sabaoth hight,
O that great Sabaoth God grant me that Sabbath’s sight.
SPENSER.”
(Southey, _The Doctor_, vol. iii. p. 235.)--ED.
[5] 1837.
That …
1835.
[6] The pile of buildings, composing the palace and convent of San
Lorenzo, has, in common usage, lost its proper name in that of the
_Escurial_, a village at the foot of the hill upon which the splendid
edifice, built by Philip the Second, stands. It need scarcely be added,
that Wilkie is the painter alluded to.--W.W. 1835.
THE FOREGOING SUBJECT RESUMED
Composed 1834.--Published 1835.
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.
Among a grave fraternity of Monks,
For One, but surely not for One alone,
Triumphs, in that great work, the Painter’s skill,
Humbling the body, to exalt the soul;
Yet representing, amid wreck and wrong 5
And dissolution and decay, the warm
And breathing life of flesh, as if already
Clothed with impassive majesty, and graced
With no mean earnest of a heritage
Assigned to it in future worlds. Thou, too, 10
With thy memorial flower, meek Portraiture!
From whose serene companionship I passed
Pursued by thoughts that haunt me still; thou also--
Though but a simple object, into light
Called forth by those affections that endear 15
The private hearth; though keeping thy sole seat
In singleness, and little tried by time,
Creation, as it were, of yesterday--
With a congenial function art endued
For each and all of us, together joined 20
In course of nature under a low roof
By charities and duties that proceed
Out of the bosom of a wiser vow.
To a like salutary sense of awe
Or sacred wonder, growing with the power 25
Of meditation that attempts to weigh,
In faithful scales, things and their opposites,
Can thy enduring quiet gently raise
A household small and sensitive,--whose love,
Dependent as in part its blessings are 30
Upon frail ties dissolving or dissolved
On earth, will be revived, we trust, in heaven.[7]
[7] In the class entitled “Musings,” in Mr. Southey’s Minor Poems, is
one upon his own miniature picture, taken in childhood, and another
upon a landscape painted by Gaspar Poussin. It is possible that every
word of the above verses, though similar in subject, might have been
written had the author been unacquainted with those beautiful effusions
of poetic sentiment. But, for his own satisfaction, he must be allowed
thus publicly to acknowledge the pleasure those two poems of his Friend
have given him, and the grateful influence they have upon his mind as
often as he reads them, or thinks of them.--W.W. 1835.
TO A CHILD
WRITTEN IN HER ALBUM[8]
Composed 1834.--Published 1835
[This quatrain was extempore on observing this image, as I had often
done, on the lawn of Rydal Mount. It was first written down in the
Album of my God-daughter, Rotha Quillinan.--I.F.]
In 1837 this was one of the “Inscriptions.” In 1845 it was transferred
to the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
Small service is true service while it lasts:
Of humblest Friends, bright Creature! scorn not one![9]
The Daisy, by the shadow that it casts,
Protects the lingering dew-drop from the Sun.[10]
[8] The original title (1835) was “Written in an Album.” In 1837 it was
“Written in the Album of a Child.” In 1845 the title was reconstructed
as above.
[9] 1845.
Of Friends, however humble, scorn not one:
1835.
[10] Compare the lines, written in 1845, beginning--
So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive.
ED.
LINES
WRITTEN IN THE ALBUM OF THE COUNTESS OF LONSDALE,[11] NOV. 5, 1834
Composed 1834.--Published 1835
[This is a faithful picture of that amiable Lady, as she then was. The
youthfulness of figure and demeanour and habits, which she retained in
almost unprecedented degree, departed a very few years after, and she
died without violent disease by gradual decay before she reached the
period of old age.--I.F.]
This was placed, in 1845, among the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
Lady! a Pen (perhaps with thy regard,
Among the Favoured, favoured not the least)
Left, ’mid the Records of this Book inscribed,
Deliberate traces, registers of thought
And feeling, suited to the place and time 5
That gave them birth:--months passed, and still this hand,
That had not been too timid to imprint
Words which the virtues of thy Lord inspired,
Was yet not bold enough to write of Thee.
And why that scrupulous reserve? In sooth 10
The blameless cause lay in the Theme itself.
Flowers are there many that delight to strive
With the sharp wind, and seem to court the shower,
Yet are by nature careless of the sun
Whether he shine on them or not; and some, 15
Where’er he moves along the unclouded sky,
Turn a broad front full on his flattering beams:
Others do rather from their notice shrink,
Loving the dewy shade,--a humble band,
Modest and sweet, a progeny of earth, 20
Congenial with thy mind and character,
High-born Augusta!
Witness Towers, and Groves!
And Thou, wild Stream, that giv’st the honoured name[12]
Of Lowther to this ancient Line, bear witness[13]
From thy most secret haunts; and ye Parterres, 25
Which She is pleased and proud to call her own,
Witness how oft upon my noble Friend
_Mute_ offerings, tribute from an inward sense
Of admiration and respectful love,
Have waited--till the affections could no more 30
Endure that silence, and broke out in song,
Snatches of music taken up and dropt
Like those self-solacing, those under, notes
Trilled by the redbreast, when autumnal leaves
Are thin upon the bough. Mine, only mine, 35
The pleasure was, and no one heard the praise,
Checked, in the moment of its issue, checked
And reprehended, by a fancied blush
From the pure qualities that called it forth.
Thus Virtue lives debarred from Virtue’s meed; 40
Thus, Lady, is retiredness a veil
That, while it only spreads a softening charm
O’er features looked at by discerning eyes,
Hides half their beauty from the common gaze;
And thus,[14] even on the exposed and breezy hill 45
Of lofty station, female goodness walks,
When side by side with lunar gentleness,
As in a cloister. Yet the grateful Poor
(Such the immunities of low estate,
Plain Nature’s enviable privilege, 50
Her sacred recompense for many wants)
Open their hearts before Thee, pouring out
All that they think and feel, with tears of joy;
And benedictions not unheard in heaven:
And friend in the ear of friend, where speech is free 55
To follow truth, is eloquent as they.
Then let the Book receive in these prompt lines
A just memorial; and thine eyes consent
To read that they, who mark thy course, behold
A life declining with the golden light 60
Of summer, in the season of sere leaves;[15]
See cheerfulness undamped by stealing Time;
See studied kindness flow with easy stream,
Illustrated with inborn courtesy;
And an habitual disregard of self 65
Balanced by vigilance for others’ weal.
And shall the Verse not tell of lighter gifts
With these ennobling attributes conjoined
And blended, in peculiar harmony,
By Youth’s surviving spirit? What agile grace! 70
A nymph-like liberty, in nymph-like form,
Beheld with wonder; whether floor or path
Thou tread; or sweep--borne on the managed steed--[16]
Fleet as the shadows, over down or field,
Driven by strong winds at play among the clouds. 75
Yet one word more--one farewell word--a wish
Which came, but it has passed into a prayer--
That, as thy sun in brightness is declining,
So--at an hour yet distant for _their_ sakes
Whose tender love, here faltering on the way 80
Of a diviner love, will be forgiven--
So may it set in peace, to rise again
For everlasting glory won by faith.
[11] 1837.
Countess of ----
1835.
[12] The Lowther stream passes the Castle, and joins the Eamont below
Brougham Hall, near Penrith.--ED.
[13] 1837.
Towers, and stately Groves,
Bear witness for me; thou, too, Mountain-stream!
1835.
[14]
When hence …
C.
[15] Compare _September, 1819_, and _Upon the Same Occasion_, vol. vi.
pp. 201, 202, especially the lines in the latter--
Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,
And yellow on the bough, etc.
ED.
[16] 1837.
Thou tread, or on the managed steed art borne,
1835.
1835
Two Evening Voluntaries, two Elegies (on the deaths of Charles Lamb and
James Hogg), the lines on the Bird of Paradise, and a few sonnets, make
up the poems belonging to the year 1835.--ED.
“WHY ART THOU SILENT? IS THY LOVE A PLANT”
Composed 1835 (or earlier).--Published 1835
[In the month of January,--when Dora and I were walking from Town-end,
Grasmere, across the Vale, snow being on the ground, she espied, in
the thick though leafless hedge, a bird’s nest half-filled with snow.
Out of this comfortless appearance arose this Sonnet, which was, in
fact, written without the least reference to any individual object,
but merely to prove to myself that I could, if I thought fit, write in
a strain that Poets have been fond of. On the 14th of February in the
same year, my daughter, in a sportive mood, sent it as a Valentine,
under a fictitious name, to her cousin C.W.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Why art thou silent? Is thy love a plant
Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant-- 5
Bound to thy service with unceasing care,[17]
The mind’s least generous wish a mendicant
For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine, 10
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
Than a forsaken bird’s-nest filled with snow
’Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine--
Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!
[17] 1845.
… with incessant care,
C.
(As would my deeds have been) with hourly care,
1835.
TO THE MOON
(COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SIDE,--ON THE COAST OF CUMBERLAND)
Composed 1835.--Published 1837
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--ED.
Wanderer! that stoop’st so low, and com’st so near
To human life’s unsettled atmosphere;
Who lov’st with Night and Silence to partake,
So might it seem, the cares of them that wake;
And, through the cottage-lattice softly peeping, 5
Dost shield from harm the humblest of the sleeping;
What pleasure once encompassed those sweet names
Which yet in thy behalf the Poet claims,
An idolizing dreamer as of yore!--
I slight them all; and, on this sea-beat shore 10
Sole-sitting, only can to thoughts attend
That bid me hail thee as the SAILOR’S FRIEND;
So call thee for heaven’s grace through thee made known
By confidence supplied and mercy shown,
When not a twinkling star or beacon’s light 15
Abates the perils of a stormy night;
And for less obvious benefits, that find
Their way, with thy pure help, to heart and mind;
Both for the adventurer starting in life’s prime;
And veteran ranging round from clime to clime, 20
Long-baffled hope’s slow fever in his veins,
And wounds and weakness oft his labour’s sole remains.
The aspiring Mountains and the winding Streams,
Empress of Night! are gladdened by thy beams;
A look of thine the wilderness pervades, 25
And penetrates the forest’s inmost shades;
Thou, chequering peaceably the minster’s gloom,
Guid’st the pale Mourner to the lost one’s tomb;
Canst reach the Prisoner--to his grated cell
Welcome, though silent and intangible!-- 30
And lives there one, of all that come and go
On the great waters toiling to and fro,
One, who has watched thee at some quiet hour
Enthroned aloft in undisputed power,
Or crossed by vapoury streaks and clouds that move 35
Catching the lustre they in part reprove--
Nor sometimes felt a fitness in thy sway
To call up thoughts that shun the glare of day,
And make the serious happier than the gay?
Yes, lovely Moon! if thou so mildly bright 40
Dost rouse, yet surely in thy own despite,
To fiercer mood the phrenzy-stricken brain,
Let me a compensating faith maintain;
That there’s a sensitive, a tender, part
Which thou canst touch in every human heart, 45
For healing and composure.--But, as least
And mightiest billows ever have confessed
Thy domination; as the whole vast Sea
Feels through her lowest depths thy sovereignty;
So shines that countenance with especial grace 50
On them who urge the keel her _plains_ to trace
Furrowing its way right onward. The most rude,
Cut off from home and country, may have stood--
Even till long gazing hath bedimmed his eye,
Or the mute rapture ended in a sigh-- 55
Touched by accordance of thy placid cheer,
With some internal lights to memory dear,
Or fancies stealing forth to soothe the breast
Tired with its daily share of earth’s unrest,--
Gentle awakenings, visitations meek; 60
A kindly influence whereof few will speak,
Though it can wet with tears the hardiest cheek.
And when thy beauty in the shadowy cave
Is hidden, buried in its monthly grave;[18]
Then, while the Sailor, ’mid an open sea 65
Swept by a favouring wind that leaves thought free,
Paces the deck--no star perhaps in sight,
And nothing save the moving ship’s own light
To cheer the long dark hours of vacant night--
Oft with his musings does thy image blend, 70
In his mind’s eye thy crescent horns ascend,
And thou art still, O Moon, that SAILOR’S FRIEND!
[18] Compare--
When thou wert hidden in thy monthly grave,
in the lines _Written in a Grotto_, p. 235.--ED.
TO THE MOON
(RYDAL)
Composed 1835.--Published 1837
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--ED.
Queen of the stars!--so gentle, so benign,
That ancient Fable did to thee assign,
When darkness creeping o’er thy silver brow
Warned thee these upper regions to forego,
Alternate empire in the shades below-- 5
A Bard, who, lately near the wide-spread sea
Traversed by gleaming ships, looked up to thee
With grateful thoughts, doth now thy rising hail
From the close confines of a shadowy vale.
Glory of night, conspicuous yet serene, 10
Nor less attractive when by glimpses seen
Through cloudy umbrage,[19] well might that fair face,
And all those attributes of modest grace,
In days when Fancy wrought unchecked by fear,
Down to the green earth fetch thee from thy sphere, 15
To sit in leafy woods by fountains clear!
O still belov’d (for thine, meek Power, are charms
That fascinate the very Babe in arms,
While he, uplifted towards thee, laughs outright,
Spreading his little palms in his glad Mother’s sight) 20
O still belov’d, once worshipped! Time, that frowns
In his destructive flight on earthly crowns,
Spares thy mild splendour; still those far-shot beams
Tremble on dancing waves and rippling streams
With stainless touch, as chaste as when thy praise 25
Was sung by Virgin-choirs in festal lays;
And through dark trials still dost thou explore
Thy way for increase punctual as of yore,
When teeming Matrons--yielding to rude faith
In mysteries of birth and life and death 30
And painful struggle and deliverance--prayed
Of thee to visit them with lenient aid.
What though the rites be swept away, the fanes
Extinct that echoed to the votive strains;
Yet thy mild aspect does not, cannot, cease 35
Love to promote and purity and peace;
And Fancy, unreproved, even yet may trace
Faint types of suffering in thy beamless face.
Then, silent Monitress! let us--not blind
To worlds unthought of till the searching mind 40
Of Science laid them open to mankind--
Told, also, how the voiceless heavens declare
God’s glory; and acknowledging thy share
In that blest charge; let us--without offence
To aught of highest, holiest, influence-- 45
Receive whatever good ’tis given thee to dispense.
May sage and simple, catching with one eye
The moral intimations of the sky,
Learn from thy course, where’er their own be taken,
“To look on tempests, and be never shaken”;[20] 50
To keep with faithful step the appointed way
Eclipsing or eclipsed, by night or day,
And from example of thy monthly range
Gently to brook decline and fatal change;
Meek, patient, stedfast, and with loftier scope, 55
Than thy revival yields, for gladsome hope![21]
[19] Compare _The Triad_, vol. vii. p. 181.--ED.
[20] Compare l. 6 of Shakespeare’s sonnet, beginning--
Let me not to the marriage of true minds.
ED.
[21] See a fragment of ten lines, which was written by Wordsworth in
MS. after the above, in a copy of his poems. They are printed in the
Appendix to this volume.--ED.
WRITTEN AFTER THE DEATH OF CHARLES LAMB
[Light will be thrown upon the tragic circumstance alluded to in this
poem when, after the death of Charles Lamb’s Sister, his biographer,
Mr. Sergeant Talfourd, shall be at liberty to relate particulars which
could not, at the time his Memoir was written, be given to the public.
Mary Lamb was ten years older than her brother, and has survived him as
long a time. Were I to give way to my own feelings, I should dwell not
only on her genius and intellectual powers, but upon the delicacy and
refinement of manner which she maintained inviolable under most trying
circumstances. She was loved and honoured by all her brother’s friends;
and others, some of them strange characters, whom his philanthropic
peculiarities induced him to countenance. The death of C. Lamb himself
was doubtless hastened by his sorrow for that of Coleridge, to whom
he had been attached from the time of their being school-fellows at
Christ’s Hospital. Lamb was a good Latin scholar, and probably would
have gone to college upon one of the school foundations but for the
impediment in his speech. Had such been his lot, he would most likely
have been preserved from the indulgences of social humours and fancies
which were often injurious to himself, and causes of severe regret to
his friends, without really benefiting the object of his misapplied
kindness.--I.F.]
In the edition of 1837, these lines had no title. They were printed
privately,--before their first appearance in that edition,--as a small
pamphlet of seven pages without title or heading. A copy will be found
in the fifth volume of the collection of pamphlets, forming part of
the library bequeathed by the late Mr. John Forster to the South
Kensington Museum. There are several readings to be found only in this
privately-printed edition. The poem was placed among the “Epitaphs and
Elegiac Pieces.”--ED.
Composed November 19, 1835.--Published 1837
To a good Man of most dear memory[22]
This Stone is sacred.[23] Here he lies apart
From the great city where he first drew breath,
Was reared and taught; and humbly earned his bread,
To the strict labours of the merchant’s desk 5
By duty chained. Not seldom did those tasks
Tease, and the thought of time so spent depress,
His spirit, but the recompense was high;
Firm Independence, Bounty’s rightful sire;
Affections, warm as sunshine, free as air; 10
And when the precious hours of leisure came,
Knowledge and wisdom, gained from converse sweet
With books, or while he ranged the crowded streets
With a keen eye, and overflowing heart:
So genius triumphed over seeming wrong, 15
And poured out truth in works by thoughtful love
Inspired--works potent over smiles and tears.
And as round mountain-tops the lightning plays,
Thus innocently sported, breaking forth
As from a cloud of some grave sympathy, 20
Humour and wild instinctive wit, and all
The vivid flashes of his spoken words.
From the most gentle creature nursed in fields[24]
Had been derived the name he bore--a name,
Wherever christian altars have been raised, 25
Hallowed to meekness and to innocence;
And if in him meekness at times gave way,
Provoked out of herself by troubles strange,
Many and strange, that hung about his life;[25]
Still, at the centre of his being, lodged 30
A soul by resignation sanctified:
And if too often, self-reproached, he felt
That innocence belongs not to our kind,
A power that never ceased to abide in him,
Charity, ’mid the multitude of sins[26] 35
That she can cover, left not his exposed
To an unforgiving judgment from just Heaven.
O, he was good, if e’er a good Man lived!
From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart
Those simple lines flowed with an earnest wish, 40
Though but a doubting hope, that they might serve
Fitly to guard the precious dust of him
Whose virtues called them forth. That aim is missed;
For much that truth most urgently required
Had from a faltering pen been asked in vain: 45
Yet, haply, on the printed page received,
The imperfect record, there, may stand unblamed
As long as verse of mine shall breathe the air
Of memory, or see the light of love.[27]
Thou wert a scorner of the fields, my Friend, 50
But more in show than truth;[28] and from the fields,
And from the mountains, to thy rural grave
Transported, my soothed spirit hovers o’er
Its green untrodden turf, and blowing flowers;
And taking up a voice shall speak (tho’ still 55
Awed by the theme’s peculiar sanctity
Which words less free presumed not even to touch)
Of that fraternal love, whose heaven-lit lamp
From infancy, through manhood, to the last
Of threescore years, and to thy latest hour, 60
Burnt on with ever-strengthening light, enshrined[29]
Within thy bosom.
“Wonderful” hath been
The love established between man and man,
“Passing the love of women;” and between
Man and his help-mate in fast wedlock joined 65
Through God,[30] is raised a spirit and soul of love
Without whose blissful influence Paradise
Had been no Paradise; and earth were now
A waste where creatures bearing human form,
Direst of savage beasts, would roam in fear, 70
Joyless and comfortless. Our days glide on;[31]
And let him grieve who cannot choose but grieve
That he hath been an Elm without his Vine,
And her bright dower of clustering charities,
That, round his trunk and branches, might have clung 75
Enriching and adorning. Unto thee,
Not so enriched, not so adorned, to thee
Was given (say rather thou of later birth
Wert given to her) a Sister--’tis a word
Timidly uttered, for she _lives_, the meek, 80
The self-restraining, and the ever-kind;
In whom thy reason and intelligent heart
Found--for all interests, hopes, and tender cares,
All softening, humanising, hallowing powers,
Whether withheld, or for her sake unsought-- 85
More than sufficient recompense!
Her love
(What weakness prompts the voice to tell it here?)
Was as the love of mothers; and when years,
Lifting the boy to man’s estate, had called
The long-protected to assume the part 90
Of a protector, the first filial tie
Was undissolved; and, in or out of sight,
Remained imperishably interwoven
With life itself. Thus, ’mid a shifting world,
Did they together testify of time[32] 95
And season’s difference--a double tree
With two collateral stems sprung from one root;
Such were they--such thro’ life they _might_ have been
In union, in partition only such;
Otherwise wrought the will of the Most High; 100
Yet, thro’ all visitations and all trials,
Still they were faithful; like two vessels launched
From the same beach one ocean to explore[33]
With mutual help, and sailing--to their league
True, as inexorable winds, or bars 105
Floating or fixed of polar ice, allow.[34]
But turn we rather, let my spirit turn
With thine, O silent and invisible Friend!
To those dear intervals, nor rare nor brief,
When reunited, and by choice withdrawn 110
From miscellaneous converse, ye were taught
That the remembrance of foregone distress,
And the worse fear of future ill (which oft
Doth hang around it, as a sickly child
Upon its mother) may be both alike 115
Disarmed of power to unsettle present good
So prized, and things inward and outward held
In such an even balance, that the heart
Acknowledges God’s grace, his mercy feels,
And in its depth of gratitude is still. 120
O gift divine of quiet sequestration!
The hermit, exercised in prayer and praise,
And feeding daily on the hope of heaven,
Is happy in his vow, and fondly cleaves
To life-long singleness; but happier far 125
Was to your souls, and, to the thoughts of others,
A thousand times more beautiful appeared,
Your _dual_ loneliness. The sacred tie
Is broken; yet why grieve? for Time but holds
His moiety in trust, till Joy shall lead 130
To the blest world where parting is unknown.[35]
[22] 1837.
_To the dear memory of a frail good Man_
In privately printed edition.
[23] Charles Lamb died December 27, 1834, and was buried in Edmonton
Churchyard, in a spot selected by himself.--ED.
[24] This way of indicating the _name_ of my lamented friend has been
found fault with, perhaps rightly so; but I may say in justification of
the double sense of the word, that similar allusions are not uncommon
in epitaphs. One of the best in our language in verse, I ever read,
was upon a person who bore the name of Palmer†; and the course of the
thought, throughout, turned upon the Life of the Departed, considered
as a pilgrimage. Nor can I think that the objection in the present
case will have much force with any one who remembers Charles Lamb’s
beautiful sonnet addressed to his own name, and ending--
No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name!
W. W. 1837.
† 1840.
Pilgrim;
1837.
Professor Henry Reed, in his edition of 1837, added the following note
to Wordsworth’s. “In _Hierologus_, a Church Tour through England and
Wales, I have met with an epitaph which is probably the one alluded to
above … a Kentish epitaph on one Palmer:
Palmers all our fathers were;
I, a Palmer lived here,
And traveyled sore, till worn with age,
I ended this world’s pilgrimage,
On the blest Ascension Day
In the cheerful month of May.”
The above is Professor Reed’s note. The following is an exact copy of
the epitaph:--
_Palmers_ all our faders were;
I, a _Palmer_ livyd here
And travyld still till worne wyth age,
I endyd this world’s pylgramage,
On the blyst assention day
In the cherful month of May;
A thowsand wyth fowre hundryd seven,
And took my jorney hense to heven.
(Printed by Weever.)
ED.
[25] Compare Talfourd’s _Final Memorials of Charles Lamb_,
_passim_.--ED.
[26] 1837.
_He had a constant friend--in Charity_;
HER _who, among_ a multitude of sins,
In privately printed edition.
[27] 1837.
From a reflecting mind and sorrowing heart
This tribute flow’d, with hope that it might guard
The dust of him whose virtues call’d it forth;
But ’tis a little space of earth that man,
Stretch’d out in death, is doom’d to occupy;
Still smaller space doth modest custom yield,
On sculptured tomb or tablet, to the claims
Of the deceased, or rights of the bereft.
’Tis well; and tho’, the record overstepped
Those narrow bounds, yet on the printed page
Received, there may it stand, I trust, unblamed
As long as verse of mine shall steal from tears
Their bitterness, or live to shed a gleam
Of solace over one dejected thought.
In privately printed edition.
Professor Dowden quotes, from “a slip of MS. in the poet’s
hand-writing,” the following variation of these lines--
’Tis well, and if the Record in the strength
And earnestness of feeling, overpass’d
Those narrow limits and so miss’d its aim,
Yet will I trust that on the printed page
Received, it there may keep a place unblamed.
ED.
[28] Lamb’s indifference to the country “was a sort of ‘mock apparel,’
in which it was his humour at times to invest himself.” (H. N.
Coleridge, Supplement to the _Biographia Literaria_, p. 333.)--ED.
[29] 1837.
Burned, and with ever-strengthening light, enshrined
In privately printed edition.
[30] 1837.
By God, …
In privately printed edition.
[31] 1837.
… Our days pass on;
In privately printed edition.
[32] 1837.
Together stood they witnessing of time
In privately printed edition.
[33] 1837.
Yet, in all visitations, through all trials
Still they were faithful, like two goodly ships
Launch’d from the beach, …
In privately printed edition.
[34] Compare the testimony borne to Mary Lamb by Mr. Procter (Barry
Cornwall), and by Henry Crabb Robinson.--ED.
[35] 1837.
… The sacred tie
Is broken, to become more sacred still.
In privately printed edition.
Wordsworth originally meant to write an epitaph on Charles Lamb,
but his verse grew into an elegy of some length. A reference to the
circumstance of its “composition” will be found in one of his letters,
in a later volume.--ED.
EXTEMPORE EFFUSION UPON THE DEATH OF JAMES HOGG
Composed 1835.--Published 1835
[These verses were written extempore, immediately after reading a
notice of the Ettrick Shepherd’s death, in the Newcastle paper, to the
Editor of which I sent a copy for publication. The persons lamented
in these verses were all either of my friends or acquaintance. In
Lockhart’s _Life of Sir Walter Scott_, an account is given of my
first meeting with him in 1803. How the Ettrick Shepherd and I became
known to each other has already been mentioned in these notes. He was
undoubtedly a man of original genius, but of coarse manners and low
and offensive opinions. Of Coleridge and Lamb I need not speak here.
Crabbe I have met in London at Mr. Rogers’s, but more frequently and
favourably at Mr. Hoare’s upon Hampstead Heath. Every spring he used to
pay that family a visit of some length, and was upon terms of intimate
friendship with Mrs. Hoare, and still more with her daughter-in-law,
who has a large collection of his letters addressed to herself. After
the Poet’s decease, application was made to her to give up these
letters to his biographer, that they, or at least part of them, might
be given to the public. She hesitated to comply, and asked my opinion
on the subject. “By no means,” was my answer, grounded not upon any
objection there might be to publishing a selection from these letters,
but from an aversion I have always felt to meet idle curiosity by
calling back the recently departed to become the object of trivial
and familiar gossip. Crabbe obviously for the most part preferred the
company of women to that of men, for this among other reasons, that
he did not like to be put upon the stretch in general conversation:
accordingly in miscellaneous society his _talk_ was so much below what
might have been expected from a man so deservedly celebrated, that to
me it seemed trifling. It must upon other occasions have been of a
different character, as I found in our rambles together on Hampstead
Heath, and not so much from a readiness to communicate his knowledge
of life and manners as of natural history in all its branches. His
mind was inquisitive, and he seems to have taken refuge from the
remembrance of the distresses he had gone through, in these studies
and the employments to which they led. Moreover, such contemplations
might tend profitably to counterbalance the painful truths which he had
collected from his intercourse with mankind. Had I been more intimate
with him, I should have ventured to touch upon his office as a minister
of the Gospel, and how far his heart and soul were in it so as to make
him a zealous and diligent labourer: in poetry, though he wrote much
as we all know, he assuredly was not so. I happened once to speak of
pains as necessary to produce merit of a certain kind which I highly
valued: his observation was--“It is not worth while.” You are quite
right, thought I, if the labour encroaches upon the time due to teach
truth as a steward of the mysteries of God: if there be cause to fear
_that_, write less: but, if poetry is to be produced at all, make
what you do produce as good as you can. Mr. Rogers once told me that
he expressed his regret to Crabbe that he wrote in his later works so
much less correctly than in his earlier. “Yes,” replied he, “but then
I had a reputation to make; now I can afford to relax.” Whether it
was from a modest estimate of his own qualifications, or from causes
less creditable, his motives for writing verse and his hopes and aims
were not so high as is to be desired. After being silent for more than
twenty years, he again applied himself to poetry, upon the spur of
applause he received from the periodical publications of the day, as he
himself tells us in one of his prefaces. Is it not to be lamented that
a man who was so conversant with permanent truth, and whose writings
are so valuable an acquisition to our country’s literature, should have
_required_ an impulse from such a quarter? Mrs. Hemans was unfortunate
as a poetess in being obliged by circumstances to write for money, and
that so frequently and so much, that she was compelled to look out for
subjects wherever she could find them, and to write as expeditiously as
possible. As a woman, she was to a considerable degree a spoilt child
of the world. She had been early in life distinguished for talent, and
poems of hers were published while she was a girl. She had also been
handsome in her youth, but her education had been most unfortunate.
She was totally ignorant of housewifery, and could as easily have
managed the spear of Minerva as her needle. It was from observing these
deficiencies, that, one day while she was under my roof, I _purposely_
directed her attention to household economy, and told her I had
purchased _Scales_ which I intended to present to a young lady as a
wedding present; pointed out their utility (for her especial benefit)
and said that no ménage ought to be without them. Mrs. Hemans, not in
the least suspecting my drift, reported this saying, in a letter to a
friend at the time, as a proof of my simplicity. Being disposed to make
large allowances for the faults of her education and the circumstances
in which she was placed, I felt most kindly disposed towards her, and
took her part upon all occasions, and I was not a little affected
by learning that after she withdrew to Ireland, a long and severe
sickness raised her spirit as it depressed her body. This I heard from
her most intimate friends, and there is striking evidence of it in a
poem written and published not long before her death. These notices
of Mrs. Hemans would be very unsatisfactory to her intimate friends,
as indeed they are to myself, not so much for what is said, but what
for brevity’s sake is left unsaid. Let it suffice to add, there was
much sympathy between us, and, if opportunity had been allowed me to
see more of her, I should have loved and valued her accordingly; as it
is, I remember her with true affection for her amiable qualities, and,
above all, for her delicate and irreproachable conduct during her long
separation from an unfeeling husband, whom she had been led to marry
from the romantic notions of inexperienced youth. Upon this husband I
never heard her cast the least reproach, nor did I ever hear her even
name him, though she did not wholly forbear to touch upon her domestic
position; but never so that any fault could be found with her manner of
adverting to it. --I.F.]
This first appeared in _The Athenæum_, December 12, 1835, and in
the edition of 1837 it was included among the “Epitaphs and Elegiac
Pieces.”--ED.
When first, descending from the moorlands,
I saw the Stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,
The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.[36]
When last along its banks I wandered, 5
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border-minstrel led.
The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,[37]
’Mid mouldering ruins low he lies;[38] 10
And death upon the braes of Yarrow,
Has closed the Shepherd-poet’s eyes:[39]
Nor has the rolling year twice measured,
From sign to sign, its stedfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge 15
Was frozen at its marvellous source;[40]
The rapt One, of the godlike forehead,[41]
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth:
And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.[42] 20
Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,[43]
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land!
Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber[44] 25
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers,
“Who next will drop and disappear?”
Our haughty life is crowned with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath, 30
On which with thee, O Crabbe! forth-looking,
I gazed from Hampstead’s breezy heath.
As if but yesterday departed,
Thou too art gone before;[45] but why,
O’er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered, 35
Should frail survivors heave a sigh?
Mourn rather for that holy Spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep;
For Her who, ere her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep.[46] 40
No more of old romantic sorrows,
For slaughtered Youth or love-lorn Maid!
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,
And Ettrick mourns with her their Poet dead.[47]
[36] Compare _Yarrow Visited_ (September, 1814), vol. vi. p. 35.--ED.
[37] Compare _Yarrow Revisited_ (1831), vol. vii. p. 278.--ED.
[38] Scott died at Abbotsford, on the 21st September 1832, and was
buried in Dryburgh Abbey.--ED.
[39] Hogg died at Altrive, on the 21st November 1835.--ED.
[40] Coleridge died at Highgate, on the 25th July 1834.--ED.
[41] Compare the _Stanzas written in my Pocket Copy of Thomson’s
“Castle of Indolence”_ (vol. ii. p. 307)--
Profound his forehead was, though not severe.
ED.
[42] Lamb died in London, on the 27th December 1834.--ED.
[43] “This expression is borrowed from a sonnet by Mr. G. Bell, the
author of a small volume of poems lately printed at Penrith. Speaking
of Skiddaw he says--
Yon dark cloud ‘rakes,’ and shrouds its noble brow.”
(Henry Reed, 1837.)--ED.
[44] 1845.
… slumbers
1837.
[45] George Crabbe died at Trowbridge, Wiltshire, on the 3rd of
February 1832.--ED.
[46] Felicia Hemans died 16th May 1835.--ED.
[47]
Grieve rather for that holy Spirit
Pure as the sky, as ocean deep;
For her who ere the summer faded
Has sunk into a breathless sleep.
No more of old romantic sorrows
For slaughtered Youth or love-lorn Maid!
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,
And Ettrick mourns her Shepherd Poet dead.
C.
UPON SEEING A COLOURED DRAWING OF THE BIRD OF PARADISE IN AN ALBUM
Composed 1835.--Published 1836
[I cannot forbear to record that the last seven lines of this Poem were
composed in bed during the night of the day on which my sister Sara
Hutchinson died about 6 P.M., and it was the thought of her innocent
and beautiful life that, through faith, prompted the words----
On wings that fear no glance of God’s pure sight,
No tempest from his breath.
The reader will find two poems on pictures of this bird among my
Poems. I will here observe that in a far greater number of instances
than have been mentioned in these notes one poem has, as in this
case, grown out of another, either because I felt the subject had
been inadequately treated, or that the thoughts and images suggested
in course of composition have been such as I found interfered with
the unity indispensable to every work of art, however humble in
character.--I.F.]
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.
Who rashly strove thy Image to portray?
Thou buoyant minion of the tropic air;
How could he think of the live creature----gay
With a divinity of colours, drest
In all her brightness, from the dancing crest 5
Far as the last gleam of the filmy train
Extended and extending to sustain
The motions that it graces----and forbear
To drop his pencil! Flowers of every clime
Depicted on these pages smile at time; 10
And gorgeous insects copied with nice care
Are here, and likenesses of many a shell
Tossed ashore by restless waves,
Or in the diver’s grasp fetched up from caves
Where sea-nymphs might be proud to dwell: 15
But whose rash hand (again I ask) could dare,
’Mid casual tokens and promiscuous shows,
To circumscribe this Shape in fixed repose;
Could imitate for indolent survey,
Perhaps for touch profane, 20
Plumes that might catch, but cannot keep, a stain;
And, with cloud-streaks lightest and loftiest, share
The sun’s first greeting, his last farewell ray!
Resplendent Wanderer! followed with glad eyes
Where’er her course; mysterious Bird! 25
To whom, by wondering Fancy stirred,
Eastern Islanders have given
A holy name----the Bird of Heaven!
And even a title higher still,
The Bird of God![48] whose blessed will 30
She seems performing as she flies
Over the earth and through the skies
In never-wearied search of Paradise----
Region that crowns her beauty with the name
She bears for _us_----for us how blest, 35
How happy at all seasons, could like aim
Uphold our Spirits urged to kindred flight
On wings that fear no glance of God’s pure sight,
No tempest from his breath, their promised rest
Seeking with indefatigable quest 40
Above a world that deems itself most wise
When most enslaved by gross realities!
[48] Compare, in Robert Browning’s poem on Guercino’s picture of _The
Guardian-Angel at Fano_----
Thou bird of God.
ED.
“DESPONDING FATHER! MARK THIS ALTERED BOUGH”
Composed 1835.--Published 1835
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Desponding Father! mark this altered bough,[49]
So beautiful of late, with sunshine warmed,
Or moist with dews; what more unsightly now,
Its blossoms shrivelled, and its fruit, if formed,
Invisible? yet Spring her genial brow 5
Knits not o’er that discolouring and decay
As false to expectation. Nor fret thou
At like unlovely process in the May
Of human life: a Stripling’s graces blow,
Fade and are shed, that from their timely fall 10
(Misdeem it not a cankerous change) may grow
Rich mellow bearings, that for thanks shall call:
In all men, sinful is it to be slow
To hope----in Parents, sinful above all.
[49] Compare _The Excursion_ (book iii. l. 649), and the sonnet (vol.
vi. p. 72) beginning----
Surprised by joy----impatient as the Wind.
ED.
“FOUR FIERY STEEDS IMPATIENT OF THE REIN”
Composed 1835.--Published 1835
[Suggested on the road between Preston and Lancaster where it first
gives a view of the Lake country, and composed on the same day, on the
roof of the coach.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Four fiery steeds impatient of the rein
Whirled us o’er sunless ground beneath a sky
As void of sunshine, when, from that wide plain,
Clear tops of far-off mountains we descry,
Like a Sierra of cerulean Spain, 5
All light and lustre. Did no heart reply?
Yes, there was One;--for One, asunder fly
The thousand links of that ethereal chain;
And green vales open out, with grove and field,
And the fair front of many a happy Home; 10
Such tempting spots as into vision come
While Soldiers, weary of the arms they wield
And sick at heart[50] of strifeful Christendom,
Gaze on the moon by parting clouds revealed.
[50] 1837.
While Soldiers, of the weapons that they wield
Weary, and sick of strifeful …
1835.
TO ----
Composed 1835.--Published 1835
[The fate of this poor Dove, as described, was told to me at Brinsop
Court, by the young lady to whom I have given the name of Lesbia.--I.F.]
[Miss not the occasion: by the forelock take
That subtle Power, the never-halting Time,
Lest a mere moment’s putting-off should make
Mischance almost as heavy as a crime.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
“Wait, prithee, wait!” this answer Lesbia[51] threw
Forth to her Dove, and took no further heed.
Her eye was busy, while her fingers flew
Across the harp, with soul-engrossing speed;
But from that bondage when her thoughts were freed 5
She rose, and toward the close-shut casement drew,
Whence the poor unregarded Favourite, true
To old affections, had been heard to plead
With flapping wing for entrance. What a shriek
Forced from that voice so lately tuned to a strain 10
Of harmony!----a shriek of terror, pain,
And self-reproach! for, from aloft, a Kite
Pounced,----and the Dove, which from its ruthless beak
She could not rescue, perished in her sight!
[51] Miss Loveday Walker, daughter of the Rector of Brinsop. See the
Fenwick note to the next sonnet.--ED.
ROMAN ANTIQUITIES DISCOVERED AT BISHOPSTONE, HEREFORDSHIRE
Composed 1835.--Published 1835
[My attention to these antiquities was directed by Mr. Walker, son
to the itinerant Eidouranian Philosopher. The beautiful pavement was
discovered within a few yards of the front door of his parsonage, and
appeared from the site (in full view of several hills upon which there
had formerly been Roman encampments) as if it might have been the
villa of the commander of the forces, at least such was Mr. Walker’s
conjecture.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
While poring Antiquarians search the ground
Upturned with curious pains, the Bard, a Seer,
Takes fire:----The men that have been reappear;
Romans for travel girt, for business gowned;
And some recline on couches, myrtle-crowned, 5
In festal glee: why not? For fresh and clear,
As if its hues were of the passing year,
Dawns this time-buried pavement. From that mound
Hoards may come forth of Trajans, Maximins,
Shrunk into coins with all their warlike toil: 10
Or a fierce impress issues with its foil
Of tenderness--the Wolf, whose suckling Twins
The unlettered ploughboy pities when he wins
The casual treasure from the furrowed soil.
ST. CATHERINE OF LEDBURY
Composed 1835.--Published 1835
[Written on a journey from Brinsop Court, Herefordshire.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
When human touch (as monkish books attest)
Nor was applied nor could be, Ledbury bells
Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells,
And upward, high as Malvern’s cloudy crest;[52]
Sweet tones, and caught by a noble Lady blest 5
To rapture! Mabel listened at the side
Of her loved mistress: soon the music died,
And Catherine said, Here I set up my rest.
Warned in a dream, the Wanderer long had sought
A home that by such miracle of sound 10
Must be revealed:--she heard it now, or felt
The deep, deep joy of a confiding thought;
And there, a saintly Anchoress, she dwelt
Till she exchanged for heaven that happy ground.
[52] The Ledbury bells are easily audible on the Malvern hills.--ED.
“BY A BLEST HUSBAND GUIDED, MARY CAME”[53]
Published 1835
[This lady was named Carleton; she, along with a sister, was brought
up in the neighbourhood of Ambleside. The epitaph, a part of it at
least, is in the church at Bromsgrove, where she resided after her
marriage.--I.F.]
One of the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces.”--ED.
By a blest Husband guided, Mary came
From nearest kindred, Vernon[54] her new name;
She came, though meek of soul, in seemly pride
Of happiness and hope, a youthful Bride.
O dread reverse! if aught _be_ so, which proves 5
That God will chasten whom he dearly loves.
Faith bore her up through pains in mercy given,
And troubles that were each a step to Heaven:
Two Babes were laid in earth before she died;
A third now slumbers at the Mother’s side; 10
Its Sister-twin survives, whose smiles afford
A trembling solace to her widowed Lord.
Reader! if to thy bosom cling the pain
Of recent sorrow combated in vain;
Or if thy cherished grief have failed to thwart 15
Time still intent on his insidious part,
Lulling the mourner’s best good thoughts asleep,
Pilfering regrets we would, but cannot, keep;
Bear with Him--judge _Him_ gently who makes known
His bitter loss by this memorial Stone; 20
And pray that in his faithful breast the grace
Of resignation find a hallowed place.
[53] 1837.
In the edition of 1835 the title was “Epitaph.”
[54] 1837.
From nearest kindred, …
1835.
“OH WHAT A WRECK! HOW CHANGED IN MIEN AND SPEECH!”
Composed 1835.--Published 1838
[The sad condition of poor Mrs. Southey[55] put me upon writing this.
It has afforded comfort to many persons whose friends have been
similarly affected.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Oh what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech!
Yet--though dread Powers, that work in mystery, spin
Entanglings of[56] the brain; though shadows stretch
O’er the chilled heart--reflect; far, far within
Hers is a holy Being, freed from Sin. 5
She is not what she seems, a forlorn wretch,
But delegated Spirits comfort fetch
To Her from heights that Reason may not win.
Like Children, She is privileged to hold
Divine communion;[57] both do live and move, 10
Whate’er to shallow Faith their ways unfold,
Inly illumined by Heaven’s pitying love;
Love pitying innocence not long to last,
In them--in Her our sins and sorrows past.
[55] Mrs. Southey died 16th November 1837. She had long been an
invalid. See Southey’s _Life and Correspondence_, vol. vi. p. 347.--ED.
[56] 1842.
… for …
1838.
[57] Compare a remark of Wordsworth’s that he never saw those with
mind unhinged, but he thought of the words, “Life hid in God.” It is a
curious oriental belief that idiots are in closer communion with the
Infinite than the sane are.--ED.
1836
So far as can be ascertained, only one sonnet was written by Wordsworth
in 1836. The verses _To a Redbreast_, by his sister-in-law, Sarah
Hutchinson, may however be placed alongside of the sonnet addressed to
her.--ED.
NOVEMBER 1836
Composed 1836.--Published 1837.
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Even so for me a Vision sanctified
The sway of Death; long ere mine eyes had seen
Thy countenance--the still rapture of thy mien--
When thou, dear Sister![58] wert become Death’s Bride:
No trace of pain or languor could abide 5
That change:--age on thy brow was smoothed--thy cold
Wan cheek at once was privileged to unfold
A loveliness to living youth denied.
Oh! if within me hope should e’er decline,
The lamp of faith, lost Friend! too faintly burn; 10
Then may that heaven-revealing smile of thine,
The bright assurance, visibly return:
And let my spirit in that power divine
Rejoice, as, through that power, it ceased to mourn.
[58] Sarah Hutchinson--Mrs. Wordsworth’s sister--died at Rydal on the
23rd June 1836. It was after her that the poet named one of the two
“heath-clad rocks” referred to in the “Poems on the naming of Places,”
and which he called respectively “Mary-Point” and “Sarah-Point.” In
1827 he inscribed to her the sonnet beginning--
Excuse is needless when with love sincere,
and the lines she wrote _To a Redbreast_, beginning--
Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay,
were published among Wordsworth’s own poems.
The sonnet written in 1806, beginning--
Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne,
was, Wordsworth tells us, a great favourite with S. H. He adds, “When
I saw her lying in death I could not resist the impulse to compose the
sonnet that follows it.” (See vol. iv. p. 46.)
In a letter to Southey (unpublished), Wordsworth refers to her death,
and adds: “I saw her within an hour after her decease, in the silence
and peace of death, with as heavenly an expression on her countenance
as ever human creature had. Surely there is food for faith in these
appearances: for myself, I can say that I have passed a wakeful night,
more in joy than in sorrow, with that blessed face before my eyes
perpetually as I lay in bed.”
TO A REDBREAST--(IN SICKNESS)
Published 1842
[Almost the only verses by our lamented sister Sara Hutchinson.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay,
And at my casement sing,
Though it should prove a farewell lay
And this our parting spring.
Though I, alas! may ne’er enjoy 5
The promise in thy song;
A charm, _that_ thought can not destroy,
Doth to thy strain belong.
Methinks that in my dying hour
Thy song would still be dear, 10
And with a more than earthly power
My passing Spirit cheer.
Then, little Bird, this boon confer,
Come, and my requiem sing,
Nor fail to be the harbinger 15
Of everlasting Spring.
S.H.
1837
The poems belonging to the year 1837 include the “Memorials of a Tour
in Italy” with Henry Crabb Robinson in that year, and one or two
additional sonnets.--ED.
“SIX MONTHS TO SIX YEARS ADDED HE REMAINED”
Published 1837
One of the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces.”--ED.
Six months to six years added he remained
Upon this sinful earth, by sin unstained:
O blessed Lord! whose mercy then removed
A Child whom every eye that looked on loved;
Support us, teach us calmly to resign 5
What we possessed, and now is wholly thine![59]
[59] This refers to the poet’s son Thomas, who died December 1, 1812.
He was buried in Grasmere churchyard, beside his sister Catherine; and
Wordsworth placed these lines upon his tombstone. They may have been
written much earlier than 1836, probably in 1813, but it is impossible
to ascertain the date, and they were not published till 1837.--ED.
MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN ITALY 1837
Composed 1837.--Published 1842
[During my whole life I had felt a strong desire to visit Rome and the
other celebrated cities and regions of Italy, but did not think myself
justified in incurring the necessary expense till I received from Mr.
Moxon, the publisher of a large edition of my poems, a sum sufficient
to enable me to gratify my wish without encroaching upon what I
considered due to my family. My excellent friend H.C. Robinson readily
consented to accompany me, and in March 1837, we set off from London,
to which we returned in August, earlier than my companion wished or
I should myself have desired had I been, like him, a bachelor. These
Memorials of that tour touch upon but a very few of the places and
objects that interested me, and, in what they do advert to, are for
the most part much slighter than I could wish. More particularly do I
regret that there is no notice in them of the South of France, nor of
the Roman antiquities abounding in that district, especially of the
Pont de Degard, which, together with its situation, impressed me full
as much as any remains of Roman architecture to be found in Italy.
Then there was Vaucluse, with its Fountain, its Petrarch, its rocks of
all seasons, its small plots of lawn in their first vernal freshness,
and the blossoms of the peach and other trees embellishing the scene
on every side. The beauty of the stream also called forcibly for the
expression of sympathy from one who, from his childhood, had studied
the brooks and torrents of his native mountains. Between two and three
hours did I run about climbing the steep and rugged crags from whose
base the water of Vaucluse breaks forth. “Has Laura’s Lover,” often
said I to myself, “ever sat down upon this stone? or has his foot ever
pressed that turf?” Some, especially of the female sex, would have felt
sure of it: my answer was (impute it to my years) “I fear, not.” Is it
not in fact obvious that many of his love verses must have flowed, I
do not say from a wish to display his own talent, but from a habit of
exercising his intellect in that way rather than from an impulse of his
heart? It is otherwise with his Lyrical poems, and particularly with
the one upon the degradation of his country: there he pours out his
reproaches, lamentations, and aspirations like an ardent and sincere
patriot. But enough: it is time to turn to my own effusions such as
they are.--I.F.]
TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON[60]
Companion! by whose buoyant Spirit cheered,
In[61] whose experience trusting, day by day
Treasures I gained with zeal that neither feared
The toils nor felt the crosses of the way,
These records take, and happy should I be 5
Were but the Gift a meet Return to thee
For kindnesses that never ceased to flow,
And prompt self-sacrifice to which I owe
Far more than any heart but mine can know.
W. WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT, _Feb. 14th, 1842._
[60] The following is the Itinerary of the Italian Tour of 1837,
supplied by Mr. Henry Crabb Robinson. (See _Memoirs of Wordsworth_,
vol. ii. pp. 316, 317.) The spelling of the names of places is
Robinson’s.
March, 1837.
19. By steam to Calais.
20. Posting to Samer.
21. Posting to Granvilliers.
22. Through Beauvais to Paris.
26. To Fontainbleau.
27. Through Nemours to Cosne.
28. To Moulins.
29. To Tarare.
30. To Lyons.
31. Through Vienne to Tain.
April.
1. Through Valence to Orange.
2. To Avignon; to Vaucluse and back.
3, 4. By Pont du Gard to Nismes.
5, 6. By St. Remi to Marseilles.
7. To Toulon.
8. To Luc.
9. By Frejus to Cannes.
10, 11. To Nice.
12. Through Mentone to St. Remo.
13. Through Finale to Savone.
14-16. To Genoa.
17. To Chiaveri.
18. To Spezia.
19. By Carrara to Massa.
20. To Lucca.
21. To Pisa.
22. To Volterra.
23. By Castiglonacco and Sienna.
24. To Radicofani.
25. By Aquapendente to Viterbo.
26. To Rome.
May.
13. Excursion to Tivoli with Dr. Carlyle.
17-21. Excursion to Albano, etc., etc., with Miss Mackenzie.
23. To Terni.
24. After seeing the Falls, to Spoleto.
25. To Cortona and Perugia.
26. To Arezzo.
27. To Bibiena and Laverna.
28. To Camaldoli.
29. From Muselea to Ponte Sieve.
30. From Ponte Sieve to Val Ombrosa and Florence.
June.
6, 7. To Bologna.
8. Parma.
9. Through Piacenza to Milan.
11. To the Certosa and back.
12. To the Lake of Como and back.
13. To Bergamo.
14. To Pallazuola and Isco.
15. Excursion to Riveri and back.
16. To Brescia and Desinzano.
17. On Lake of Garda to Riva.
19. To Verona.
20. Vicenza.
21. Padua.
22. Venice.
28. To Logerone.
29. To Sillian.
30. Spittal (in Carinthia).
July.
1. Over Kazenberg to Tweng.
2. Through Werfen to Hallein.
3. Excursion to Konigsee.
4, 5. To Saltzburg.
6. To Ischl. A week’s stay in the Salzkammer Gut, viz.--
8. Gmund.
9. Travenfalls and back.
10. Aussee.
11. Excursion to lakes, then to Hallstadt.
13. Through Ischl to St. Gilgin.
14. Through Salzburg to Trauenstein.
15. To Miesbach.
16. To Tegernsee and Holzkirken.
17. To Munich.
21. To Augsburg.
22. To Ulm.
23. To Stuttgard.
24. To Besigham.
25. To Heidelberg.
28. Through Worms to Mayence.
29. To Coblenz.
30. To Bonn.
31. Through Cologne to Aix-la-Chapelle.
August.
1. To Louvain
2. To Brussels.
3. To Antwerp.
4. To Liege.
5. Through Lille to Cassell.
6. Calais.
7. London.
[61] 1845.
To …
1842.
The Tour of which the following Poems are very inadequate remembrances
was shortened by report, too well founded, of the prevalence of Cholera
at Naples. To make some amends for what was reluctantly left unseen
in the South of Italy, we visited the Tuscan Sanctuaries among the
Apennines, and the principal Italian Lakes among the Alps. Neither
of those lakes, nor of Venice, is there any notice in these Poems,
chiefly because I have touched upon them elsewhere. See, in particular,
_Descriptive Sketches_, “Memorials of a Tour on the Continent in 1820,”
and a Sonnet upon the extinction of the Venetian Republic.--W.W.
I
MUSINGS NEAR AQUAPENDENTE
APRIL, 1837
[Not the less
Had his sunk eye kindled at those dear words
That spake of bards and minstrels.
His, Sir Walter Scott’s, eye, _did_ in fact kindle at them, for the
lines, “Places forsaken now” and the two that follow, were adopted from
a poem of mine which nearly forty years ago was _in part_ read to him,
and he never forgot them.
Old Helvellyn’s brow
Where once together, in his day of strength,
We stood rejoicing.
Sir Humphry Davy was with us at the time. We had ascended from
Patterdale, and I could not but admire the vigour with which Scott
scrambled along that horn of the mountain called “Striding Edge.” Our
progress was necessarily slow, and was beguiled by Scott’s telling many
stories and amusing anecdotes, as was his custom. Sir H. Davy would
have probably been better pleased if other topics had occasionally been
interspersed, and some discussion entered upon: at all events he did
not remain with us long at the top of the mountain, but left us to find
our way down its steep side together into the Vale of Grasmere, where,
at my cottage, Mrs. Scott was to meet us at dinner.
With faint smile
…
He said, “When I am there, although ’tis fair,
’Twill be another Yarrow.”
See among these notes the one on _Yarrow Revisited_.
A few short steps (painful they were) apart
From Tasso’s Convent-haven, and retired grave.
This, though introduced here, I did not know till it was told me at
Rome by Miss Mackenzie of Seaforth, a lady whose friendly attentions
during my residence at Rome I have gratefully acknowledged with
expressions of sincere regret that she is no more. Miss M. told me
that she accompanied Sir Walter to the Janicular Mount, and, after
showing him the grave of Tasso in the church upon the top, and a mural
monument, there erected to his memory, they left the church and stood
together on the brow of the hill overlooking the City of Rome: his
daughter Anne was with them, and she, naturally desirous, for the sake
of Miss Mackenzie especially, to have some expression of pleasure from
her father, half reproached him for showing nothing of that kind either
by his looks or voice: “How can I,” replied he, “having only one leg
to stand upon, and that in extreme pain!” so that the prophecy was more
than fulfilled.
Over waves rough and deep.
We took boat near the lighthouse at the point of the right horn of
the bay which makes a sort of natural port for Genoa; but the wind
was high, and the waves long and rough, so that I did not feel quite
recompensed by the view of the city, splendid as it was, for the danger
apparently incurred. The boatman (I had only one) encouraged me saying
we were quite safe, but I was not a little glad when we gained the
shore, though Shelley and Byron--one of them at least, who seemed to
have courted agitation from any quarter--would have probably rejoiced
in such a situation: more than once I believe were they both in extreme
danger even on the lake of Geneva. Every man, however, has his fears
of some kind or other; and no doubt they had theirs: of all men whom I
have ever known, Coleridge had the most of passive courage in bodily
peril, but no one was so easily cowed when moral firmness was required
in miscellaneous conversation or in the daily intercourse of social
life.
How lovely robed in forenoon light and shade,
Each ministering to each, didst thou appear,
Savona.
There is not a single bay along this beautiful coast that might not
raise in a traveller a wish to take up his abode there, each as it
succeeds seems more inviting than the other; but the desolated convent
on the cliff in the bay of Savona struck my fancy most; and had I, for
the sake of my own health or that of a dear friend, or any other cause,
been desirous of a residence abroad, I should have let my thoughts
loose upon a scheme of turning some part of this building into a
habitation provided as far as might be with English comforts. There is
close by it a row or avenue, I forget which, of tall cypresses. I could
not forbear saying to myself--“What a sweet family walk, or one for
lonely musings, would be found under the shade!” but there, probably,
the trees remained little noticed and seldom enjoyed.
This flowering broom’s dear neighbourhood.
The broom is a great ornament through the months of March and April to
the vales and hills of the Apennines, in the wild parts of which it
blows in the utmost profusion, and of course successively at different
elevations as the season advances. It surpasses ours in beauty and
fragrance,[62] but, speaking from my own limited observations only,
I cannot affirm the same of several of their wild spring flowers,
the primroses in particular, which I saw not unfrequently but thinly
scattered and languishing compared to ours.
The note at the end of this poem, upon the Oxford movement, was
entrusted to my friend, Mr. Frederick Faber.[63] I told him what I
wished to be said, and begged that, as he was intimately acquainted
with several of the Leaders of it, he would express my thought in the
way least likely to be taken amiss by them. Much of the work they are
undertaking was grievously wanted, and God grant their endeavours may
continue to prosper as they have done.--I.F.]
Ye Apennines! with all your fertile vales
Deeply embosomed, and your winding shores
Of either sea, an Islander by birth,
A Mountaineer by habit, would resound
Your praise, in meet accordance with your claims 5
Bestowed by Nature, or from man’s great deeds
Inherited:--presumptuous thought!--it fled
Like vapour, like a towering cloud, dissolved.
Not, therefore, shall my mind give way to sadness;--
Yon snow-white torrent-fall, plumb down it drops 10
Yet ever hangs or seems to hang in air,
Lulling the leisure of that high perched town,
AQUAPENDENTE, in her lofty site
Its neighbour and its namesake--town, and flood
Forth flashing out of its own gloomy chasm 15
Bright sunbeams--the fresh verdure of this lawn
Strewn with grey rocks, and on the horizon’s verge,
O’er intervenient waste, through glimmering haze,
Unquestionably kenned, that cone-shaped hill
With fractured summit,[64] no indifferent sight 20
To travellers, from such comforts as are thine,
Bleak Radicofani![65] escaped with joy--
These are before me; and the varied scene
May well suffice, till noon-tide’s sultry heat
Relax, to fix and satisfy the mind 25
Passive yet pleased. What! with this Broom in flower
Close at my side! She bids me fly to greet
Her sisters, soon like her to be attired
With golden blossoms opening at the feet
Of my own Fairfield.[66] The glad greeting given, 30
Given with a voice and by a look returned
Of old companionship, Time counts not minutes
Ere, from accustomed paths, familiar fields,
The local Genius hurries me aloft,
Transported over that cloud-wooing hill, 35
Seat Sandal, a fond suitor of the clouds,[67]
With dream-like smoothness, to Helvellyn’s top,[68]
There to alight upon crisp moss and range,
Obtaining ampler boon, at every step,
Of visual sovereignty--hills multitudinous, 40
(Not Apennine can boast of fairer) hills
Pride of two nations, wood and lake and plains,
And prospect right below of deep coves shaped[69]
By skeleton arms, that, from the mountain’s trunk
Extended, clasp the winds, with mutual moan 45
Struggling for liberty, while undismayed
The shepherd struggles with them. Onward thence
And downward by the skirt of Greenside fell,[70]
And by Glenridding-screes,[71] and low Glencoign,[72]
Places forsaken now, though[73] loving still 50
The muses, as they loved them in the days
Of the old minstrels and the border bards.--
But here am I fast bound; and let it pass,
The simple rapture;--who that travels far
To feed his mind with watchful eyes could share 55
Or wish to share it?--One there surely was,
“The Wizard of the North,” with anxious hope
Brought to this genial climate, when disease
Preyed upon body and mind--yet not the less
Had his sunk eye kindled at those dear words 60
That spake of bards and minstrels; and his spirit
Had flown with mine to old Helvellyn’s brow,
Where once together, in his day of strength,
We stood rejoicing,[74] as if earth were free
From sorrow, like the sky above our heads. 65
Years followed years, and when, upon the eve
Of his last going from Tweed-side, thought turned,
Or by another’s sympathy was led,
To this bright land, Hope was for him no friend,
Knowledge no help; Imagination shaped 70
No promise. Still, in more than ear-deep seats,
Survives for me, and cannot but survive
The tone of voice which wedded borrowed words
To sadness not their own, when, with faint smile
Forced by intent to take from speech its edge, 75
He said, “When I am there, although ’tis fair,
’Twill be another Yarrow.”[75] Prophecy
More than fulfilled, as gay Campania’s shores
Soon witnessed, and the city of seven hills,
Her sparkling fountains, and her mouldering tombs; 80
And more than all, that Eminence[76] which showed
Her splendours, seen, not felt, the while he stood
A few short steps (painful they were) apart
From Tasso’s Convent-haven, and retired grave.[77]
Peace to their Spirits! why should Poesy 85
Yield to the lure of vain regret, and hover
In gloom on wings with confidence outspread
To move in sunshine?--Utter thanks, my Soul!
Tempered with awe, and sweetened by compassion
For them who in the shades of sorrow dwell, 90
That I--so near the term to human life
Appointed by man’s common heritage,[78]
Frail as the frailest, one withal (if that
Deserve a thought) but little known to fame--
Am free to rove where Nature’s loveliest looks, 95
Art’s noblest relics, history’s rich bequests,
Failed to reanimate and but feebly cheered
The whole world’s Darling--free to rove at will
O’er high and low, and if requiring rest,
Rest from enjoyment only.
Thanks poured forth 100
For what thus far hath blessed my wanderings, thanks
Fervent but humble as the lips can breathe
Where gladness seems a duty--let me guard
Those seeds of expectation which the fruit
Already gathered in this favoured Land 105
Enfolds within its core. The faith be mine,
That He who guides and governs all, approves
When gratitude, though disciplined to look
Beyond these transient spheres, doth wear a crown
Of earthly hope put on with trembling hand; 110
Nor is least pleased, we trust, when golden beams,
Reflected through the mists of age, from hours
Of innocent delight, remote or recent,
Shoot but a little way--’tis all they can--
Into the doubtful future. Who would keep 115
Power must resolve to cleave to it through life,
Else it deserts him, surely as he lives.
Saints would not grieve nor guardian angels frown
If one--while tossed, as was my lot to be,
In a frail bark urged by two slender oars 120
Over waves rough and deep,[79] that, when they broke,
Dashed their white foam against the palace walls
Of Genoa the superb--should there be led
To meditate upon his own appointed tasks,
However humble in themselves, with thoughts 125
Raised and sustained by memory of Him
Who oftentimes within those narrow bounds
Rocked on the surge, there tried his spirit’s strength
And grasp of purpose, long ere sailed his ship
To lay a new world open.
Nor less prized 130
Be those impressions which incline the heart
To mild, to lowly, and to seeming weak,
Bend that way her desires. The dew, the storm--
The dew whose moisture fell in gentle drops
On the small hyssop destined to become, 135
By Hebrew ordinance devoutly kept,
A purifying instrument--the storm
That shook on Lebanon the cedar’s top,
And as it shook, enabling the blind roots
Further to force their way, endowed its trunk 140
With magnitude and strength fit to uphold
The glorious temple--did alike proceed
From the same gracious will, were both an offspring
Of bounty infinite.
Between Powers that aim
Higher to lift their lofty heads, impelled 145
By no profane ambition, Powers that thrive
By conflict, and their opposites, that trust
In lowliness--a mid-way tract there lies
Of thoughtful sentiment for every mind
Pregnant with good. Young, Middle-aged, and Old, 150
From century on to century, must have known
The emotion--nay, more fitly were it said--
The blest tranquillity that sunk so deep
Into my spirit, when I paced, enclosed
In Pisa’s Campo Santo,[80] the smooth floor 155
Of its Arcades paved with sepulchral slabs,[81]
And through each window’s open fret-work looked
O’er the blank Area of sacred earth
Fetched from Mount Calvary,[82] or haply delved
In precincts nearer to the Saviour’s tomb, 160
By hands of men, humble as brave, who fought
For its deliverance--a capacious field
That to descendants of the dead it holds
And to all living mute memento breathes,
More touching far than aught which on the walls 165
Is pictured, or their epitaphs can speak,
Of the changed City’s long-departed power,
Glory, and wealth, which, perilous as they are,
Here did not kill, but nourished, Piety.
And, high above that length of cloistral roof, 170
Peering in air and backed by azure sky,
To kindred contemplations ministers
The Baptistery’s dome,[83] and that which swells
From the Cathedral pile;[84] and with the twain
Conjoined in prospect mutable or fixed 175
(As hurry on in eagerness the feet,
Or pause) the summit of the Leaning-tower.[85]
Nor[86] less remuneration waits on him
Who having left the Cemetery stands
In the Tower’s shadow, of decline and fall 180
Admonished not without some sense of fear,
Fear that soon vanishes before the sight
Of splendour unextinguished, pomp unscathed,
And beauty unimpaired. Grand in itself,
And for itself, the assemblage, grand and fair 185
To view, and for the mind’s consenting eye
A type of age in man, upon its front
Bearing the world-acknowledged evidence
Of past exploits, nor fondly after more
Struggling against the stream of destiny, 190
But with its peaceful majesty content.
--Oh what a spectacle at every turn
The Place unfolds, from pavement skinned with moss,
Or grass-grown spaces, where the heaviest foot
Provokes no echoes, but must softly tread; 195
Where Solitude with Silence paired stops short
Of Desolation, and to Ruin’s scythe
Decay submits not.
But where’er my steps
Shall wander, chiefly let me cull with care
Those images of genial beauty, oft 200
Too lovely to be pensive in themselves
But by reflection made so, which do best
And fitliest serve to crown with fragrant wreaths
Life’s cup when almost filled with years, like mine.
--How lovely robed in forenoon light and shade, 205
Each ministering to each, didst thou appear
Savona,[87] Queen of territory fair
As aught that marvellous coast thro’ all its length
Yields to the Stranger’s eye. Remembrance holds
As a selected treasure thy one cliff, 210
That, while it wore for melancholy crest
A shattered Convent, yet rose proud to have
Clinging to its steep sides a thousand herbs
And shrubs, whose pleasant looks gave proof how kind
The breath of air can be where earth had else 215
Seemed churlish. And behold, both far and near,
Garden and field all decked with orange bloom,
And peach and citron, in Spring’s mildest breeze
Expanding; and, along the smooth shore curved
Into a natural port, a tideless sea, 220
To that mild breeze with motion and with voice
Softly responsive; and, attuned to all
Those vernal charms of sight and sound, appeared
Smooth space of turf which from the guardian fort
Sloped seaward, turf whose tender April green, 225
In coolest climes too fugitive, might even here
Plead with the sovereign Sun for longer stay
Than his unmitigated beams allow,
Nor plead in vain, if beauty could preserve,
From mortal change, aught that is born on earth 230
Or doth on time depend.
While on the brink
Of that high Convent-crested cliff I stood,
Modest Savona! over all did brood
A pure poetic Spirit--as the breeze,
Mild--as the verdure, fresh--the sunshine, bright-- 235
Thy gentle Chiabrera![88]--not a stone,
Mural or level with the trodden floor,
In Church or Chapel, if my curious quest
Missed not the truth, retains a single name
Of young or old, warrior, or saint, or sage, 240
To whose dear memories his sepulchral verse[89]
Paid simple tribute, such as might have flowed
From the clear spring of a plain English heart,
Say rather, one in native fellowship
With all who want not skill to couple grief 245
With praise, as genuine admiration prompts.
The grief, the praise, are severed from their dust,
Yet in his page the records of that worth
Survive, uninjured;--glory then to words,
Honour to word-preserving Arts, and hail 250
Ye kindred local influences that still,
If Hope’s familiar whispers merit faith,
Await my steps when they the breezy height
Shall range of philosophic Tusculum;[90]
Or Sabine vales[91] explored inspire a wish 255
To meet the shade of Horace by the side
Of his Bandusian fount;[92]--or I invoke
His presence to point out the spot where once
He sate, and eulogized with earnest pen
Peace, leisure, freedom, moderate desires; 260
And all the immunities of rural life
Extolled, behind Vacuna’s crumbling fane.[93]
Or let me loiter, soothed with what is given
Nor asking more, on that delicious Bay,[94]
Parthenope’s Domain--Virgilian haunt, 265
Illustrated with never-dying verse,[95]
And, by the Poet’s laurel-shaded tomb,[96]
Age after age to Pilgrims from all lands
Endeared.
And who--if not a man as cold
In heart as dull in brain--while pacing ground 270
Chosen by Rome’s legendary Bards, high minds
Out of her early struggles well inspired
To localize heroic acts--could look
Upon the spots with undelighted eye,
Though even to their last syllable the Lays 275
And very names of those who gave them birth
Have perished?--Verily, to her utmost depth,
Imagination feels what Reason fears not
To recognize, the lasting virtue lodged
In those bold fictions that, by deeds assigned 280
To the Valerian, Fabian, Curian Race,
And others like in fame, created Powers
With attributes from History derived,
By Poesy irradiate, and yet graced,
Through marvellous felicity of skill, 285
With something more propitious to high aims
Than either, pent within her separate sphere,
Can oft with justice claim.
And not disdaining
Union with those primeval energies
To virtue consecrate, stoop ye from your height 290
Christian Traditions! at my Spirit’s call
Descend, and, on the brow of ancient Rome
As she survives in ruin, manifest
Your glories mingled with the brightest hues
Of her memorial halo, fading, fading, 295
But never to be extinct while Earth endures.
O come, if undishonoured by the prayer,
From all her Sanctuaries!--Open for my feet
Ye Catacombs, give to mine eyes a glimpse
Of the Devout, as, ’mid your glooms convened 300
For safety, they of yore enclasped the Cross[97]
On knees that ceased from trembling, or intoned
Their orisons with voices half-suppressed,
But sometimes heard, or fancied to be heard,
Even at this hour.
And thou Mamertine prison,[98] 305
Into that vault receive me from whose depth
Issues, revealed in no presumptuous vision,
Albeit lifting human to divine,
A saint, the Church’s Rock, the mystic Keys
Grasped in his hand;[99] and lo! with upright sword 310
Prefiguring his own impendent doom,
The Apostle of the Gentiles; both prepared
To suffer pains with heathen scorn and hate
Inflicted;--blessed Men, for so to Heaven
They follow their dear Lord!
Time flows--nor winds, 315
Nor stagnates, nor precipitates his course,
But many a benefit borne upon his breast
For human-kind sinks out of sight, is gone,
No one knows how; nor seldom is put forth
An angry arm that snatches good away, 320
Never perhaps to reappear. The Stream
Has to our generation brought and brings
Innumerable gains; yet we, who now
Walk in the light of day, pertain full surely
To a chilled age, most pitiably shut out 325
From that which _is_ and actuates, by forms,
Abstractions, and by lifeless fact to fact
Minutely linked with diligence uninspired,
Unrectified, unguided, unsustained,
By godlike insight. To this fate is doomed 330
Science, wide-spread and spreading still as be
Her conquests, in the world of sense made known.
So with the internal mind it fares; and so
With morals, trusting, in contempt or fear
Of vital principle’s controlling law, 335
To her purblind guide Expediency; and so
Suffers religious faith. Elate with view
Of what is won, we overlook or scorn
The best that should keep pace with it, and must,
Else more and more the general mind will droop, 340
Even as if bent on perishing. There lives
No faculty within us which the Soul
Can spare,[100] and humblest earthly Weal demands,
For dignity not placed beyond her reach,
Zealous co-operation of all means 345
Given or acquired, to raise us from the mire,
And liberate our hearts from low pursuits.
By gross Utilities enslaved we need
More of ennobling impulse from the past,
If to the future aught of good must come 350
Sounder and therefore holier than the ends
Which, in the giddiness of self-applause,
We covet as supreme. O grant the crown
That Wisdom wears, or take his treacherous staff
From Knowledge!--If the Muse, whom I have served 355
This day, be mistress of a single pearl
Fit to be placed in that pure diadem;
Then, not in vain, under these chesnut boughs
Reclined, shall I have yielded up my soul
To transports from the secondary founts 360
Flowing of time and place, and paid to both
Due homage; nor shall fruitlessly have striven,
By love of beauty moved, to enshrine in verse
Accordant meditations, which in times
Vexed and disordered, as our own, may shed 365
Influence, at least among a scattered few,
To soberness of mind and peace of heart
Friendly; as here to my repose hath been
This flowering broom’s dear neighbourhood,[101] the light
And murmur issuing from yon pendent flood, 370
And all the varied landscape. Let us now
Rise, and to-morrow greet magnificent Rome.[102]
[62] Wordsworth himself, his nephew tells us, had no sense of smell
(see the _Memoirs_, by his nephew Christopher, vol. ii. p. 322).--ED.
[63] Afterwards Father Faber, priest of the Oratory of St. Philip
Neri.--ED.
[64] Monte Amiata,--ED.
[65] On the old high road from Siena to Rome.--ED.
[66] The mountain between Rydal Head and Helvellyn.--ED.
[67] Seat Sandal is the mountain between Tongue Ghyll and Grisedale
Tarn on the south and east, and the Dunmail Raise road on the west.--ED.
[68] Compare _The Eclipse of the Sun_, l. 78, in “Memorials of a Tour
on the Continent in 1820” (vol. vi. p. 345).--ED.
[69] Keppelcove, Nethermost cove, and the cove in which Red Tarn lies
bounded by the “skeleton arms” of Striding Edge and Swirrel Edge.
Compare _Fidelity_, l. 17, vol. iii. p. 45--
It was a cove, a huge recess,
That keeps, till June, December’s snow.
ED.
[70] Descending to Ullswater from Helvellyn, Greenside Fell and Mines
are passed.--ED.
[71] The Glenridding Screes are bold rocks on the left as you descend
Helvellyn to Patterdale.--ED.
[72] Glencoign is an offshoot of the Patterdale valley between
Glenridding and Goldbarrow.--ED.
[73] 1845.
… but …
1842.
[74] See the Fenwick note.--ED.
[75] These words were quoted to me from _Yarrow Unvisited_, by Sir
Walter Scott, when I visited him at Abbotsford, a day or two before his
departure for Italy: and the affecting condition in which he was when
he looked upon Rome from the Janicular Mount, was reported to me by a
lady who had the honour of conducting him thither.--W.W. 1842. See also
the Fenwick note to this poem, and compare Lockhart’s _Memoirs of the
Life of Sir Walter Scott_ (chapter lxxx. vol. x. p. 104).--ED.
[76] The Janicular Mount.--ED.
[77] See the Fenwick note prefixed to this poem.--ED.
[78] He was then sixty-seven years of age.--ED.
[79] See the Fenwick note.--ED.
[80] The Campo Santo, or Burial Ground, founded by Archbishop Ubaldo
(1188-1200).--ED.
[81] “There are forty-three flat arcades, resting on forty-four
pilasters.… In the interior there is a spacious hall, the open
round-arched windows of which, with their beautiful tracery, sixty-two
in number, look out upon a green quadrangle.… The walls are covered
with frescoes by the Tuscan School of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, below which is a collection of Roman, Etruscan, and
mediaeval sculptures.… The tombstones of persons interred here form the
pavement.” (Baedeker’s _Northern Italy_, p. 324.)--ED.
[82] Ubaldo conveyed hither fifty-three ship-loads of earth from Mount
Calvary, in the Holy Land, in order that the dead might repose in holy
ground.--ED.
[83] The Baptistery in Pisa was begun in 1153 by Diotisalvi, and
completed in 1278. It is a circular structure, covered by a conical
dome, 190 feet high.--ED.
[84] The Cathedral of Pisa is a basilica, built in 1063, in the Tuscan
style, and has an elliptical dome.--ED.
[85] The Campanile, or Clock-Tower, rises in eight stories to the
height of 179 feet, and (from its oblique position) is known as the
Leaning-Tower.--ED.
[86] 1845.
Not …
1842.
[87] See the Fenwick note to this poem. Savona is a town on the Gulf of
Genoa, capital of the Montenotte Department under Napoleon.--ED.
[88] The theatre in Savona is dedicated to Chiabrera, who was a native
of the place.--ED.
[89] If any English reader should be desirous of knowing how far I
am justified in thus describing the epitaphs of Chiabrera, he will
find translated specimens of them in this Volume, under the head of
“Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces.”--W.W. 1842.
[90] Tusculum was the birthplace of the elder Cato, and the residence
of Cicero.--ED.
[91] “Satis beatus unicis Sabinis.” _Odes_, ii. 18, 14.--ED.
[92] See Horace, _Odes_, iii. 13.--ED.
[93] See Horace, _Epistles_, i. 10, 49--
Haec tibi dictabam post fanum putre Vacunae.
Vacuna was a Sabine divinity. She had a sanctuary near Horace’s Villa.
(Compare Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ iii. 42, 47.) A traveller in Italy writes:
“Following a path along the brink of the torrent Digentia, we passed
a towering rock, on which once stood Vacuna’s shrine.” See also Ovid,
_Fasti_, vi. 307.--ED.
[94] The Bay of Naples. Neapolis (the new city) received its ancient
name of Parthenope from one of the Sirens, whose body was said to have
been washed ashore in that bay. Sil. 12, 33.--ED.
[95] See _Georgics_, iv. 564.--ED.
[96] Virgil died at Brundusium, but his remains were carried to his
favourite residence, Naples, and were buried by the side of the road
leading to Puteoli--the Via Puteolana. His tomb is still pointed out
near Posilipo,--close to the sea, and about half way from Naples to
Puteoli, the _Scuola di Virgilio_.
“The monument, now called the tomb of Virgil, is not on the road
which passes through the tunnel of Posilipo; but if the Via Puteolana
ascended the hill of Posilipo, as it may have done, the situation of
the monument would agree very well with the description of Donatus.”
(George Long, in Smith’s _Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography_.)
The inscription said to have been placed on the tomb was as follows:--
Mantua me genuit, Calabri rapuere, tenet nunc
Parthenope. Cecini pascua, rura, duces.
ED.
[97] The catacombs were subterranean chambers and passages, usually
cut out of the solid rock, and used as places of burial, or of refuge.
The early Christians made use of the catacombs in the Appian Way for
worship, as well as for sepulture.--ED.
[98] The Carcer Mamertinus,--one of the most ancient Roman
structures,--overhung the Forum, as Livy tells us, “imminens foro,”
underneath the Capitoline hill. It still exists, and is entered from
the sacristy of the church of S. Giuseppe de Falagnami, to the left
of the arch of Severus. It was originally a well (the _Tullianum_ of
Livy), and afterwards a prison, in which Jugurtha was starved to death,
and Catiline’s accomplices perished. There are two chambers in the
prison, one beneath the other; the lower-most containing, in its rock
floor, a spring, which rises nearly to the surface. For the legend
connected with it see the next note.--ED.
[99] According to the legend, St. Peter, who was imprisoned in the
_Carcer Mamertinus_ under Nero, caused this spring to flow miraculously
in order to baptize his jailors. Hence the building is called _S.
Pietro in Carcere._--ED.
[100] Compare “Despondency Corrected,” _The Excursion_, book iv. l.
1058--
Within the soul a faculty abides, etc.
ED.
[101] See the Fenwick note.--ED.
[102] It would be ungenerous not to advert to the religious movement
that, since the composition of these verses in 1837, has made itself
felt, more or less strongly, throughout the English Church;--a movement
that takes, for its first principle, a devout deference to the voice of
Christian antiquity. It is not my office to pass judgment on questions
of theological detail; but my own repugnance to the spirit and system
of Romanism has been so repeatedly and, I trust, feelingly expressed,
that I shall not be suspected of a leaning that way, if I do not join
in the grave charge, thrown out, perhaps in the heat of controversy,
against the learned and pious men to whose labours I allude. I speak
apart from controversy; but, with strong faith in the moral temper
which would elevate the present by doing reverence to the past, I would
draw cheerful auguries for the English Church from this movement, as
likely to restore among us a tone of piety more earnest and real than
that produced by the mere formalities of the understanding, refusing,
in a degree, which I cannot but lament, that its own temper and
judgment shall be controlled by those of antiquity.--W.W. 1842.
II
THE PINE OF MONTE MARIO[103] AT ROME
[Sir George Beaumont told me that, when he first visited Italy,
pine-trees of this species abounded, but that on his return thither,
which was more than thirty years after, they had disappeared from many
places where he had been accustomed to admire them, and had become
rare all over the country, especially in and about Rome. Several Roman
villas have within these few years passed into the hands of foreigners,
who, I observed with pleasure, have taken care to plant this tree,
which in course of years will become a great ornament to the city
and to the general landscape. May I venture to add here, that having
ascended the Monte Mario, I could not resist embracing the trunk of
this interesting monument of my departed friend’s feelings for the
beauties of nature, and the power of that art which he loved so much,
and in the practice of which he was so distinguished?--I.F.]
I saw far off the dark top of a Pine
Look like a cloud--a slender stem the tie
That bound it to its native earth--poised high
’Mid evening hues, along the horizon line,
Striving in peace each other to outshine. 5
But when I learned the Tree was living there,
Saved from the sordid axe by Beaumont’s care,[104]
Oh, what a gush of tenderness was mine!
The rescued Pine-tree, with its sky so bright
And cloud-like beauty, rich in thoughts of home, 10
Death-parted friends, and days too swift in flight,
Supplanted the whole majesty of Rome
(Then first apparent from the Pincian Height)[105]
Crowned with St. Peter’s everlasting dome.[106]
[103] The Monte Mario is to the north-west of Rome, beyond the
Janiculus and the Vatican. The view from the summit embraces Rome, the
Campagna, and the sea. It is capped by the villa Millini, in which the
“magnificent solitary pine-tree” of this sonnet still stands, amidst
its cypress plantations.--ED.
[104] “It was Mr. Theed, the sculptor, who informed us of the pine-tree
being the gift of Sir George Beaumont.” H.C. Robinson. (See _Memoirs of
Wordsworth_, by his nephew, vol. ii. p. 330.)--ED.
[105] From the _Mons Pincius_, “collis hortorum,” where were the
gardens of Lucullus, there is a remarkable view of modern Rome.--ED.
[106] Within a couple of hours of my arrival at Rome, I saw from
Monte Pincio, the Pine tree as described in the sonnet; and, while
expressing admiration at the beauty of its appearance, I was told by
an acquaintance of my fellow-traveller, who happened to join us at the
moment, that a price had been paid for it by the late Sir G. Beaumont,
upon condition that the proprietor should not act upon his known
intention of cutting it down.--W.W. 1842.
III
AT ROME
[Sight is at first sight a sad enemy to imagination and to those
pleasures belonging to old times with which some exertions of that
power will always mingle: nothing perhaps brings this truth home to
the feelings more than the city of Rome; not so much in respect to the
impression made at the moment when it is first seen and looked at as
a whole, for then the imagination may be invigorated and the mind’s
eye quickened; but when particular spots or objects are sought out,
disappointment is I believe invariably felt. Ability to recover from
this disappointment will exist in proportion to knowledge, and the
power of the mind to reconstruct out of fragments and parts, and to
make details in the present subservient to more adequate comprehension
of the past.--I.F.]
Is this, ye Gods, the Capitolian Hill?
Yon petty Steep in truth the fearful Rock,
Tarpeian named of yore,[107] and keeping still
That name, a local Phantom proud to mock
The Traveller’s expectation?--Could our Will
Destroy the ideal Power within, ’twere done
Thro’ what men see and touch,--slaves wandering on,
Impelled by thirst of all but Heaven-taught skill.
Full oft, our wish obtained, deeply we sigh;
Yet not unrecompensed are they who learn, 10
From that depression raised, to mount on high
With stronger wing, more clearly to discern
Eternal things; and, if need be, defy
Change, with a brow not insolent, though stern.
[107] The Tarpeian rock, from which those condemned to death were
hurled, is not now precipitous, as it used to be: the ground having
been much raised by successive heaps of ruin.--ED.
IV
AT ROME--REGRETS--IN ALLUSION TO NIEBUHR AND OTHER MODERN HISTORIANS
Those old credulities, to nature dear,
Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock
Of History, stript naked as a rock
’Mid a dry desert? What is it we hear?
The glory of Infant Rome must disappear,[108] 5
Her morning splendours vanish, and their place
Know them no more. If Truth, who veiled her face
With those bright beams yet hid it not, must steer
Henceforth a humbler course perplexed and slow;
One solace yet remains for us who came 10
Into this world in days when story lacked
Severe research, that in our hearts we know
How, for exciting youth’s heroic flame,
Assent is power, belief the soul of fact.
[108] Niebuhr, in his Lectures on Roman History (1826-29), was one of
the first to point out the legendary character of much of the earlier
history, and its “historical impossibility.” He explained the way
in which much of it had originated in family and national vanity,
etc.--ED.
V
CONTINUED
Complacent Fictions were they, yet the same
Involved a history of no doubtful sense,
History that proves by inward evidence
From what a precious source of truth it came.
Ne’er could the boldest Eulogist have dared 5
Such deeds to paint, such characters to frame,
But for coeval sympathy prepared
To greet with instant faith their loftiest claim.
None but a noble people could have loved
Flattery in Ancient Rome’s pure-minded style: 10
Not in like sort the Runic Scald was moved;
He, nursed ’mid savage passions that defile
Humanity, sang feats that well might call
For the blood-thirsty mead of Odin’s riotous Hall.
VI
PLEA FOR THE HISTORIAN
Forbear to deem the Chronicler unwise,
Ungentle, or untouched by seemly ruth,
Who, gathering up all that Time’s envious tooth
Has spared of sound and grave realities,
Firmly rejects those dazzling flatteries, 5
Dear as they are to unsuspecting Youth,
That might have drawn down Clio from the skies
To vindicate the majesty of truth.
Such was her office while she walked with men,[109]
A Muse, who,[110] not unmindful of her Sire 10
All-ruling Jove, whate’er the[111] theme might be
Revered her Mother, sage Mnemosyne,
And taught her faithful servants how the lyre
Should[112] animate, but not mislead, the pen.[113]
[109] Clio, daughter of Zeus and Mnemosyne, the first-born of the
Muses, presided over History. It was her office to record the actions
of illustrious heroes.--ED.
[110] 1845.
Her rights to claim, and vindicate the truth.
Her faithful Servants while she walked with men
Were they who, …
1842.
[111] 1845.
… their …
1842.
[112] 1845.
And, at the Muse’s will, invoked the lyre
To animate, …
1842.
[113]
Quem virum--lyra--
--sumes celebrare Clio?
W. W. 1842.
VII
AT ROME
[I have a private interest in this Sonnet, for I doubt whether it
would ever have been written but for the lively picture given me by
Anna Ricketts of what she had witnessed of the indignation and sorrow
expressed by some Italian noblemen of their acquaintance upon the
surrender, which circumstances had obliged them to make, of the best
portion of their family mansions to strangers.--I.F.]
They--who have seen the noble Roman’s scorn
Break forth at thought of laying down his head,
When the blank day is over, garreted
In his ancestral palace, where, from morn
To night, the desecrated floors are worn 5
By feet of purse-proud strangers; they--who have read
In one meek smile, beneath a peasant’s shed,
How patiently the weight of wrong is borne;
They--who have heard some learned Patriot treat[114]
Of freedom, with mind grasping the whole theme 10
From ancient Rome, downwards through that bright dream
Of Commonwealths, each city a starlike seat
Of rival glory; they--fallen Italy--
Nor must, nor will, nor can, despair of Thee!
VIII
NEAR ROME, IN SIGHT OF ST. PETER’S
Long has the dew been dried on tree and lawn;
O’er man and beast a not unwelcome boon
Is shed, the languor of approaching noon;
To shady rest withdrawing or withdrawn
Mute are all creatures, as this couchant fawn, 5
Save insect-swarms that hum in air afloat,
Save that the Cock is crowing, a shrill note,
Startling and shrill as that which roused the dawn.
--Heard in that hour, or when, as now, the nerve
Shrinks from the note[115] as from a mis-timed thing, 10
Oft for a holy warning may it serve,
Charged with remembrance of _his_ sudden sting,
His bitter tears, whose name the Papal Chair
And yon resplendent Church are proud to bear.
[114] 1845.
They--who have heard thy lettered sages treat
1842.
[115] 1845.
… voice …
1842.
IX
AT ALBANO[116]
[This Sonnet is founded on simple fact, and was written to enlarge,
if possible, the views of those who can see nothing but evil in the
intercessions countenanced by the Church of Rome. That they are in
many respects lamentably pernicious must be acknowledged; but, on the
other hand, they who reflect, while they see and observe, cannot but
be struck with instances which will prove that it is a great error to
condemn in all cases such mediation as purely idolatrous. This remark
bears with especial force upon addresses to the Virgin.--I.F.]
Days passed--and Monte Calvo would not clear
His head from mist; and, as the wind sobbed through
Albano’s dripping Ilex avenue,[117]
My dull forebodings in a Peasant’s ear
Found casual vent. She said, “Be of good cheer; 5
Our yesterday’s procession did not sue
In vain; the sky will change to sunny blue,
Thanks to our Lady’s grace.” I smiled to hear,
But not in scorn:--the Matron’s Faith may lack
The heavenly sanction needed to ensure 10
Fulfilment; but, we trust, her upward track[118]
Stops not at this low point, nor wants the lure
Of flowers the Virgin without fear may own,
For by her Son’s blest hand the seed was sown.
[116] Albano, 10 miles south-east of Rome, is a small town and
episcopal residence, a favourite autumnal resort of Roman citizens. It
is on the site of the ruins of the villa of Pompey. Monte Carlo (the
Monte Calvo of this sonnet) is the ancient _Mons Latialis_, 3127 feet
high. At its summit a convent of Passionist Monks occupies the site of
the ancient temple of Jupiter.--ED.
[117] The ilex-grove of the Villa Doria is one of the most marked
features of Albano.--ED.
[118] 1845.
Its own fulfilment; but her upward track
1842.
X
“NEAR ANIO’S STREAM, I SPIED A GENTLE DOVE”
Near Anio’s stream,[119] I spied a gentle Dove
Perched on an olive branch, and heard her cooing
’Mid new-born blossoms that soft airs were wooing,
While all things present told of joy and love.
But restless Fancy left that olive grove 5
To hail the exploratory Bird renewing
Hope for the few, who, at the world’s undoing,
On the great flood were spared to live and move.
O bounteous Heaven! signs true as dove and bough
Brought to the ark are coming evermore, 10
Given though we seek them not, but, while we plough[120]
This sea of life without a visible shore,
Do neither promise ask nor grace implore
In what alone is ours, the living Now.[121]
[119] The Anio joins the Tiber north of Rome, flowing from the
north-east past Tivoli.--ED.
[120] 1845.
Even though men seek them not, but, while they plough
1842.
[121] 1845.
… the vouchsafed Now.
1842.
XI
FROM THE ALBAN HILLS, LOOKING TOWARDS ROME
Forgive, illustrious Country! these deep sighs,
Heaved less for thy bright plains and hills bestrown
With monuments decayed or overthrown,
For all that tottering stands or prostrate lies,
Than for like scenes in moral vision shown, 5
Ruin perceived for keener sympathies;
Faith crushed, yet proud of weeds, her gaudy crown
Virtues laid low, and mouldering energies.
Yet why prolong this mournful strain?--Fallen Power,
Thy fortunes, twice exalted,[122] might provoke 10
Verse to glad notes prophetic of the hour
When thou, uprisen, shalt break thy double yoke,
And enter, with prompt aid from the Most High,
On the third stage of thy great destiny.[123]
[122] The ancient Classic period, and that of the Renaissance.--ED.
[123] This period seems to have been already entered. Compare Mrs.
Browning’s “Poems before Congress,” _passim_.--ED.
XII
NEAR THE LAKE OF THRASYMENE
When here with Carthage Rome to conflict came,[124]
An earthquake, mingling with the battle’s shock,
Checked not its rage;[125] unfelt the ground did rock,
Sword dropped not, javelin kept its deadly aim.--
Now all is sun-bright peace. Of that day’s shame, 5
Or glory, not a vestige seems to endure,
Save in this Rill that took from blood the name[126]
Which yet it bears, sweet Stream! as crystal pure.
So may all trace and sign of deeds aloof
From the true guidance of humanity, 10
Thro’ Time and Nature’s influence, purify
Their spirit; or, unless they for reproof
Or warning serve, thus let them all, on ground
That gave them being, vanish to a sound.
[124] The Carthaginian general Hannibal defeated the Roman Consul C.
Flaminius, near the lacus Trasimenus, 217 B.C., with a loss of 15,000
men. (See Livy, book xxii. 4, etc.)--ED.
[125] Compare _Hannibal, A Historical Drama_, by the late Professor
John Nichol, act II. scene vi. p. 107--
Here shall shepherds tell
To passing travellers, when we are dust,
How, by the shores of reedy Thrasymene,
We fought and conquered, while the earthquake shook
The walls of Rome.
ED.
[126] Sanguinetto.--W.W. 1845.
XIII
NEAR THE SAME LAKE
For action born, existing to be tried,
Powers manifold we have that intervene
To stir the heart that would too closely screen
Her peace from images to pain allied.
What wonder if at midnight, by the side 5
Of Sanguinetto or broad Thrasymene,[127]
The clang of arms is heard, and phantoms glide,
Unhappy ghosts in troops by moonlight seen;
And singly thine, O vanquished Chief![128] whose corse,
Unburied, lay hid under heaps of slain: 10
But who is He?--the Conqueror. Would he force
His way to Rome? Ah, no,--round hill and plain
Wandering, he haunts, at fancy’s strong command,
This spot--his shadowy death-cup in his hand.[129]
[127] Lake Thrasymene is the largest of the Etrurian lakes, being ten
miles in length and three in breadth.--ED.
[128] C. Flaminius.--ED.
[129] After the battle of Lake Thrasymene, Hannibal did not push on to
Rome, but turned through the Apennines to Apulia, just as subsequently
after the battle of Cannas he remained inactive.--ED.
XIV
THE CUCKOO AT LAVERNA[130]
MAY 25TH 1837
[Among a thousand delightful feelings connected in my mind with
the voice of the cuckoo, there is a personal one which is rather
melancholy. I was first convinced that age had rather dulled my
hearing, by not being able to catch the sound at the same distance as
the younger companions of my walks; and of this failure I had a proof
upon the occasion that suggested these verses. I did not hear the sound
till Mr. Robinson had twice or thrice directed my attention to it.]
List--’twas the Cuckoo.--O with what delight
Heard I that voice! and catch it now, though faint,[131]
Far off and faint, and melting into air,
Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again!
Those louder cries give notice that the Bird, 5
Although invisible as Echo’s self,[132]
Is wheeling hitherward. Thanks, happy Creature,
For this unthought-of greeting!
While allured
From vale to hill, from hill to vale led on,
We have pursued, through various lands, a long 10
And pleasant course; flower after flower has blown,
Embellishing the ground that gave them birth
With aspects novel to my sight; but still
Most fair, most welcome, when they drank the dew
In a sweet fellowship with kinds beloved, 15
For old remembrance sake. And oft--where Spring
Display’d her richest blossoms among files
Of orange-trees bedecked with glowing fruit
Ripe for the hand, or under a thick shade
Of Ilex, or, if better suited to the hour, 20
The lightsome Olive’s twinkling canopy--[133]
Oft have I heard the Nightingale and Thrush
Blending as in a common English grove
Their love-songs; but, where’er my feet might roam,
Whate’er assemblages of new and old, 25
Strange and familiar, might beguile the way,
A gratulation from that vagrant Voice
Was wanting;--and most happily till now.
For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed Pile,
High on the brink of that precipitous rock,[134] 30
Implanted like a Fortress, as in truth
It is, a Christian Fortress, garrisoned
In faith and hope, and dutiful obedience,
By a few Monks, a stern society,
Dead to the world and scorning earth-born joys. 35
Nay--though the hopes that drew, the fears that drove,
St. Francis, far from Man’s resort, to abide
Among these sterile heights of Apennine, [135]
Bound him, nor, since he raised yon House, have ceased
To bind his spiritual Progeny, with rules 40
Stringent as flesh can tolerate and live;[136]
His milder Genius (thanks to the good God
That made us) over those severe restraints
Of mind, that dread heart-freezing discipline,
Doth sometimes here predominate, and works 45
By unsought means for gracious purposes;
For earth through heaven, for heaven, by changeful earth,
Illustrated, and mutually endeared.
Rapt though He were above the power of sense,
Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart 50
Of that once sinful Being overflowed
On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements,
And every shape of creature they sustain,
Divine affections; and with beast and bird
(Stilled from afar--such marvel story tells-- 55
By casual outbreak of his passionate words,
And from their own pursuits in field or grove
Drawn to his side by look or act of love
Humane, and virtue of his innocent life)
He wont to hold companionship so free, 60
So pure, so fraught with knowledge and delight,
As to be likened in his Followers’ minds
To that which our first Parents, ere the fall
From their high state darkened the Earth with fear,
Held with all Kinds in Eden’s blissful bowers. 65
Then question not that, ’mid the austere Band,
Who breathe the air he breathed, tread where he trod,
Some true Partakers of his loving spirit
Do still survive,[137] and, with those gentle hearts
Consorted, Others, in the power, the faith, 70
Of a baptized imagination, prompt
To catch from Nature’s humblest monitors
Whate’er they bring of impulses sublime.
Thus sensitive must be the Monk, though pale
With fasts, with vigils worn, depressed by years, 75
Whom in a sunny glade I chanced to see,
Upon a pine-tree’s storm-uprooted trunk,
Seated alone, with forehead sky-ward raised,
Hands clasped above the crucifix he wore
Appended to his bosom, and lips closed 80
By the joint pressure of his musing mood
And habit of his vow. That ancient Man--
Nor haply less the Brother whom I marked,
As we approached the Convent gate, aloft
Looking far forth from his aerial cell, 85
A young Ascetic--Poet, Hero, Sage,
He might have been, Lover belike he was--
If they received into a conscious ear
The notes whose first faint greeting startled me,
Whose sedulous iteration thrilled with joy 90
My heart--may have been moved like me to think,
Ah! not like me who walk in the world’s ways,
On the great Prophet, styled _the Voice of One_
_Crying amid the wilderness_, and given,
Now that their snows must melt, their herbs and flowers 95
Revive, their obstinate winter pass away,
That awful name to Thee, thee, simple Cuckoo,
Wandering in solitude, and evermore
Foretelling and proclaiming, ere thou leave
This thy last haunt beneath Italian skies 100
To carry thy glad tidings over heights
Still loftier, and to climes more near the Pole.
Voice of the Desert, fare-thee-well; sweet Bird!
If that substantial title please thee more,
Farewell!--but go thy way, no need hast thou 105
Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower
To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear,
Thee gentle breezes waft--or airs that meet
Thy course and sport around thee softly fan--
Till Night, descending upon hill and vale, 110
Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence,
And folds thy pinions up in blest repose.
[130] Laverna is a corruption of _Alverna_ (now called Alverniac). It
is about five or six hours’ walk from Camaldoli, on a height of the
Apennines, not far from the sources of the Anio. To reach it, “the
southern height of the Monte Valterona is ascended as far as the chapel
of St. Romaiald; then a descent is made to Moggiona, beyond which the
path turns to the left, traversing a long and fatiguing succession of
gorges and slopes; the path at the base of the mountain is therefore
preferable. The market town of Soci in the valley of the Archiano
is first reached, then the profound valley of the Corsaline; beyond
it rises a blunted cone, on which the path ascends in windings to a
stony plain with marshy meadows. Above this rises the abrupt sandstone
mass of the _Vernia_, to the height of 850 feet. On its S.W. slope,
one-third of the way up, and 3906 feet above the sea-level, is seen a
wall with small windows, the oldest part of the monastery, built in
1218 by St. Francis of Assisi. The church dates from 1284.… One of the
grandest points is the _Penna della Vernia_ (4796 feet), the ridge of
the Vernia, also known as _l’Apennino_, the ‘rugged rock between the
sources of the Tiber and Anio,’ as it is called by Dante (_Paradiso_,
ii. 106).… Near the monastery are the _Luoghi Santi_, a number of
grottos and rock-hewn chambers in which St. Francis once lived.” (See
Baedeker’s _Northern Italy_, 1886, p. 463.)
“The Monte Alverno, or Monte della Verni is situated on the border
of Tuscany, near the sources of the Tiber and Anio, not far from the
Castle of Chiusi, where Orlando lived.” (Mrs. Oliphant’s _Francis of
Assisi_, chap. xvi. p. 248.)
See also Herzog’s _Real-Encyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und
Kirche_, vol. iv. p. 655.--ED.
[131] Compare _To the Cuckoo_, II. 3, 4 (vol. ii. p. 289)--
… Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
ED.
[132] Compare _To the Cuckoo_, l. 15 (vol. ii. p. 290)--
No bird, but an invisible thing.
ED.
[133] From the difference in the colour of each side of the leaf,
a grove of olives when _wind-tossed_ is pre-eminently a “twinkling
canopy.”--ED.
[134] See note, p. 67.--ED.
[135] St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the order of Friars Minors,
after establishing numerous monasteries in Italy, Spain, and France,
resigned his office and retired to this, one of the highest of the
Apennine heights. See note, p. 67. He was canonised in 1230. Henry
Crabb Robinson tells us, “It was at Laverna that he” [W.W.] “led me to
expect that he had found a subject on which he could write, and that
was the love which birds bore to St. Francis. He repeated to me a short
time afterwards a few lines, which I do not recollect amongst those
he has written on St. Francis in this poem. On the journey, one night
only I heard him in bed composing verses, and on the following day I
offered to be his amanuensis; but I was not patient enough, I fear, and
he did not employ me a second time. He made inquiries for St. Francis’s
biography, as if he would dub him his Leibheiliger (body-saint), as
Goethe (saying that every one must have one) declared St. Philip Neri
to be his.” (See the _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_, by his nephew,
vol. ii. p. 331)--ED.
[136] The characteristic feature of the Franciscan order was its vow
of Poverty, and Francis desired that it should be taken in the most
rigorous sense, viz. that no individual member of the fraternity,
nor the fraternity itself, should be allowed to possess any property
whatsoever, even in things necessary to human use.--ED.
[137] The members of the Franciscan order were the Stoics of
Christendom. The order has been powerful, and of great service to
the Roman Church--alike in literature, and in practical action and
enterprise.--ED.
XV
AT THE CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI
This famous sanctuary was the original establishment of Saint Romualdo
(or Rumwald, as our ancestors saxonised the name) in the 11th century,
the ground (campo) being given by a Count Maldo. The Camaldolensi,
however, have spread wide as a branch of Benedictines, and may
therefore be classed among the _gentlemen_ of the monastic orders. The
society comprehends two orders, monks and hermits; symbolised by their
arms, two doves drinking out of the same cup. The monastery in which
the monks here reside is beautifully situated, but a large unattractive
edifice, not unlike a factory. The hermitage is placed in a loftier and
wilder region of the forest. It comprehends between 20 and 30 distinct
residences, each including for its single hermit an inclosed piece of
ground and three very small apartments. There are days of indulgence
when the hermit may quit his cell, and when old age arrives, he
descends from the mountain and takes his abode among the monks.
My companion had, in the year 1831, fallen in with the monk, the
subject of these two sonnets, who showed him his abode among the
hermits. It is from him that I received the following[138] particulars.
He was then about 40 years of age, but his appearance was that of an
older man. He had been a painter by profession, but on taking orders
changed his name from Santi to Raffaello, perhaps with an unconscious
reference as well to the great Sanzio d’Urbino as to the archangel.
He assured my friend that he had been 13 years in the hermitage and
had never known melancholy or ennui. In the little recess for study
and prayer, there was a small collection of books. “I read only,” said
he, “books of asceticism and mystical theology.” On being asked the
names of the most famous[139] mystics, he enumerated _Scaramelli_, _San
Giovanni della Croce_, _St. Dionysius the Areopagite_ (supposing the
work which bears his name to be really his),[140] and with peculiar
emphasis _Ricardo di San Vittori_. The works of _Saint Theresa_ are
also in high repute among ascetics.[141] These names may interest some
of my readers.
We heard that Raffaello was then living in the convent; my friend
sought in vain to renew his acquaintance with him. It was probably a
day of seclusion. The reader will perceive that these sonnets were
supposed to be written when he was a young man.--W.W. 1842.
The monastery of Camaldoli is on the highest point of the hills near
Naples (1476 feet), and commands one of the finest views in Italy.--ED.
Grieve for the Man who hither came bereft,
And seeking consolation from above;
Nor grieve the less that skill to him was left
To paint this picture of his lady-love:
Can she, a blessed saint, the work approve? 5
And O, good Brethren of the cowl, a thing
So fair, to which with peril he must cling,
Destroy in pity, or with care remove.
That bloom--those eyes--can they assist to bind
Thoughts that would stray from Heaven? The dream must cease 10
To be; by Faith, not sight, his soul must live;
Else will the enamoured Monk too surely find
How wide a space can part from inward peace
The most profound repose his cell can give.
[138] 1845.
received these particulars.
1842.
[139] 1845.
famous Italian mystics,
1842.
[140] 1845.
_San Dionysia_, _Areopagitica_, and with
1842.
[141] 1845.
are among ascetics in high repute, but she was a Spaniard.
1842.
XVI
CONTINUED
The world forsaken, all its busy cares
And stirring interests shunned with desperate flight,
All trust abandoned in the healing might
Of virtuous action; all that courage dares,
Labour accomplishes, or patience bears-- 5
Those helps rejected, they, whose minds perceive
How subtly works man’s weakness, sighs may heave
For such a One beset with cloistral snares.
Father of Mercy! rectify his view,
If with his vows this object ill agree; 10
Shed over it thy grace, and thus subdue[142]
Imperious passion in a heart set free:--
That earthly love may to herself be true,
Give him a soul that cleaveth unto thee.
[142] 1845.
… and so subdue
1842.
XVII
AT THE EREMITE OR UPPER CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI
What aim had they, the Pair of Monks, in size[143]
Enormous, dragged, while side by side they sate,
By panting steers up to this convent gate?
How, with empurpled cheeks and pampered eyes,
Dare they confront the lean austerities 5
Of Brethren, who, here fixed, on Jesu wait
In sackcloth, and God’s anger deprecate
Through all that humbles flesh and mortifies?
Strange contrast!--verily the world of dreams,
Where mingle, as for mockery combined, 10
Things in their very essences at strife,
Shows not a sight incongruous as the extremes
That everywhere, before the thoughtful mind,
Meet on the solid ground of waking life.[144]
[143] In justice to the Benedictines of Camaldoli, by whom strangers
are so hospitably entertained, I feel obliged to notice, that I saw
among them no other figures at all resembling, in size and complexion,
the two Monks described in this Sonnet. What was their office, or the
motive which brought them to this place of mortification, which they
could not have approached without being carried in this or some other
way, a feeling of delicacy prevented me from inquiring. An account has
before been given of the hermitage they were about to enter. It was
visited by us towards the end of the month of May; yet snow was lying
thick under the pine-trees, within a few yards of the gate.--W.W. 1842.
[144] See note, pp. 72, 73.--ED.
XVIII
AT VALLOMBROSA[145]
[I must confess, though of course I did not acknowledge it in the few
lines I wrote in the Strangers’ book kept at the convent, that I was
somewhat disappointed at Vallombrosa. I had expected, as the name
implies, a deep and narrow valley overshadowed by enclosing hills; but
the spot where the convent stands is in fact not a valley at all, but
a cove or crescent open to an extensive prospect. In the book before
mentioned, I read the notice in the English language that if anyone
would ascend the steep ground above the convent, and wander over it, he
would be abundantly rewarded by magnificent views. I had not time to
act upon this recommendation, and only went with my young guide to a
point, nearly on a level with the site of the convent, that overlooks
the Vale of Arno for some leagues. To praise great and good men has
ever been deemed one of the worthiest employments of poetry, but the
objects of admiration vary so much with time and circumstances, and
the noblest of mankind have been found, when intimately known, to be
of characters so imperfect, that no eulogist can find a subject which
he will venture upon with the animation necessary to create sympathy,
unless he confines himself to a particular part or he takes something
of a one-sided view of the person he is disposed to celebrate. This
is a melancholy truth, and affords a strong reason for the poetic
mind being chiefly exercised in works of fiction: the poet can then
follow wherever the spirit of admiration leads him, unchecked by such
suggestions as will be too apt to cross his way if all that he is
prompted to utter is to be tested by fact. Something in this spirit I
have written in the note attached to the Sonnet on the King of Sweden;
and many will think that in this poem and elsewhere I have spoken
of the author of _Paradise Lost_ in a strain of panegyric scarcely
justifiable by the tenor of some of his opinions, whether theological
or political, and by the temper he carried into public affairs, in
which, unfortunately for his genius, he was so much concerned.--I.F.]
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where Etrurian shades
High over-arch’d embower.
PARADISE LOST.[146]
“Vallombrosa--I longed in thy shadiest wood
To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor!”[147]
Fond wish that was granted at last, and the Flood,
That lulled me asleep, bids me listen once more.
Its murmur how soft! as it falls down the steep, 5
Near that Cell--yon sequestered Retreat high in air--[148]
Where our Milton was wont lonely vigils to keep
For converse with God, sought through study and prayer.
The Monks still repeat the tradition with pride,
And its truth who shall doubt? for his Spirit is here;[149] 10
In the cloud-piercing rocks doth her grandeur abide,
In the pines pointing heavenward her beauty austere;
In the flower-besprent meadows his genius we trace
Turned to humbler delights, in which youth might confide,
That would yield him fit help while prefiguring that Place 15
Where, if Sin had not entered, Love never had died.
When with life lengthened out came a desolate time,
And darkness and danger had compassed him round,
With a thought he would[150] flee to these haunts of his prime,
And here once again a kind shelter be found. 20
And let me believe that when nightly the Muse
Did[151] waft him to Sion, the glorified hill,[152]
Here also, on some favoured height, he[153] would choose
To wander, and drink inspiration at will.
Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page 25
Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my mind
Had a musical charm, which the winter of age
And the changes it brings had no power to unbind.
And now, ye Miltonian shades! under you
I repose, nor am forced from sweet fancy to part, 30
While your leaves I behold and the brooks they will strew,
And the realised vision is clasped to my heart.
Even so, and unblamed, we rejoice as we may
In Forms that must perish, frail objects of sense;
Unblamed--if the Soul be intent on the day 35
When the Being of Beings shall summon her hence.
For he and he only with wisdom is blest
Who, gathering true pleasures wherever they grow,
Looks up in all places, for joy or for rest,
To the Fountain whence Time and Eternity flow. 40
[145] The name of Milton is pleasingly connected with Vallombrosa in
many ways. The pride with which the Monk, without any previous question
from me, pointed out his residence, I shall not readily forget. It may
be proper here to defend the Poet from a charge which has been brought
against him, in respect to the passage in _Paradise Lost_, where this
place is mentioned. It is said, that he has erred in speaking of the
trees there being deciduous, whereas they are, in fact, pines. The
fault-finders are themselves mistaken; the _natural_ woods of the
region of Vallombrosa _are_ deciduous, and spread to a great extent;
those near the convent are, indeed, mostly pines; but they are avenues
of trees _planted_ within a few steps of each other, and thus composing
large tracts of wood; plots of which are periodically cut down. The
appearance of those narrow avenues, upon steep slopes open to the sky,
on account of the height which the trees attain by being _forced_
to grow upwards, is often very impressive. My guide, a boy of about
fourteen years old, pointed this out to me in several places.--W.W.
1842.
[146] Compare _Paradise Lost_, book i. l. 302. Vallombrosa--the shady
valley--is 18 miles distant from Florence. Wordsworth’s quotation from
Milton was from memory. It is not quite accurate.--ED.
[147] See for the two _first lines_, _Stanzas composed in the Simplon
Pass_.--W.W. 1842. (See vol. vi. p. 357.)--ED.
[148] The monastery of Vallombrosa was founded about 1050, by S.
Giovanni Gnalberto. It was suppressed in 1869, and is now converted
into the R. Instituto Forestale, or forest school. The “cell,” the
“sequestered retreat” referred to by Wordsworth, is doubtless _Il
Paradisino_, or _Le Celle_, a small hermitage 266 feet above the
monastery, which is itself 2980 feet above the sea.--ED.
[149] Compare Milton’s letter to Benedetto Bonmattei of Florence,
written during his stay in the city, September 10, 1638.--ED.
[150] 1845.
… might …
1842.
[151] 1845.
Would …
1842.
[152] Compare _Paradise Lost_, book iii. l. 29--
… but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flourie Brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit.
ED.
[153] 1845.
… they …
1842.
XIX
AT FLORENCE
[Upon what evidence the belief rests that this stone was a favourite
seat of Dante, I do not know; but a man would little consult his own
interest as a traveller, if he should busy himself with doubts as
to the fact. The readiness with which traditions of this character
are received, and the fidelity with which they are preserved from
generation to generation, are an evidence of feelings honourable to
our nature. I remember how, during one of my rambles in the course
of a college vacation, I was pleased on being shown a seat near a
kind of rocky cell at the source of the river, on which it was said
that Congreve wrote his _Old Bachelor_. One can scarcely hit on any
performance less in harmony with the scene; but it was a local tribute
paid to intellect by those who had not troubled themselves to estimate
the moral worth of that author’s comedies; and why should they? He
was a man distinguished in his day; and the sequestered neighbourhood
in which he often resided was perhaps as proud of him as Florence of
her Dante: it is the same feeling, though proceeding from persons one
cannot bring together in this way without offering some apology to the
Shade of the great Visionary.--I.F.]
Under the shadow of a stately Pile,
The dome of Florence, pensive and alone,
Nor giving heed to aught that passed the while,
I stood, and gazed upon a marble stone,
The laurelled Dante’s favourite seat.[154] A throne, 5
In just esteem, it rivals; though no style
Be there of decoration to beguile
The mind, depressed by thought of greatness flown.
As a true man, who long had served the lyre,
I gazed with earnestness, and dared no more. 10
But in his breast the mighty Poet bore
A Patriot’s heart, warm with undying fire.
Bold with the thought, in reverence I sate down,
And, for a moment, filled that empty Throne.
[154] The _Sasso di Dante_ is built into the wall of the house, No. 29
Casa dei Canonici, close to the Duomo.--ED.
XX
BEFORE THE PICTURE OF THE BAPTIST, BY RAPHAEL, IN THE GALLERY AT
FLORENCE[155]
[It was very hot weather during the week we stayed at Florence; and,
never having been there before, I went through much hard service, and
am not therefore _ashamed_ to confess I fell asleep before this picture
and sitting with my back towards the Venus de Medicis. Buonaparte--in
answer to one who had spoken of his being in a sound sleep up to the
moment when one of his great battles was to be fought, as a proof
of the calmness of his mind and command over anxious thoughts--said
frankly, that he slept because from bodily exhaustion he could not help
it. In like manner it is noticed that criminals on the night previous
to their execution seldom awake before they are called, a proof that
the body is the master of us far more than we need be willing to allow.
Should this note by any possible chance be seen by any of my countrymen
who might have been in the gallery at the time (and several persons
were there) and witnessed such an indecorum, I hope he will give up the
opinion which he might naturally have formed to my prejudice.--I.F.]
The Baptist might have been ordain’d to cry
Forth from the towers of that huge Pile, wherein
His Father served Jehovah; but how win
Due audience, how for aught but scorn defy
The obstinate pride and wanton revelry 5
Of the Jerusalem below, her sin
And folly, if they with united din
Drown not at once mandate and prophecy?
Therefore the Voice spake from the Desert, thence
To Her, as to her opposite in peace, 10
Silence, and holiness, and innocence,
To Her and to all Lands its warning sent,
Crying with earnestness that might not cease,
“Make straight a highway for the Lord--repent!”
[155] This sonnet refers to the picture of the young St. John the
Baptist, now in the Tribuna, Florence, designed about the same time as
the Madonna di San Sisto, for Cardinal Colonna, who is said to have
presented it to his doctor, Jacopo da Carpi. It has been much admired,
and often copied; but it is inferior, both in drawing and in colouring,
to the great works of Raphael. How much of it was actually from his
hand is uncertain; and Baptist is painted rather like a Bacchus than a
Saint.--ED.
XXI
AT FLORENCE--FROM MICHAEL ANGELO
[However at first these two sonnets from Michael Angelo may seem in
their spirit somewhat inconsistent with each other, I have not scrupled
to place them side by side as characteristic of their great author,
and others with whom he lived. I feel, nevertheless, a wish to know
at what periods of his life they were respectively composed.[156] The
latter, as it expresses, was written in his advanced years, when it
was natural that the Platonism that pervades the one should give way to
the Christian feeling that inspired the other: between both there is
more than poetic affinity.--I.F.]
Rapt above earth by power of one fair face,
Hers in whose sway alone my heart delights,
I mingle with the blest on those pure heights
Where Man, yet mortal, rarely finds a place.
With Him who made the Work that Work accords 5
So well, that by its help and through his grace
I raise my thoughts, inform my deeds and words,
Clasping her beauty in my soul’s embrace.
Thus, if from two fair eyes mine cannot turn,
I feel how in their presence doth abide 10
Light which to God is both the way and guide;
And, kindling at their lustre, if I burn,
My noble fire emits the joyful ray
That through the realms of glory shines for aye.
[156] The second of the two sonnets translated by Wordsworth is No.
lxxiii. in Signor Cesare Guastî’s edition of Michael Angelo (1863).
AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS.
_Scaro d’un’ importuna._
It was evidently written in old age. The following is Mr. John
Addington Symond’s translation of the same sonnet.
Freed from a burden sore and grievous band,
Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied,
Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side,
As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land.
Thy thorns, Thy nails, and either bleeding hand,
With Thy mild gentle piteous face, provide
Promise of help and mercies multiplied,
And hope that yet my soul secure may stand.
Let not Thy holy eyes be just to see
My evil part, Thy chastened ears to hear,
And stretch the arm of judgment to my crime:
Let Thy blood only love and succour me,
Yielding more perfect pardon, better cheer,
As older still I grow with lengthening time.
_The Sonnets of Michael Angelo Buonarroti and Tomaso Campanella_, by
John Addington Symonds, p. 110.
Compare Wordsworth’s translation of other three sonnets by Michael
Angelo (vol. iii. pp. 380-384).--ED.
XXII
AT FLORENCE--FROM M. ANGELO
Eternal Lord! eased of a cumbrous load,
And loosened from the world, I turn to Thee;
Shun, like a shattered bark, the storm, and flee
To thy protection for a safe abode.
The crown of thorns, hands pierced upon the tree, 5
The meek, benign, and lacerated face,
To a sincere repentance promise grace,
To the sad soul give hope of pardon free.
With justice mark not Thou, O Light divine,
My fault, nor hear it with thy sacred ear; 10
Neither put forth that way thy arm severe;
Wash with thy blood my sins; thereto incline
More readily the more my years require
Help, and forgiveness speedy and entire.
XXIII
AMONG THE RUINS OF A CONVENT IN THE APENNINES
[The political revolutions of our time have multiplied, on the
Continent, objects that unavoidably call forth reflections such as are
expressed in these verses, but the Ruins in those countries are too
recent to exhibit, in anything like an equal degree, the beauty with
which time and nature have invested the remains of our Convents and
Abbeys. These verses, it will be observed, take up the beauty long
before it is matured, as one cannot but wish it may be among some of
the desolations of Italy, France, and Germany.--I.F.]
Ye Trees! whose slender roots entwine
Altars that piety neglects;
Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine
Which no devotion now respects;
If not a straggler from the herd 5
Here ruminate, nor shrouded bird,
Chanting her low-voiced hymn, take pride
In aught that ye would grace or hide--
How sadly is your love misplaced,
Fair Trees, your bounty run to waste! 10
Ye, too,[157] wild Flowers! that no one heeds,
And ye--full often spurned as weeds--
In beauty clothed, or breathing sweetness
From fractured arch and mouldering wall--
Do but more touchingly recal 15
Man’s headstrong violence and Time’s fleetness,
Making[158] the precincts ye adorn
Appear to sight still more forlorn.
[157] 1845.
And ye, …
1842.
[158] 1845.
And make …
1842.
XXIV
IN LOMBARDY
See, where his difficult way that Old Man wins
Bent by a load of Mulberry leaves!--most hard
Appears _his_ lot, to the small Worm’s compared,
For whom his toil with early day begins.
Acknowledging no task-master, at will 5
(As if her labour and her ease were twins)
_She_ seems to work, at pleasure to lie still;--
And softly sleeps within the thread she spins.
So fare they--the Man serving as her Slave.
Ere long their fates do each to each conform: 10
Both pass into new being,--but the Worm,
Transfigured, sinks into a hopeless grave;
_His_ volant Spirit will, he trusts, ascend
To bliss unbounded, glory without end.
XXV
AFTER LEAVING ITALY
[I had proof in several instances that the Carbonari, if I may still
call them so, and their favourers, are opening their eyes to the
necessity of patience, and are intent upon spreading knowledge actively
but quietly as they can. May they have resolution to continue in this
course! for it is the only one by which they can truly benefit their
country. We left Italy by the way which is called the “Nuova Strada de
Allmagna,” to the east of the high passes of the Alps, which take you
at once from Italy into Switzerland. This road leads across several
smaller heights, and winds down different vales in succession, so that
it was only by the accidental sound of a few German words that I was
aware we had quitted Italy, and hence the unwelcome shock alluded to in
the two or three last lines of the latter sonnet.--I.F.]
Fair Land! Thee all men greet with joy; how few,
Whose souls take pride in freedom, virtue, fame,
Part from thee without pity dyed in shame:
I could not--while from Venice we withdrew,
Led on till an Alpine strait confined our view[159] 5
Within its depths, and to the shore we came
Of Lago Morto, dreary sight and name,
Which o’er sad thoughts a sadder colouring threw.
Italia! on the surface of thy spirit,
(Too aptly emblemed by that torpid lake) 10
Shall a few partial breezes only creep?--
Be its depths quickened; what thou dost inherit
Of the world’s hopes, dare to fulfil; awake,
Mother of Heroes, from thy death-like sleep!
[159] They left Venice by the Nuova Strada de Allmagna, resting
at Logerone, Sillian, Spittal (in Carinthia), and thence on to
Salzburg.--ED.
XXVI
CONTINUED
As indignation mastered grief, my tongue
Spake bitter words; words that did ill agree
With those rich stores of Nature’s imagery,
And divine Art, that fast to memory clung--
Thy gifts, magnificent Region, ever young 5
In the sun’s eye, and in his sister’s sight
How beautiful! how worthy to be sung
In strains of rapture, or subdued delight!
I feign not; witness that unwelcome shock
That followed the first sound of German speech, 10
Caught the far-winding barrier Alps among.
In that announcement, greeting seemed to mock[160]
Parting; the casual word had power to reach
My heart, and filled that heart with conflict strong.
[160] See the Fenwick note to the last sonnet.--ED.
AT BOLOGNA, IN REMEMBRANCE OF THE LATE INSURRECTIONS, 1837[161][162]
Composed 1837.--Published 1842
This was originally (1842) included in the “Memorials of a Tour in
Italy,” but, in 1845, it was transferred, along with the two which
follow it, to the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
I
Ah why deceive ourselves! by no mere fit
Of sudden passion roused shall men attain
True freedom where for ages they have lain
Bound in a dark abominable pit,
With life’s best sinews more and more unknit. 5
Here, there, a banded few who loathe the chain
May rise to break it: effort worse than vain
For thee, O great Italian nation, split
Into those jarring fractions.--Let thy scope
Be one fixed mind for all; thy rights approve 10
To thy own conscience gradually renewed;
Learn to make Time the father of wise Hope;
Then trust thy cause to the arm of Fortitude,
The light of Knowledge, and the warmth of Love.
II
CONTINUED
Composed 1837.--Published 1842
Hard task! exclaim the undisciplined, to lean
On Patience coupled with such slow endeavour,
That long-lived servitude must last for ever.
Perish the grovelling few, who, prest between
Wrongs and the terror of redress, would wean 5
Millions from glorious aims. Our chains to sever
Let us break forth in tempest now or never!--
What, is there then no space for golden mean
And gradual progress?--Twilight leads to day,
And, even within the burning zones of earth, 10
The hastiest sunrise yields a temperate ray;
The softest breeze to fairest flowers gives birth:
Think not that Prudence dwells in dark abodes,
She scans the future with the eye of gods.
III
CONCLUDED
Composed 1837.--Published 1842
As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow
And wither, every human generation
Is to the Being of a mighty nation,
Locked in our world’s embrace through weal and woe;
Thought that should teach the zealot to forego 5
Rash schemes, to abjure all selfish agitation,
And seek through noiseless pains and moderation
The unblemished good they only can bestow.
Alas! with most, who weigh futurity
Against time present, passion holds the scales: 10
Hence equal ignorance of both prevails,
And nations sink; or, struggling to be free,
Are doomed to flounder on, like wounded whales
Tossed on the bosom of a stormy sea.
[161] This date was omitted in the edition of 1842.
[162] The three sonnets, _At Bologna, in remembrance of the late
Insurrections_, 1837, are printed as a sequel to the Italian Tour of
that year.--ED.
“WHAT IF OUR NUMBERS BARELY COULD DEFY”
Composed 1837.--Published 1837
One of the “Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty.”--ED.
What if our numbers barely could defy
The arithmetic of babes, must foreign hordes,
Slaves, vile as ever were befooled by words,
Striking through English breasts the anarchy
Of Terror, bear us to the ground, and tie 5
Our hands behind our backs with felon cords?
Yields every thing to discipline of swords?
Is man as good as man, none low, none high?--
Nor discipline nor valour can withstand
The shock, nor quell[163] the inevitable rout, 10
When in some great extremity breaks out
A people, on their own beloved Land
Risen, like one man, to combat in the sight
Of a just God for liberty and right.
[163] 1837.
… nor stem …
C.
A NIGHT THOUGHT
Composed 1837.--Published 1837
[These verses were thrown off extempore upon leaving Mrs. Luff’s
house at Fox Ghyll one evening. The good woman is not disposed to
look at the bright side of things, and there happened to be present
certain ladies who had reached the point of life where _youth_ is
ended, and who seemed to contend with each other in expressing their
dislike of the country and climate. One of them had been heard to say
she could not endure a country where there was “neither sunshine nor
cavaliers.”--I.F.]
This poem was first published in _The Tribute, a Collection of
Miscellaneous unpublished Poems by various Authors, edited by Lord
Northampton_, in 1837, “for the benefit of the widow and family of the
Rev. Edward Smedley.” (The same volume contained a poem by Southey on
Brough Bells.) It next found a place in “Poems chiefly of Early and
Late Years” (1842). A stanza given in _The Tribute_, No. 2 (see below),
was omitted afterwards.--ED.
Lo! where the Moon along the sky
Sails with her happy destiny;[164]
Oft is she hid from mortal eye
Or dimly seen,
But when the clouds asunder fly 5
How bright her mien![165]
Far different we--a froward race,[166]
Thousands though rich in Fortune’s grace
With cherished sullenness of pace
Their way pursue, 10
Ingrates who wear a smileless face
The whole year through.
If kindred humours e’er would make[167]
My spirit droop for drooping’s sake,
From Fancy following in thy wake, 15
Bright ship of heaven!
A counter impulse let me take
And be forgiven.[168]
[164] 1842.
The moon that sails along the sky
Moves with a happy destiny,
1837.
[165] 1837.
Not flagging when the winds all sleep,
Not hurried onward, when they sweep
The bosom of th’ ethereal deep,
Not turned aside,
She knows an even course to keep,
Whate’er betide.
In the text of 1837 only.
[166] 1842.
Perverse are we--a froward race;
1837.
[167] 1842.
If kindred humour e’er should make
1837.
[168] Compare the poem _To the Daisy_ (1802), beginning--
Bright Flower! whose home is everywhere.
ED.
THE WIDOW ON WINDERMERE SIDE
Published 1842
[The facts recorded in this Poem were given me, and the character of
the person described, by my friend the Rev. R. P. Graves,[169] who
has long officiated as curate at Bowness, to the great benefit of the
parish and neighbourhood. The individual was well known to him. She
died before these verses were composed. It is scarcely worth while
to notice that the stanzas are written in the sonnet form, which was
adopted when I thought the matter might be included in twenty-eight
lines.--I.F.]
One of the “Poems founded on the Affections.”--ED.
I
How beautiful when up a lofty height
Honour ascends among the humblest poor,
And feeling sinks as deep! See there the door
Of One, a Widow, left beneath a weight
Of blameless debt. On evil Fortune’s spite 5
She wasted no complaint, but strove to make
A just repayment, both for conscience-sake
And that herself and hers should stand upright
In the world’s eye. Her work when daylight failed
Paused not, and through the depth of night she kept 10
Such earnest vigils, that belief prevailed
With some, the noble Creature never slept;
But, one by one, the hand of death assailed
Her children from her inmost heart bewept.
II
The Mother mourned, nor ceased her tears to flow, 15
Till a winter’s noon-day placed her buried Son
Before her eyes, last child of many gone--
His raiment of angelic white, and lo!
His very feet bright as the dazzling snow
Which they are touching; yea far brighter, even 20
As that which comes, or seems to come, from heaven,
Surpasses aught these elements can show.
Much she rejoiced, trusting that from that hour
Whate’er befel she could not grieve or pine;
But the Transfigured, in and out of season, 25
Appeared, and spiritual presence gained a power
Over material forms that mastered reason.
Oh, gracious Heaven, in pity make her thine!
III
But why that prayer? as if to her could come
No good but by the way that leads to bliss 30
Through Death,--so judging we should judge amiss.
Since reason failed want is her threatened doom,
Yet frequent transports mitigate the gloom:
Nor of those maniacs is she one that kiss
The air or laugh upon a precipice; 35
No, passing through strange sufferings toward the tomb,
She smiles as if a martyr’s crown were won:
Oft, when light breaks through clouds or waving trees,
With outspread arms and fallen upon her knees
The Mother hails in her descending Son 40
An Angel, and in earthly ecstasies
Her own angelic glory seems begun.
[169] The late Archdeacon of Dublin, author of _Life of Sir William
Rowan Hamilton_, etc. He gives the date of the composition of the poem
as 1837.--ED.
1838
In 1838 Wordsworth wrote ten sonnets. These were published (along with
the one suggested by Mrs. Southey) for the first time in the volume of
collected Sonnets, several being inserted out of their intended place,
while the book was passing through the press.
The _Protest against the Ballot_, which appeared in 1838, was never
republished.--ED.
TO THE PLANET VENUS
UPON ITS APPROXIMATION (AS AN EVENING STAR) TO THE EARTH, JANUARY 1838
Composed 1838.--Published 1838[170]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
What strong allurement draws, what spirit guides,
Thee, Vesper! brightening still, as if the nearer
Thou com’st to man’s abode the spot grew dearer
Night after night? True is it Nature hides
Her treasures less and less.--Man now presides 5
In power, where once he trembled in his weakness;
Science[171] advances with gigantic strides;
But are we aught enriched in love and meekness?[172]
Aught dost thou see, bright Star! of pure and wise
More than in humbler times graced human story; 10
That makes our hearts more apt to sympathise
With heaven, our souls more fit for future glory,
When earth shall vanish from our closing eyes,
Ere we lie down in our last dormitory?[173]
[170] It was afterwards printed in the _Saturday Magazine_, Oct. 24,
1840.--ED.
[171] 1845.
Knowledge
1838.
[172] Compare Tennyson’s _In Memoriam_, stanza cxx.--
Let Science prove we are, and then
What matters Science unto men, etc.
ED.
[173] Compare the poem in vol. vii. p. 299, _To the Planet Venus, an
Evening Star_.--ED.
“HARK! ’TIS THE THRUSH, UNDAUNTED, UNDEPREST”
Composed 1838.--Published 1838
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Hark! ’tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest,
By twilight premature of cloud and rain;
Nor does that roaring wind deaden his strain[174]
Who carols thinking of his Love and nest,
And seems, as more incited, still more blest. 5
Thanks; thou hast snapped a fire-side Prisoner’s chain,
Exulting Warbler! eased a fretted brain,
And in a moment charmed my cares to rest.
Yes, I will forth, bold Bird! and front the blast,
That we may sing together, if thou wilt, 10
So loud, so clear, my Partner through life’s day,
Mute in her nest love-chosen, if not love-built
Like thine, shall gladden, as in seasons past,
Thrilled by loose snatches of the social Lay.
RYDAL MOUNT, 1838.
[174] 1838.
… undaunted, unopprest,
Struggling with twilight premature and rain.
Loud roars the wind, but smothers not his strain
MS.
“’TIS HE WHOSE YESTER-EVENING’S HIGH DISDAIN”
Composed 1838.--Published 1838
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
’Tis He whose yester-evening’s high disdain
Beat back the roaring storm--but how subdued
His day-break note, a sad vicissitude!
Does the hour’s drowsy weight his glee restrain?
Or, like the nightingale, her joyous vein 5
Pleased to renounce, does this dear Thrush attune
His voice to suit the temper of yon Moon
Doubly depressed, setting, and in her wane?
Rise, tardy Sun! and let the Songster prove
(The balance trembling between night and morn 10
No longer) with what ecstasy upborne
He can pour forth his spirit. In heaven above,
And earth below, they best can serve true gladness
Who meet most feelingly the calls of sadness.
COMPOSED AT RYDAL ON MAY MORNING, 1838[175]
Composed 1st May 1838.--Published 1838
[This and the following sonnet were composed on what we call the “Far
Terrace” at Rydal Mount, where I have murmured out many thousands of
verses.--I.F.]
This sonnet was first published in the Volume of Collected Sonnets
in 1838. In 1842 it was classed among the “Miscellaneous Sonnets”;
but in 1845 it was transferred to the “Memorials of a Tour in Italy,
1837.”--ED.
If with old love of you, dear Hills! I share
New love of many a rival image brought
From far, forgive the wanderings of my thought:
Nor art thou wronged, sweet May! when I compare[176]
Thy present birth-morn with thy last,[177][178] so fair, 5
So rich to me in favours. For my lot
Then was, within the famed Egerian Grot
To sit and muse, fanned by its dewy air
Mingling with thy soft breath! That morning too,
Warblers I heard their joy unbosoming 10
Amid the sunny, shadowy, Coliseum;[179]
Heard them, unchecked by aught of saddening hue,[180]
For victories there won by flower-crowned Spring,[181]
Chant in full choir their innocent Te Deum.
[175] 1845.
The title in 1838 was “COMPOSED ON MAY-MORNING, 1838”; and “RYDAL
MOUNT” was written at the foot of the sonnet.
[176] 1838.
May, if from these thy northern haunts I share
Fond looks of mind for images remote
Fetched out of milder climates, blame me not,
Nor that, upris’n thus early, I compare
MS.
Let those who will or can, dear May, forbear
To rise and hail thy coming, I could not.
The vivid images of scenes remote
Rushing on memory urge me to compare
MS.
Dear native Hills, the love of you I share
With …
MS.
Dear fields and native mountains, if I share
My love of youth with love of objects brought
{From far, by faithful memory, blame me not. }
{Fetched from a milder climate, blame me not.}
{From a distant land by memory, blame me not.}
{Nor that, upris’n thus early, }
{Nor be displeased, sweet May, if} I compare
{May,}
{Thy } present …
MS.
[177] 1838.
… past,
MS.
[178] On May morning, 1837, Wordsworth was in Rome with Henry Crabb
Robinson.--ED.
[179] The Flavian Amphitheatre, begun by Vespasian, A.D. 72, and
continued by his son Titus, one of the noblest structures in Rome, now
a ruin. --ED.
[180] 1845.
… of sombre hue,
1838.
… by thoughts of sombre hue,
MS.
[181] 1838.
… too,
How my heart swelled when in the mighty ring,
The mouldering, shadowy, sunny Collosseum,
I heard with some sad thoughts of local hue
Warblers there lodged, for victories won by spring
MS.
… too,
Here did I a deathless joy embosoming,
{Mid } the shadowy Collosseum,
{Within}
Hear not without sad thoughts of local hue
MS.
… too,
Heard I, a deathless joy embosoming,
Tho’ not without sad thoughts of local hue,
Amid the shadowy, sunny, Collosseum,
Warblers there lodged, for victories won by Spring
MS.
COMPOSED ON A MAY MORNING, 1838[182]
Composed 1838.--Published 1838[183]
This was one of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Life with yon Lambs, like day, is just begun,
Yet Nature seems to them a heavenly guide.[184]
Does joy approach? they meet the coming tide;
And sullenness avoid, as now they shun[185]
Pale twilight’s lingering glooms,--and in the sun 5
Couch near their dams, with quiet satisfied;[186]
Or gambol--each with his shadow at his side,[187]
Varying its shape wherever he may run.
As they from turf yet hoar with sleepy dew
All turn, and court the shining and the green, 10
Where herbs look up, and opening flowers are seen;
Why to God’s goodness cannot We be true,
And so, His[188] gifts and promises between,
Feed to the last on pleasures ever new?
[182] 1845.
The title, in 1838, was “COMPOSED ON THE SAME MORNING”; referring to
the previous sonnet in that edition, beginning--
If with old love of you, dear Hills! I share.
[183] There were so many tentative efforts in the construction of this
sonnet, and the one which follows it, that I feel justified in printing
them from MS. sources.--ED.
[184] 1838.
Life with yon mountain lambs is just begun,
MS.
Yon mountain Lambs whose life is just begun
Some guidance know to Man’s grave years denied.
MS.
Your lives, ye mountain lambs, tho’ just begun
A guidance know to our best years denied.
MS. sent to Mr. Clarkson.
[185] 1838.
O that by Nature we were prompt the tide
Of joy to meet, as {they} are who {now } shun
{ye } {there}
MS. sent to Mr. Clarkson.
[186] 1838.
The lingering glooms of twilight, in the sun
To couch, with sober quiet satisfied.
MS. sent to Mr. Clarkson.
… shun
Hollows unbrightened by the {rising} sun
{morning}
On slopes to couch with quiet satisfied.
MS.
To couch on slopes where he his beams has tried,
Sporting and running wheresoe’er ye run.
MS.
[187] 1838.
Couch near their dams; or frisk in sportive pride
Each with his playful shadow at his side,
MS.
[188] 1838.
As they from turf hoary with unsunned dew
Turn and do one and all prefer the green
To chilly nooks, knolls cheered with glistening sheen,
Why may not we a kindred course pursue
And so, God’s …
MS.
… shun
Hollows {enlivened } by the rising sun
{unbrightened}
On slopes to couch with quiet satisfied,
Or gambol each, his shadow at his side,
Running in sport wherever he may run.
As from dull turf hoary with unsunned dew
They turn, and one and all prefer the green
To chilly nooks, knolls {warmed} with glistening sheen,
{cheered}
Why may not we a kindred course pursue
And so, Heaven’s …
MS.
… shun
The lingering gloom of twilight in the sun,
To couch with sober quiet satisfied,
Or gambol each, his shadow at his side,
Varying its shape wherever he may run.
MS.
As they from turf with thick and sleepy dew
{{Yet} whitened o’er, turn and}
{{All} } prefer the green
{Turn, and do one and all }
To chilly nooks, {slopes} warm with glistening sheen,
{knolls}
Why may not we thro’ life such course pursue
And so, God’s …
MS.
As they from turf with thick and sleepy dew
Yet whitened o’er, turn and prefer the green;
To chilly nooks, slopes warm with glistering sheen,
Why may not we such course through life pursue,
And so, God’s gifts and promises between,
Feed …
MS.
A PLEA FOR AUTHORS, MAY 1838
Failing impartial measure to dispense
To every suitor, Equity is lame;
And social Justice, stript of reverence
For natural rights, a mockery and a shame;
Law but a servile dupe of false pretence, 5
If, guarding grossest things from common claim
Now and for ever, She, to works that came[189]
From mind and spirit, grudge a short-lived fence.
“What! lengthened privilege, a lineal tie,
For _Books_!” Yes, heartless Ones, or be it proved 10
That ’tis a fault in Us to have lived and loved
Like others, with like temporal hopes to die;
No public harm that Genius from her course
Be turned; and streams of truth dried up, even at their source![190]
[189] 1838.
{If} failing one strict measure to dispense
{When}
To all her suitors Equity is lame,
And social justice by fit reverence
Of natural right unswayed is but a name,
MS.
{Law but} the servile dupe of false pretence,
{And Law}
MS.
{When} guarding grossest things from common claim
{If}
Now, and for ever, She for work that came
MS.
… lame,
Justice unswayed, unmoved by reverence
For natural right {what is she but a name?}
{is but an empty name, }
MS.
[190] 1838.
… from its course
Be turned, and streams of truth dried at their source.
MS.
From mind and spirit grudge a short-lived fence.
But no--{our} sages join in banded force
{the}
{That} books by right or wrong {may} glad the isle
{With} {to}
Say, {would} this serve the {future should our} course
{can } {people if the }
{Of pure domestic hopes be checked the while}
{Of prejudice be less opposed the while }
{Should} toil-worn Genius want a cheering smile
{If }
And streams of truth be dried up at their source?
MS.
Out of the mind grudges a short-lived fence.
{But no--the Sages join in banded force }
{And how preposterous Sages is your course}
Who cry give books free passage thro’ the isle.
{Say can this serve the people of our isle, }
{By right or wrong, for better or for worse,}
Friends to the people, what care ye the while
Tho’ toil-worn genius want a cheering smile
And far-fetched truth be dried up at her source?
MS.
“BLEST STATESMAN HE, WHOSE MIND’S UNSELFISH WILL”
Composed 1838.--Published 1838
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Blest Statesman He, whose Mind’s unselfish will
Leaves him[191] at ease among grand thoughts: whose eye
Sees that, apart from magnanimity,
Wisdom exists not; nor the humbler skill
Of Prudence, disentangling good and ill 5
With patient care. What tho’[192] assaults run high,
They daunt not him who holds his ministry,
Resolute, at all hazards, to fulfil
Its[193] duties;--prompt to move, but firm to wait,--
Knowing, things rashly sought are rarely found; 10
That, for[194] the functions of an ancient State--
Strong by her charters, free because imbound,
Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate--
Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.[195]
[191] 1842.
… her
C. and 1838.
[192] 1838.
… if
C.
[193] 1838.
His
C.
[194] 1838.
… in
C.
[195]
All change is perilous, and all chance unsound.
SPENSER.--W.W. 1838.
The passage will be found in _The Faërie Queene_, book v. canto xii.
stanza 36.--ED.
VALEDICTORY SONNET[196]
Composed 1838.--Published 1838
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Serving no haughty Muse, my hands have here
Disposed some cultured Flowerets (drawn from spots
Where they bloomed singly, or in scattered knots),
Each kind in several beds of one parterre;
Both to allure the casual Loiterer, 5
And that, so placed, my Nurslings may requite
Studious regard with opportune delight,
Nor be unthanked, unless I fondly err.
But metaphor dismissed, and thanks apart,
Reader, farewell! My last words let them be-- 10
If in this book Fancy and Truth agree;
If simple Nature trained by careful Art
Through It have won a passage to thy heart;
Grant me thy love, I crave no other fee!
[196] This closed the volume of sonnets published in 1838.--ED.
1839
The fourteen “Sonnets upon the Punishment of Death” were originally
published in the _Quarterly Review_ (in December 1841), in an article
on the “Sonnets of William Wordsworth” by the late Sir Henry Taylor,
author of _Philip van Artevelde_, and other poems. Towards the close of
this article (of 1841), after reviewing the volume of Sonnets published
in 1838, Sir Henry adds, “There is a short series _written two years
ago_, which we have been favoured with permission to present to the
public for the first time. It was suggested by the recent discussions
in Parliament, and elsewhere, on the subject of the ‘Punishment of
Death.’”
When republishing this and other critical Essays on Poetry, in
the collected edition of his works in 1878, Sir Henry omitted the
paragraphs relating to these particular sonnets. Wordsworth published
the sonnets in his volume of “Poems chiefly of Early and Late Years,”
in 1842.--ED.
SONNETS UPON THE PUNISHMENT OF DEATH
IN SERIES
Composed 1839.--Published 1841
“In the session of 1836, a report by the Commissioners on Criminal
Law--of which the second part was on this subject (the Punishment of
Death)--was laid before Parliament. In the ensuing session this was
followed by papers presented to Parliament by her Majesty’s command,
and consisting of a correspondence between the Commissioners, Lord
John Russell, and Lord Denman. Upon the foundation afforded by these
documents, the bills of the 17th July 1837--(7th Gul. IV. and 1st
Vict. cap. 84 to 89 and 91)--were brought in and passed. These acts
removed the punishment of death from about 200 offences, and left it
applicable to high treason,--murder and attempts at murder--rape--arson
with danger to life--and to piracies, burglaries, and robberies, when
aggravated by cruelty and violence.” (Sir Henry Taylor, _Quarterly
Review_, Dec. 1841, p. 39.) Some members of the House of Commons--Mr.
Fitzroy Kelly, Mr. Ewart, and others--desired a further limitation
of the punishment of death to the crimes of murder and treason only:
and the question of the entire abolition of capital punishment being
virtually before the country, Wordsworth dealt with it in the following
series of sonnets.--ED.
I
SUGGESTED BY THE VIEW OF LANCASTER CASTLE (ON THE ROAD FROM THE SOUTH)
This Spot--at once unfolding sight so fair
Of sea and land, with yon grey towers that still
Rise up as if to lord it over air--
Might soothe in human breasts the sense of ill,
Or charm it out of memory; yea, might fill 5
The heart with joy and gratitude to God
For all his bounties upon man bestowed:
Why bears it then the name of “Weeping Hill”?[197]
Thousands, as toward yon old Lancastrian Towers,
A prison’s crown, along this way they past 10
For lingering durance or quick death with shame,
From this bare eminence thereon have cast
Their first look--blinded as tears fell in showers
Shed on their chains; and hence that doleful name.
[197] The name given to the spot from which criminals on their way to
the Castle of Lancaster first see it.--ED.
II[198]
“TENDERLY DO WE FEEL BY NATURE’S LAW”
Tenderly do we feel by Nature’s law
For worst offenders: though the heart will heave
With indignation, deeply moved we grieve,
In after thought, for Him who stood in awe
Neither of God nor man, and only saw, 5
Lost wretch, a horrible device enthroned
On proud temptations, till the victim groaned
Under the steel his hand had dared to draw.
But O, restrain compassion, if its course,
As oft befalls, prevent or turn aside 10
Judgments and aims and acts whose higher source
Is sympathy with the unforewarned, who died[199]
Blameless--with them that shuddered o’er his grave,
And all who from the law firm safety crave.
[198] “The first sonnet prepares the reader to sympathise with the
sufferings of the culprits. The next cautions him as to the limits
within which his sympathies are to be restrained.” (Sir Henry
Taylor.)--ED.
[199] 1842.
… that died
1841.
III[200]
“THE ROMAN CONSUL DOOMED HIS SONS TO DIE”
The Roman Consul doomed his sons to die
Who had betrayed their country.[201] The stern word
Afforded (may it through all time afford)
A theme for praise and admiration high.
Upon the surface of humanity 5
He rested not; its depths his mind explored;
He felt; but his parental bosom’s lord
Was Duty,--Duty calmed his agony.
And some, we know, when they by wilful act
A single human life have wrongly taken, 10
Pass sentence on themselves, confess the fact,
And, to atone for it, with soul unshaken
Kneel at the feet of Justice, and, for faith
Broken with all mankind, solicit death.
[200] “In the third and fourth sonnets the reader is prepared to
regard as low and effeminate the views which would estimate life and
death as the most important of all sublunary conditions.” (Sir Henry
Taylor.)--ED.
[201] Lucius Junius Brutus, who condemned his sons to die for the part
they took in the conspiracy to restore the Tarquins. (See Livy, book
ii.)--ED.
IV
“IS _DEATH_, WHEN EVIL AGAINST GOOD HAS FOUGHT”
Is _Death_, when evil against good has fought
With such fell mastery that a man may dare
By deeds the blackest purpose to lay bare?
Is Death, for one to that condition brought,
For him, or any one, the thing that ought 5
To be _most_ dreaded? Lawgivers, beware,
Lest, capital pains remitting till ye spare
The murderer, ye, by sanction to that thought
Seemingly given, debase the general mind;
Tempt the vague will tried standards to disown, 10
Nor only palpable restraints unbind,
But upon Honour’s head disturb the crown,
Whose absolute rule permits not to withstand
In the weak love of life his least command.
V
“NOT TO THE OBJECT SPECIALLY DESIGNED”
Not to the object specially designed,
Howe’er momentous in itself it be,
Good to promote or curb depravity,
Is the wise Legislator’s view confined.
His Spirit, when most severe, is oft most kind; 5
As all Authority in earth depends
On Love and Fear, their several powers he blends,
Copying with awe the one Paternal mind.
Uncaught by processes in show humane,
He feels how far the act would derogate 10
From even the humblest functions of the State;
If she, self-shorn of Majesty, ordain
That never more shall hang upon her breath
The last alternative of Life or Death.
VI[202]
“YE BROOD OF CONSCIENCE--SPECTRES! THAT FREQUENT”
Ye brood of conscience--Spectres! that frequent
The bad man’s restless walk, and haunt his bed--
Fiends in your aspect, yet beneficent
In act, as hovering Angels when they spread
Their wings to guard the unconscious Innocent-- 5
Slow be the Statutes of the land to share
A laxity that could not but impair
_Your_ power to punish crime, and so prevent.
And ye, Beliefs! coiled serpent-like about
The adage on all tongues, “Murder will out,”[203] 10
How shall your ancient warnings work for good
In the full might they hitherto have shown,
If for deliberate shedder of man’s blood
Survive not Judgment that requires his own?
[202] “The sixth sonnet adverts to the effect of the law in preventing
the crime of murder, not merely by fear, but by horror, by investing
the crime itself with the colouring of dark and terrible imaginations.”
(Sir Henry Taylor.)--ED.
[203] See Chaucer, _The Nonnes Priestes Tale_, l. 232.--ED.
VII
“BEFORE THE WORLD HAD PAST HER TIME OF YOUTH”
Before the world had past her time of youth
While polity and discipline were weak,
The precept eye for eye, and tooth for tooth,
Came forth--a light, though but as of day-break,
Strong as could then be borne. A Master meek 5
Proscribed the spirit fostered by that rule,
Patience _his_ law, long-suffering _his_ school,
And love the end, which all through peace must seek.
But lamentably do they err who strain
His mandates, given rash impulse to controul 10
And keep vindictive thirstings from the soul,
So far that, if consistent in their scheme,
They must forbid the State to inflict a pain,
Making of social order a mere dream.
VIII[204]
“FIT RETRIBUTION, BY THE MORAL CODE”
Fit retribution, by the moral code
Determined, lies beyond the State’s embrace,
Yet, as she may, for each peculiar case
She plants well-measured terrors in the road
Of wrongful acts. Downward it is and broad, 5
And, the main fear once doomed to banishment,
Far oftener then, bad ushering worse event,
Blood would be spilt that in his dark abode
Crime might lie better hid. And, should the change
Take from the horror due to a foul deed, 10
Pursuit and evidence so far must fail,
And, guilt escaping, passion then might plead
In angry spirits for her old free range,
And the “wild justice of revenge”[205] prevail.
[204] “In the eighth sonnet the doctrine, which would strive to measure
out the punishments awarded by the law in proportion to the degrees of
moral turpitude, is disavowed.” (Sir Henry Taylor.)--ED.
[205] See Bacon’s Essay _Of Revenge_, beginning, “Revenge is a sort of
wild justice.”--ED.
IX
“THOUGH TO GIVE TIMELY WARNING AND DETER”
Though to give timely warning and deter
Is one great aim of penalty, extend
Thy mental vision further and ascend
Far higher, else full surely shalt thou err.[206]
What is a State? The wise behold in her 5
A creature born of time, that keeps one eye
Fixed on the statutes of Eternity,
To which her judgments reverently defer.
Speaking through Law’s dispassionate voice the State
Endues her conscience with external life 10
And being, to preclude or quell the strife
Of individual will, to elevate
The grovelling mind, the erring to recal,
And fortify the moral sense of all.
[206] 1845.
… thou shalt err.
1842.
X
“OUR BODILY LIFE, SOME PLEAD, THAT LIFE THE SHRINE”
Our bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine
Of an immortal spirit, is a gift
So sacred, so informed with light divine,
That no tribunal, though most wise to sift
Deed and intent, should turn the Being adrift 5
Into that world where penitential tear
May not avail, nor prayer have for God’s ear
A voice--that world whose veil no hand can lift
For earthly sight. “Eternity and Time”
_They_ urge, “have interwoven claims and rights 10
Not to be jeopardised through foulest crime:
The sentence rule by mercy’s heaven-born lights.”
Even so; but measuring not by finite sense
Infinite Power, perfect Intelligence.
XI[207]
“AH, THINK HOW ONE COMPELLED FOR LIFE TO ABIDE”
Ah, think how one compelled for life to abide
Locked in a dungeon needs must eat the heart
Out of his own humanity, and part
With every hope that mutual cares provide;
And, should a less unnatural doom confide 5
In life-long exile on a savage coast,
Soon the relapsing penitent may boast
Of yet more heinous guilt, with fiercer pride.
Hence thoughtful Mercy, Mercy sage and pure,
Sanctions the forfeiture that Law demands, 10
Leaving the final issue in _His_ hands
Whose goodness knows no change, whose love is sure,
Who sees, foresees; who cannot judge amiss,
And wafts at will the contrite soul to bliss.
[207] “In the eleventh and twelfth sonnets the alternatives of
secondary punishment,--solitary imprisonment, and transportation,--are
adverted to.” (Sir Henry Taylor.)--ED.
XII
“SEE THE CONDEMNED ALONE WITHIN HIS CELL”
See the Condemned alone within his cell
And prostrate at some moment when remorse
Stings to the quick, and, with resistless force,
Assaults the pride she strove in vain to quell.
Then mark him, him who could so long rebel, 5
The crime confessed, a kneeling Penitent
Before the Altar, where the Sacrament
Softens his heart, till from his eyes outwell
Tears of salvation. Welcome death! while Heaven
Does in this change exceedingly rejoice; 10
While yet the solemn heed the State hath given
Helps him to meet the last Tribunal’s voice
In faith, which fresh offences, were he cast
On old temptations, might for ever blast.
XIII[208]
CONCLUSION
Yes, though He well may tremble at the sound
Of his own voice, who from the judgment-seat
Sends the pale Convict to his last retreat
In death; though Listeners shudder all around,
They know the dread requital’s source profound; 5
Nor is, they feel, its wisdom obsolete--
(Would that it were!) the sacrifice unmeet
For Christian Faith. But hopeful signs abound;
The social rights of man breathe purer air;
Religion deepens her preventive care; 10
Then, moved by needless fear of past abuse,
Strike not from Law’s firm hand that awful rod,
But leave it thence to drop for lack of use:
Oh, speed the blessed hour, Almighty God!
[208] “In the thirteenth sonnet he anticipates that a time may come
when the punishment of death will be needed no longer; but he wishes
that the disuse of it should grow out of the absence of the need, not
be imposed by legislation.” (Sir Henry Taylor.)--ED.
XIV
APOLOGY
The formal World relaxes her cold chain
For One who speaks in numbers; ampler scope
His utterance finds; and, conscious of the gain,
Imagination works with bolder hope
The cause of grateful reason to sustain; 5
And, serving Truth, the heart more strongly beats
Against all barriers which his labour meets
In lofty place, or humble Life’s domain.
Enough;--before us lay a painful road,
And guidance have I sought in duteous love 10
From Wisdom’s heavenly Father. Hence hath flowed
Patience, with trust that, whatsoe’er the way
Each takes in this high matter, all may move
Cheered with the prospect of a brighter day.
1840.[209]
[209] In the editions of 1842, 1845, and 1850 the date “1840” follows
this poem. It may have been written in that year.--ED.
“MEN OF THE WESTERN WORLD! IN FATE’S DARK BOOK”
Published 1842
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Men of the Western World! in Fate’s dark book
Whence these opprobrious leaves of dire portent?
Think ye your British Ancestors forsook
Their native Land, for outrage provident;
From unsubmissive necks the bridle shook 5
To give, in their Descendants, freer vent
And wider range to passions turbulent,
To mutual tyranny a deadlier look?
Nay, said a voice, soft as the south wind’s breath,
Dive through the stormy surface of the flood 10
To the great current flowing underneath;
Explore the countless springs of silent good;
So shall the truth be better understood,
And thy grieved Spirit brighten strong in faith.[210]
[210] These lines were written several years ago, when reports
prevailed of cruelties committed in many parts of America, by men
making a law of their own passions. A far more formidable, as being a
more deliberate mischief, has appeared among those States, which have
lately broken faith with the public creditor in a manner so infamous.
I cannot, however, but look at both evils under a similar relation to
inherent good, and hope that the time is not distant when our brethren
of the West will wipe off this stain from their name and nation.
ADDITIONAL NOTE.
I am happy to add that this anticipation is already partly realised;
and that the reproach addressed to the Pennsylvanians is no longer
applicable to them. I trust that those other states to which it may yet
apply will soon follow the example now set them by Philadelphia, and
redeem their credit with the world.--W.W. 1850.
“This editorial note is on a fly-leaf at the end of the fifth volume of
the edition, which was completed only a short time before the Poet’s
death. It contains probably the last sentences composed by him for the
press. It was promptly added by him in consequence of a suggestion
from me, that the sonnet addressed “_To Pennsylvanians_” was no longer
just--a fact which is mentioned to shew that the fine sense of truth
and justice which distinguish his writings was active to the last.”
(Note to Professor Reed’s American Edition of 1851.)--ED.
1840
Only four poems, viz. _Poor Robin_, two sonnets referring to Miss
Gillies, and one on Haydon’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington, belong
to 1840.--ED.
TO A PAINTER
Composed 1840.--Published 1842
[The picture which gave occasion to this and the following sonnet was
from the pencil of Miss M. Gillies, who resided for several weeks under
our roof at Rydal Mount.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
All praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed;[211]
But ’tis a fruitless task to paint for me,
Who, yielding not to changes Time has made,
By the habitual light of memory see
Eyes unbedimmed, see bloom that cannot fade, 5
And smiles that from their birth-place ne’er shall flee
Into the land where ghosts and phantoms be;
And, seeing this, own nothing in its stead.
Couldst thou go back into far-distant years,
Or share with me, fond thought! that inward eye,[212] 10
Then, and then only, Painter! could thy Art
The visual powers of Nature satisfy,
Which hold, whate’er to common sight appears,
Their sovereign empire in a faithful heart.
[211] Miss Gillies told me that she visited Rydal Mount in 1841, at the
invitation of the Wordsworths, to make a miniature portrait of the poet
on ivory, which had been commissioned by Mr. Moon, the publisher, for
the purpose of engraving. An engraving of this portrait was published
on the 6th of August 1841. The original is now in America. I think she
must have been wrong in her memory of the year, which was 1840. Miss
Gillies also told me that the Wordsworths were so pleased with what she
had done for Mr. Moon that they wished a replica for themselves, with
Mrs. Wordsworth added. She painted this; and a copy of it, subsequently
taken for Miss Quillinan, was long in her possession at Loughrigg
Holme. It now belongs to Mr. Gordon Wordsworth. It is to the portrait
of Mrs. Wordsworth that this sonnet and the next refer.--ED.
[212] Compare the lines in vol. iii. p. 5--
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
The fact that these two lines had been added by Mrs. Wordsworth (see
note to the poem, p. 7) was doubtless remembered by the poet, when he
wrote this sonnet suggested by her portrait.--ED.
ON THE SAME SUBJECT
Composed 1840.--Published 1842
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Though I beheld at first with blank surprise
This Work, I now have gazed on it so long
I see its truth with unreluctant eyes;
O, my Belovèd! I have done thee wrong,
Conscious of blessedness, but, whence it sprung, 5
Ever too heedless, as I now perceive:
Morn into noon did pass, noon into eve,
And the old day was welcome as the young,
As welcome, and as beautiful--in sooth
More beautiful, as being a thing more holy: 10
Thanks to thy virtues, to the eternal youth
Of all thy goodness, never melancholy;
To thy large heart and humble mind, that cast
Into one vision, future, present, past.[213]
[213] Compare--
O dearer far than light and life are dear (1824).
Let other bards of angels sing (1824).
Such age how beautiful! O Lady bright (1827).
What heavenly smiles! O Lady mine (1845).
ED.
POOR ROBIN[214]
Composed March 1840.--Published 1842
[I often ask myself what will become of Rydal Mount after our day.
Will the old walls and steps remain in front of the house and about
the grounds, or will they be swept away with all the beautiful mosses
and ferns and wild geraniums and other flowers which their rude
construction suffered and encouraged to grow among them?[215]--This
little wild flower--“Poor Robin”--is here constantly courting my
attention, and exciting what may be called a domestic interest with the
varying aspects of its stalks and leaves and flowers.[216] Strangely do
the tastes of men differ according to their employment and habits of
life. “What a nice well would that be,” said a labouring man to me one
day, “if all that rubbish was cleared off.” The “_rubbish_” was some of
the most beautiful mosses and lichens and ferns and other wild growths
that could possibly be seen. Defend us from the tyranny of trimness and
neatness showing itself in this way! Chatterton says of freedom--“Upon
her head wild weeds were spread,” and depend upon it if “the marvellous
boy” had undertaken to give Flora a garland, he would have preferred
what we are apt to call weeds to garden flowers. True taste has an eye
for both. Weeds have been called flowers out of place. I fear the place
most people would assign to them is too limited. Let them come near to
our abodes, as surely they may, without impropriety or disorder.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
Now when the primrose makes a splendid show,
And lilies face the March-winds in full blow,
And humbler growths as moved with one desire
Put on, to welcome spring, their best attire,
Poor Robin is yet flowerless; but how gay 5
With his red stalks upon this sunny day!
And, as his tufts[217] of leaves he spreads, content
With a hard bed and scanty nourishment,
Mixed with the green, some shine not lacking power
To rival summer’s brightest scarlet flower; 10
And flowers they well might seem to passers-by
If looked at only with a careless eye;
Flowers--or a richer produce (did it suit
The season) sprinklings of ripe strawberry fruit.
But while a thousand pleasures come unsought, 15
Why fix upon his wealth or want[218] a thought?
Is the string touched in prelude to a lay
Of pretty fancies that would round him play
When all the world acknowledged elfin sway?
Or does it suit our humour to commend 20
Poor Robin as a sure and crafty friend,
Whose practice teaches, spite of names to show
Bright colours whether they deceive or no?--
Nay, we would simply praise the free good-will
With which, though slighted, he, on naked hill 25
Or in warm valley, seeks his part to fill;
Cheerful alike if bare of flowers as now,
Or when his tiny gems shall deck his brow:
Yet more, we wish that men by men despised,
And such as lift their foreheads overprized, 30
Should sometimes think, where’er they chance to spy
This child of Nature’s own humility,
What recompense is kept in store or left
For all that seem neglected or bereft;
With what nice care equivalents are given, 35
How just, how bountiful, the hand of Heaven.
_March, 1840._
[214] The small wild Geranium known by that name.--W.W. 1842.
[215] These things remain comparatively unaltered. Rydal Mount has
suffered little in picturesqueness since Wordsworth’s death; while the
house, and the grounds, have gained in many ways by what the present
tenant has done for them. It is impossible to keep such a place exactly
as it was left by its greatest tenant; and Mr. Crewdson has certainly
not injured, but wisely improved the place.--ED.
[216] Compare what is said of it in the _Memoirs of Wordsworth_, by his
nephew, vol. i. p. 20.--ED.
[217] 1849.
… tuft
1842.
[218] 1845.
… want or wealth
1842.
ON A PORTRAIT OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON UPON THE FIELD OF WATERLOO, BY
HAYDON[219]
Composed August 31, 1840.--Published 1842
[This was composed while I was ascending Helvellyn in company with my
daughter and her husband. She was on horseback, and rode to the top
of the hill without once dismounting, a feat which it was scarcely
possible to perform except during a season of dry weather; and a guide,
with whom we fell in on the mountain, told us he believed it had never
been accomplished before by any one.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets”; but first published in the “Poems
chiefly of Early and Late Years.”--ED.
By Art’s bold privilege Warrior and War-horse stand
On ground yet strewn with their last battle’s wreck;
Let the Steed glory while his Master’s hand
Lies fixed for ages on his conscious neck;
But by the Chieftain’s look, though at his side 5
Hangs that day’s treasured sword, how firm a check
Is given to triumph and all human pride!
Yon trophied Mound shrinks to a shadowy speck
In his calm presence! Him the mighty deed
Elates not, brought far nearer the grave’s rest, 10
As shows that time-worn face, for he such seed
Has sown as yields, we trust, the fruit of fame
In Heaven;[220] hence no one blushes for thy name,
Conqueror, ’mid some sad thoughts, divinely blest!
[219] Haydon worked at this picture of Wellington from June to
November, 1839. (See his Autobiography, vol. iii. pp. 108-131.) He
writes under date, Sept. 4, 1840:--“Hard at work. I heard from dear
Wordsworth, with a glorious sonnet on the Duke, and Copenhagen.† It is
very fine, and I began a new journal directly, and put in the sonnet.
God bless him.” The following is part of Wordsworth’s letter:--
“MY DEAR HAYDON,--We are all charmed with your etching. It is both
poetically and pictorially conceived, and finely executed. I should
have written immediately to thank you for it, and for your letter
and the enclosed one, which is interesting, but I wished to gratify
you by writing a sonnet. I now send it, but with an earnest request
that it may not be put into circulation for some little time, as it
is warm from the brain, and may require, in consequence, some little
retouching. It has this, at least, remarkable attached to it, which
will add to its value in your eyes, that it was actually composed while
I was climbing Helvellyn last Monday.”--ED.
† Wellington’s war-horse.--ED.
[220] 1842.
… Since the mighty deed
Him years have brought far nearer the grave’s rest,
He shows that face time-worn. But he such seed
Has sowed that bears, we trust, the fruit of fame
In Heaven.…
From a copy sent to Haydon.
1841
EPITAPH
IN THE CHAPEL-YARD OF LANGDALE, WESTMORELAND
Composed 1841.--Published 1842
[OWEN LLOYD, the subject of this epitaph, was born at Old Brathay,
near Ambleside, and was the son of Charles Lloyd and his wife Sophia
(_née_ Pemberton), both of Birmingham, who came to reside in this part
of the country, soon after their marriage. They had many children,
both sons and daughters, of whom the most remarkable was the subject
of this epitaph. He was educated under Mr. Dawes, at Ambleside, Dr.
Butler, of Shrewsbury, and lastly at Trinity College, Cambridge, where
he would have been greatly distinguished as a scholar but for inherited
infirmities of bodily constitution, which, from early childhood,
affected his mind. His love for the neighbourhood in which he was
born, and his sympathy with the habits and characters of the mountain
yeomanry, in conjunction with irregular spirits, that unfitted him for
facing duties in situations to which he was unaccustomed, induced him
to accept the retired curacy of Langdale. How much he was beloved and
honoured there, and with what feelings he discharged his duty under the
oppression of severe malady, is set forth, though imperfectly, in the
epitaph.--I.F.]
One of the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces.”--ED.
By playful smiles, (alas! too oft
A sad heart’s sunshine) by a soft
And gentle nature, and a free
Yet modest hand of charity,
Through life was OWEN LLOYD endeared 5
To young and old; and how revered
Had been that pious spirit, a tide
Of humble mourners testified,
When, after pains dispensed to prove
The measure of God’s chastening love, 10
Here, brought from far, his corse found rest,--
Fulfilment of his own request;--
Urged less for this Yew’s shade, though he
Planted with such fond hope the tree;
Less for the love of stream and rock, 15
Dear as they were, than that his Flock,
When they no more their Pastor’s voice
Could hear to guide them in their choice
Through good and evil, help might have,
Admonished, from his silent grave, 20
Of righteousness, of sins forgiven,
For peace on earth and bliss in heaven.
This commemorative epitaph to the Rev. Owen Lloyd--the friend of
Hartley Coleridge and of Faber--is carved on the headstone over his
grave in the churchyard at the small hamlet of Chapel Stile, Great
Langdale, Westmoreland. The stone also carries the inscription, “To
the memory of Owen Lloyd, M.A., nearly twelve years incumbent of this
chapel. Born at Old Brathay, March 31, 1803, died at Manchester, April
18, 1841, aged 38.” See a letter of Wordsworth’s referring to Lloyd
amongst his letters in a subsequent volume. In a previous edition I
erred by giving this poem an earlier date. Professor Dowden has shown
the true one conclusively.
Writing from Rydal on 11th August 1841, to his brother Christopher,
Wordsworth said, “I send you with the last corrections an epitaph which
I have just written for poor Owen Lloyd. His brother Edward forwarded
for my perusal some verses which he had composed with a view to that
object; but he expressed a wish that I would compose something myself.
Not approving Edward’s lines altogether, though the sentiments were
sufficiently appropriate, I sent him what I now forward to you, or
rather the substance of it, for something has been added, and some
change of expression introduced. I hope you will approve of it. I find
no fault with it myself, the circumstances considered, except that it
is too long for an Epitaph, but this was inevitable if the memorial was
to be as conspicuous as the subject required, at least according to the
light in which it offered itself to my mind.”--ED.
1842
The poems of 1842 include _The Floating Island_, _The Norman Boy_, _The
Poet’s Dream_, _Airey-Force Valley_, the lines _To the Clouds_, and a
number of miscellaneous sonnets.--ED.
“INTENT ON GATHERING WOOL FROM HEDGE AND BRAKE”
Composed 8th March 1842.--Published 1842
[Suggested by a conversation with Miss Fenwick, who along with her
sister had, during their childhood, found much delight in such
gatherings for the purposes here alluded to.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Intent on gathering wool from hedge and brake
Yon busy Little-ones rejoice that soon
A poor old Dame will bless them for the boon:
Great is their glee while flake they add to flake
With rival earnestness; far other strife 5
Than will hereafter move them, if they make
Pastime their idol, give their day of life
To pleasure snatched for reckless pleasure’s sake.
Can pomp and show allay one heart-born grief?
Pains which the World inflicts can she requite? 10
Not for an interval however brief;
The silent thoughts that search for stedfast light,
Love from her depths,[221] and Duty in her might,
And Faith--these only yield secure relief.
_March 8th, 1842._
[221] 1845.
Love from on high, …
1842.
PRELUDE,
PREFIXED TO THE VOLUME ENTITLED “POEMS CHIEFLY OF EARLY AND LATE YEARS”
Composed March 26, 1842.--Published 1842
[These verses were begun while I was on a visit to my son John at
Brigham, and were finished at Rydal. As the contents of the volume,
to which they are now prefixed, will be assigned to their respective
classes when my poems shall be collected in one volume, I should be at
a loss where with propriety to place this prelude, being too restricted
in its bearing to serve for a preface for the whole. The lines towards
the conclusion allude to the discontents then fomented through the
country by the agitators of the Anti-Corn-Law League: the particular
causes of such troubles are transitory, but disposition to excite and
liability to be excited are nevertheless permanent, and therefore
proper objects for the poet’s regard.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
In desultory walk through orchard grounds,
Or some deep chestnut grove, oft have I paused
The while a Thrush, urged rather than restrained
By gusts of vernal storm, attuned his song
To his own genial instincts; and was heard 5
(Though not without some plaintive tones between)
To utter, above showers of blossom swept
From tossing boughs, the promise of a calm,
Which the unsheltered traveller might receive
With thankful spirit. The descant, and the wind 10
That seemed to play with it in love or scorn,
Encouraged and endeared the strain of words
That haply flowed from me, by fits of silence
Impelled to livelier pace. But now, my Book!
Charged with those lays, and others of like mood, 15
Or loftier pitch if higher rose the theme,
Go, single--yet aspiring to be joined
With thy Forerunners that through many a year
Have faithfully prepared each other’s way--
Go forth upon a mission best fulfilled 20
When and wherever, in this changeful world,
Power hath been given to please for higher ends
Than pleasure only; gladdening to prepare
For wholesome sadness, troubling to refine,
Calming to raise; and, by a sapient Art 25
Diffused through all the mysteries of our Being,
Softening the toils and pains that have not ceased
To cast their shadows on our mother Earth
Since the primeval doom. Such is the grace
Which, though unsued for, fails not to descend 30
With heavenly inspiration; such the aim
That Reason dictates; and, as even the wish
Has virtue in it, why should hope to me
Be wanting that sometimes, where fancied ills
Harass the mind and strip from off the bowers 35
Of private life their natural pleasantness,
A Voice--devoted to the love whose seeds
Are sown in every human breast, to beauty
Lodged within compass of the humblest sight,
To cheerful intercourse with wood and field, 40
And sympathy with man’s substantial griefs--
Will not be heard in vain? And in those days
When unforeseen distress spreads far and wide
Among a People mournfully cast down,
Or into anger roused by venal words 45
In recklessness flung out to overturn
The judgment, and divert the general heart
From mutual good--some strain of thine, my Book!
Caught at propitious intervals, may win
Listeners who not unwillingly admit 50
Kindly emotion tending to console
And reconcile; and both with young and old
Exalt the sense of thoughtful gratitude
For benefits that still survive, by faith
In progress, under laws divine, maintained. 55
RYDAL MOUNT, _March 26, 1842_.
FLOATING ISLAND
Published 1842
These lines are by the Author of the _Address to the Wind_, etc.,
published heretofore along with my Poems. Those to a Redbreast are by a
deceased female Relative.--W.W. 1842.
[My poor sister takes a pleasure in repeating these verses, which she
composed not long before the beginning of her sad illness.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
Harmonious Powers with Nature work
On sky, earth, river, lake, and sea;
Sunshine and cloud, whirlwind and breeze,
All in one duteous task agree.
Once did I see a slip of earth 5
(By throbbing waves long undermined)
Loosed from its hold; how, no one knew,
But all might see it float, obedient to the wind;
Might see it, from the mossy shore
Dissevered, float upon the Lake, 10
Float with its crest of trees adorned
On which the warbling birds their pastime take.
Food, shelter, safety, there they find;
There berries ripen, flowerets bloom;
There insects live their lives, and die; 15
A peopled world it is; in size a tiny room.
And thus through many seasons’ space
This little Island may survive;
But Nature, though we mark her not,
Will take away, may cease to give. 20
Perchance when you are wandering forth
Upon some vacant sunny day,
Without an object, hope, or fear,
Thither your eyes may turn--the Isle is passed away;
Buried beneath the glittering Lake, 25
Its place no longer to be found;
Yet the lost fragments shall remain
To fertilize some other ground.
D. W.
There is one of these floating islands in Loch Lomond in Argyll,
another in Loch Dochart in Perthshire, and another in Loch Treig
in Inverness. Their origin is probably due to a mass of peat being
detached from the shore, and floated out into the lake. A mass of
vegetable matter, however, has sometimes risen from the bottom of the
water, and assumed for a time all the appearance of an island. This
has been probably due to an accumulation of gas, within or under the
detached portion, produced by the decay of vegetation in extremely hot
weather.
Southey, in an unpublished letter to Sir George Beaumont (10th July
1824), thus describes the Island at Derwentwater: “You will have seen
by the papers that the Floating Island has made its appearance. It
sank again last week, when some heavy rains had raised the lake four
feet. By good fortune Professor Sedgewick happened to be in Keswick,
and examined it in time. Where he probed it a thin layer of mud lies
upon a bed of peat, which is six feet thick, and this rests upon a
stratum of fine white clay,--the same I believe which Miss Barker
found in Borrowdale when building her unlucky house. Where the gas is
generated remains yet to be discovered, but when the peat is filled
with this gas, it separates from the clay and becomes buoyant. There
must have been a considerable convulsion when this took place, for a
rent was made in the bottom of the lake, several feet in depth, and
not less than fifty yards long, on each side of which the bottom rose
and floated. It was a pretty sight to see the small fry exploring this
new made strait and darting at the bubbles which rose as the Professor
was probing the bank. The discharge of air was considerable here, when
a pole was thrust down. But at some distance where the rent did not
extend, the bottom had been heaved up in a slight convexity, sloping
equally in an inclined plane all round: and there, when the pole was
introduced, a rush like a jet followed, as it was withdrawn. The thing
is the more curious, because as yet no example of it is known to have
been observed in any other place.”
Another of these detached islands used to float about in Esthwaite
Water, and was carried from side to side of the pool at the north end
of the lake--the same pool which the swans, described in _The Prelude_,
used to frequent. This island had a few bushes on it: but it became
stranded some time ago. One of the old natives of Hawkeshead described
the process of trying to float it off again, by tying ropes to the
bushes on its surface,--an experiment which was unsuccessful. Compare
the reference to the Floating or “Buoyant” Island of Derwentwater, and
to the “mossy islet” of Esthwaite, in Wordsworth’s _Guide through the
District of the Lakes_.--ED.
“THE CRESCENT-MOON, THE STAR OF LOVE”
Published 1842
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--Ed.
The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love,
Glories of evening, as ye there are seen
With but a span of sky between--
Speak one of you, my doubts remove,
Which is the attendant Page and which the Queen?
“_A POET!_--HE HATH PUT HIS HEART TO SCHOOL”
Published 1842
[I was impelled to write this Sonnet by the disgusting frequency with
which the word _artistical_, imported with other impertinences from the
Germans, is employed by writers of the present day: for artistical
let them substitute artificial, and the poetry written on this system,
both at home and abroad, will be for the most part much better
characterised.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
_A Poet!_--He hath put his heart to school,
Nor dares to move unpropped upon the staff
Which Art hath lodged within his hand--must laugh
By precept only, and shed tears by rule.
Thy Art be Nature; the live current quaff, 5
And let the groveller sip his stagnant pool,
In fear that else, when Critics grave and cool
Have killed him, Scorn should write his epitaph.[222]
How does the Meadow-flower its bloom unfold?
Because the lovely little flower is free 10
Down to its root, and, in that freedom, bold;
And so the grandeur of the Forest-tree
Comes not by casting in a formal mould,
But from its _own_ divine vitality.
[222] Compare _A Poet’s Epitaph_ (vol. ii. p. 75).--ED.
“THE MOST ALLURING CLOUDS THAT MOUNT THE SKY”
Published 1842
[Hundreds of times have I seen, hanging about and above the vale
of Rydal, clouds that might have given birth to this sonnet, which
was thrown off on the impulse of the moment one evening when I was
returning from the favourite walk of ours, along the Rotha, under
Loughrigg.--I.F.]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
The most alluring clouds that mount the sky
Owe to a troubled element their forms,
Their hues to sunset. If with raptured eye
We watch their splendour, shall we covet storms,
And wish the Lord of day his slow decline 5
Would hasten, that such pomp may float on high?
Behold, already they forget to shine,
Dissolve--and leave to him who gazed a sigh.
Not loth to thank each moment for its boon
Of pure delight, come whensoe’er[223] it may, 10
Peace let us seek,--to stedfast things attune
Calm expectations, leaving to the gay
And volatile their love of transient bowers,
The house that cannot pass away be ours.[224]
[223] 1849
… whencesoe’er …
1842.
[224] Compare _To the Clouds_, I. 94, p. 145.--ED.
“FEEL FOR THE WRONGS TO UNIVERSAL KEN”
Published 1842
[This Sonnet is recommended to the perusal of those who consider that
the evils under which we groan are to be removed or palliated by
measures ungoverned by moral and religious principles.--I.F.]
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Feel for the wrongs to universal ken
Daily exposed, woe that unshrouded lies;
And seek the Sufferer in his darkest den,
Whether conducted to the spot by sighs
And moanings, or he dwells (as if the wren 5
Taught him concealment) hidden from all eyes
In silence and the awful modesties
Of sorrow;--feel for all, as brother Men!
Rest not in hope want’s icy chain to thaw
By casual boons and formal charities;[225] 10
Learn to be just, just through impartial law;
Far as ye may, erect and equalise;
And, what ye cannot reach by statute, draw
Each from his fountain of self-sacrifice!
[225] 1845.
… Men!--
Feel for the Poor,--but not to still your qualms
By formal charity or dole of alms;
Learn …
1842.
IN ALLUSION TO VARIOUS RECENT HISTORIES AND NOTICES OF THE FRENCH
REVOLUTION
Published 1842
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Portentous change when History can appear
As the cool Advocate of foul device;[226]
Reckless audacity extol, and jeer
At consciences perplexed with scruples nice!
They who bewail not, must abhor, the sneer 5
Born of Conceit, Power’s blind Idolater;
Or haply sprung from vaunting Cowardice
Betrayed by mockery of holy fear.
Hath it not long been said the wrath of Man
Works not the righteousness of God? Oh bend, 10
Bend, ye Perverse! to judgments from on High,
Laws that lay under Heaven’s perpetual ban
All principles of action that transcend
The sacred limits of humanity.
[226] Wordsworth wrote this sonnet against Carlyle’s _French
Revolution_ in particular. Carlyle knew it, and this may in
part--although only in part--account for Carlyle’s indifference to
Wordsworth.--ED.
CONTINUED
Published 1842
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Who ponders National events shall find
An awful balancing of loss and gain,
Joy based on sorrow, good with ill combined,
And proud deliverance issuing out of pain
And direful throes; as if the All-ruling Mind, 5
With whose perfection it consists to ordain
Volcanic burst, earthquake, and hurricane,
Dealt in like sort with feeble human kind
By laws immutable. But woe for him
Who thus deceived shall lend an eager hand 10
To social havoc. Is not Conscience ours,
And Truth, whose eye guilt only can make dim;
And Will, whose office, by divine command,
Is to control and check disordered Powers?
CONCLUDED
Published 1842
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Long-favoured England! be not thou misled
By monstrous theories of alien growth,
Lest alien frenzy seize thee, waxing wroth,
Self-smitten till thy garments reek dyed red
With thy own blood, which tears in torrents shed 5
Fail to wash out, tears flowing ere thy troth
Be plighted, not to ease but sullen sloth,
Or wan despair--the ghost of false hope fled
Into a shameful grave. Among thy youth,
My Country! if such warning be held dear, 10
Then shall a Veteran’s heart be thrilled with joy,
One who would gather from eternal truth,
For time and season, rules that work to cheer--
Not scourge, to save the People--not destroy.
“LO! WHERE SHE STANDS FIXED IN A SAINT-LIKE TRANCE”
Published 1842
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Lo! where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance,
One upward hand, as if she needed rest
From rapture, lying softly on her breast!
Nor wants her eyeball an ethereal glance;
But not the less--nay more--that countenance, 5
While thus illumined, tells of painful strife
For a sick heart made weary of this life
By love, long crossed with adverse circumstance.
--Would She were now as when she hoped to pass
At God’s appointed hour to them who tread 10
Heaven’s sapphire pavement, yet breathed well content,
Well pleased, her foot should print earth’s common grass,
Lived thankful for day’s light, for daily bread,
For health, and time in obvious duty spent.
THE NORMAN BOY
Published 1842
[The subject of this poem was sent me by Mrs. Ogle, to whom I was
personally unknown, with a hope on her part that I might be induced
to relate the incident in verse; and I do not regret that I took the
trouble, for not improbably the fact is illustrative of the boy’s
early piety, and may concur with my other little pieces on children
to produce profitable reflection among my youthful readers. This is
said, however, with an absolute conviction that children will derive
most benefit from books which are not unworthy the perusal of persons
of any age. I protest with all my heart against those productions, so
abundant in the present day, in which the doings of children are dwelt
upon as if they were incapable of being interested in anything else. On
this subject I have dwelt at length in the poem on the growth of my own
mind.--I.F.]
One of the “Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.”--ED.
High on a broad unfertile tract of forest-skirted Down,
Nor kept by Nature for herself, nor made by man his own,
From home and company remote and every playful joy,
Served, tending a few sheep and goats, a ragged Norman boy.
Him never saw I, nor the spot; but from an English Dame, 5
Stranger to me and yet my friend, a simple notice came,
With suit that I would speak in verse of that sequestered child
Whom, one bleak winter’s day, she met upon the dreary Wild.
His flock, along the woodland’s edge with relics sprinkled o’er
Of last night’s snow, beneath a sky threatening the fall of more, 10
Where tufts of herbage tempted each, were busy at their feed,
And the poor Boy was busier still, with work of anxious heed.
There _was_ he, where of branches rent and withered and decayed,
For covert from the keen north wind, his hands a hut had made.
A tiny tenement, forsooth, and frail, as needs must be 15
A thing of such materials framed, by a builder such as he.
The hut stood finished by his pains, nor seemingly lacked aught
That skill or means of his could add, but the architect had wrought
Some limber twigs into a Cross, well-shaped with fingers nice,
To be engrafted on the top of his small edifice. 20
That Cross he now was fastening there, as the surest power and best
For supplying all deficiencies, all wants of the rude nest
In which, from burning heat, or tempest driving far and wide,
The innocent Boy, else shelterless, his lonely head must hide.
That Cross belike he also raised as a standard for the true 25
And faithful service of his heart in the worst that might ensue
Of hardship and distressful fear, amid the houseless waste
Where he, in his poor self so weak, by Providence was placed.
----Here, Lady! might I cease; but nay, let _us_ before we part
With this dear holy shepherd-boy breathe a prayer of earnest heart, 30
That unto him, where’er shall lie his life’s appointed way,
The Cross, fixed in his soul, may prove an all-sufficing stay.
THE POET’S DREAM[227]
SEQUEL TO THE NORMAN BOY
Published 1842
One of the “Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.”--ED.
Just as those final words were penned, the sun broke out in power,
And gladdened all things; but, as chanced, within that very hour,
Air blackened, thunder growled, fire flashed from clouds that hid
the sky,
And, for the Subject of my Verse, I heaved a pensive sigh.
Nor could my heart by second thoughts from heaviness be cleared, 5
For bodied forth before my eyes the cross-crowned hut appeared;
And, while around it storm as fierce seemed troubling earth
and air,
I saw, within, the Norman Boy kneeling alone in prayer.
The Child, as if the thunder’s voice spake with articulate call,
Bowed meekly in submissive fear, before the Lord of All; 10
His lips were moving; and his eyes, upraised to sue for grace,
With soft illumination cheered the dimness of that place.
How beautiful is holiness!--what wonder if the sight,
Almost as vivid as a dream, produced a dream at night?
It came with sleep and showed the Boy, no cherub, not transformed, 15
But the poor ragged Thing whose ways my human heart had warmed.
Me had the dream equipped with wings, so I took him in my arms,
And lifted from the grassy floor, stilling his faint alarms,
And bore him high through yielding air my debt of love to pay,
By giving him, for both our sakes, an hour of holiday. 20
I whispered, “Yet a little while, dear Child! thou art my own,
To show thee some delightful thing, in country or in town.
What shall it be? a mirthful throng? or that holy place and calm
St. Denis, filled with royal tombs,[228] or the Church of Notre
Dame?[229]
“St. Ouen’s golden Shrine?[230] Or choose what else would please
thee most 25
Of any wonder Normandy, or all proud France, can boast!”
“My Mother,” said the Boy, “was born near to a blessèd Tree,
The Chapel Oak of Allonville;[231] good Angel, show it me!”
On wings, from broad and stedfast poise let loose by this reply,
For Allonville, o’er down and dale, away then did we fly; 30
O’er town and tower we flew, and fields in May’s fresh verdure
drest;
The wings they did not flag; the Child, though grave, was not
deprest.
But who shall show, to waking sense, the gleam of light that
broke
Forth from his eyes, when first the Boy looked down on that
huge oak,
For length of days so much revered, so famous where it stands 35
For twofold hallowing--Nature’s care, and work of human hands?
Strong as an Eagle with my charge I glided round and round
The wide-spread boughs, for view of door, window, and stair that
wound
Gracefully up the gnarled trunk; nor left we unsurveyed
The pointed steeple peering forth from the centre of the shade. 40
I lighted--opened with soft touch the chapel’s iron door,[232]
Past softly, leading in the Boy; and, while from roof to floor
From floor to roof all round his eyes the Child with wonder
cast,[233]
Pleasure on pleasure crowded in, each livelier than the last.
For, deftly framed within the trunk, the[234] sanctuary showed, 45
By light of lamp and precious stones, that glimmered here, there
glowed,
Shrine, Altar, Image, Offerings hung in sign of gratitude;
Sight that inspired accordant thoughts; and speech[235] I thus
renewed:
“Hither the Afflicted come, as thou hast heard thy Mother say,
And, kneeling, supplication make to our Lady de la Paix;[236] 50
What mournful sighs have here been heard, and, when the voice was
stopt
By sudden pangs; what bitter tears have on this pavement dropt!
“Poor Shepherd of the naked Down, a favoured lot is thine,
Far happier lot, dear Boy, than brings full many to this shrine;
From body pains and pains of soul thou needest no release, 55
Thy hours as they flow on are spent, if not in joy, in peace.
“Then offer up thy heart to God in thankfulness and praise,
Give to Him prayers, and many thoughts, in thy most busy days;
And in His sight the fragile Cross, on thy small hut, will be
Holy as that which long hath crowned the Chapel of this Tree; 60
“Holy as that far seen which crowns the sumptuous Church in Rome
Where thousands meet to worship God under a mighty Dome;[237]
He sees the bending multitude, He hears the choral rites,
Yet not the less, in children’s hymns and lonely prayer, delights.
“God for His service needeth not proud work of human skill; 65
They please Him best who labour most to do in peace His will:
So let us strive to live, and to our Spirits will be given
Such wings as, when our Saviour calls, shall bear us up to heaven.”
The Boy no answer made by words, but, so earnest was his look,
Sleep fled, and with it fled the dream--recorded in this book, 70
Lest all that passed should melt away in silence from my mind,
As visions still more bright have done, and left no trace behind.
But oh! that Country-man of thine, whose eye, loved Child, can see
A pledge of endless bliss in acts of early piety,
In verse, which to thy ear might come, would treat this simple
theme, 75
Nor leave untold our happy flight in that adventurous dream.[238]
Alas the dream,[239] to thee, poor Boy! to thee from whom it flowed,
Was nothing, scarcely can be aught, yet ’twas[240] bounteously
bestowed,
If I may dare to cherish hope that gentle eyes will read
Not loth, and listening Little-ones, heart-touched, their fancies
feed. 80
[227] 1845.
The title in 1842 was “SEQUEL TO THE NORMAN BOY.”
[228] The Abbey Church of St. Denis, to the north of Paris,--one of the
finest specimens of French Gothic,--was the burial-place of the French
Kings for many generations.--ED.
[229] In Paris.--ED.
[230] The Church of St. Ouen, in Rouen, is the most perfect edifice of
its kind in Europe.--ED.
[231] “Among ancient Trees there are few, I believe, at least in
France, so worthy of attention as an Oak which may be seen in the ‘Pays
de Caux,’ about a league from Yvetot, close to the church, and in the
burial-ground of Allonville.
The height of this Tree does not answer to its girth; the trunk, from
the roots to the summit, forms a complete cone; and the inside of this
cone is hollow throughout the whole of its height.
Such is the Oak of Allonville, in its state of nature. The hand of Man,
however, has endeavoured to impress upon it a character still more
interesting, by adding a religious feeling to the respect which its age
naturally inspires.
The lower part of its hollow trunk has been transformed into a Chapel
of six or seven feet in diameter, carefully wainscotted and paved, and
an open iron gate guards the humble Sanctuary.
Leading to it there is a staircase, which twists round the body of the
Tree. At certain seasons of the year divine service is performed in
this Chapel.
The summit has been broken off many years, but there is a surface at
the top of the trunk, of the diameter of a very large tree, and from it
rises a pointed roof, covered with slates, in the form of a steeple,
which is surmounted with an iron Cross, that rises in a picturesque
manner from the middle of the leaves, like an ancient Hermitage above
the surrounding Wood.
Over the entrance to the Chapel an Inscription appears, which informs
us it was erected by the Abbé du Détroit, Curate of Allonville, in the
year 1696; and over a door is another, dedicating it ‘To Our Lady of
Peace.’”--Vide 14 _No. Saturday Magazine_.--W.W. 1842.
[232] 1845.
… touch a grated iron door,
1842.
[233] 1845.
… his eyes the wondering creature cast,
1842.
[234] 1845.
… a …
1842.
[235] 1845.
And swift as lightning went the time, ere speech
1842.
[236] See note, p. 137.--ED.
[237] St. Peter’s Church.--ED.
[238] This stanza was added in the edition of 1845.
[239] 1845.
And though the dream, …
1842.
[240] 1845.
Was nothing, nor e’er can be aught, ’twas …
1842.
SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF THE BIRD OF PARADISE
Published 1842
[This subject has been treated of in another note. I will here only, by
way of comment, direct attention to the fact, that pictures of animals
and other productions of Nature, as seen in conservatories, menageries,
and museums, etc., would do little for the national mind, nay, they
would be rather injurious to it, if the imagination were excluded by
the presence of the object, more or less out of a state of Nature. If
it were not that we learn to talk and think of the lion and the eagle,
the palm-tree, and even the cedar, from the impassioned introduction of
them so frequently into Holy Scripture, and by great poets, and divines
who wrote as poets, the spiritual part of our nature, and therefore
the higher part of it, would derive no benefit from such intercourse
with such subjects.--I.F.]
One of the “Poems of the Imagination.”--ED.
The gentlest Poet, with free thoughts endowed,
And a true master of the glowing strain,
Might scan the narrow province with disdain
That to the Painter’s skill is here allowed.
This, this the Bird of Paradise! disclaim 5
The daring thought, forget the name;
This the Sun’s Bird, whom Glendoveers might own
As no unworthy Partner in their flight
Through seas of ether, where the ruffling sway
Of nether air’s rude billows is unknown; 10
Whom Sylphs, if e’er for casual pastime they
Through India’s spicy regions wing their way,
Might bow to as their Lord. What character,
O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee,
Of all thy feathered progeny 15
Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair?
So richly decked in variegated down,
Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown,
Tints softly with each other blended,
Hues doubtfully begun and ended; 20
Or intershooting, and to sight
Lost and recovered, as the rays of light
Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and there?
Full surely, when with such proud gifts of life
Began the pencil’s strife, 25
O’erweening Art was caught as in a snare.
A sense of seemingly presumptuous wrong
Gave the first impulse to the Poet’s song;
But, of his scorn repenting soon, he drew
A juster judgment from a calmer view; 30
And, with a spirit freed from discontent,
Thankfully took an effort that was meant
Not with God’s bounty, Nature’s love, to vie,
Or made with hope to please that inward eye
Which ever strives in vain itself to satisfy, 35
But to recal the truth by some faint trace
Of power ethereal and celestial grace,
That in the living Creature find on earth a place.
TO THE CLOUDS[241]
Published 1842
[These verses were suggested while I was walking on the foot-road
between Rydal Mount and Grasmere. The clouds were driving over the top
of Nab-Scar across the vale: they set my thoughts a-going, and the rest
followed almost immediately.--I.F.]
First published (1842) in “Poems chiefly of Early and Late Years,”
afterwards included in the “Poems of the Imagination.”--ED.
Army of Clouds! ye wingèd Host in troops
Ascending from behind the motionless brow
Of that tall rock,[242] as from a hidden world,
O whither with[243] such eagerness of speed?
What seek ye, or what shun ye? of the gale[244] 5
Companions, fear ye to be left behind,
Or racing o’er[245] your blue ethereal field
Contend ye with each other? of the sea
Children, thus post ye over vale and height[246]
To sink upon your mother’s lap--and rest?[247] 10
Or were ye rightlier hailed, when first mine eyes
Beheld in your impetuous march the likeness
Of a wide army pressing on to meet
Or overtake some unknown enemy?--
But your smooth motions suit a peaceful aim; 15
And Fancy, not less aptly pleased, compares
Your squadrons to an endless flight of birds
Aerial, upon due migration bound
To milder climes; or rather do ye urge
In caravan your hasty pilgrimage 20
To pause at last on more aspiring heights
Than these,[248] and utter your devotion there
With thunderous voice? Or are ye jubilant,
And would ye, tracking your proud lord the Sun,
Be present at his setting; or the pomp 25
Of Persian mornings would ye fill, and stand
Poising your splendours high above the heads
Of worshippers kneeling to their up-risen God?
Whence, whence, ye Clouds! this eagerness of speed?
Speak, silent creatures.--They are gone, are fled, 30
Buried together in yon gloomy mass
That loads the middle heaven; and clear and bright
And vacant doth the region which they thronged
Appear; a calm descent of sky conducting
Down to the unapproachable abyss, 35
Down to that hidden gulf from which they rose
To vanish--fleet as days and months and years,
Fleet as the generations of mankind,
Power, glory, empire, as the world itself,
The lingering world, when time hath ceased to be. 40
But the winds roar, shaking the rooted trees,
And see! a bright precursor to a train
Perchance as numerous, overpeers the rock
That sullenly refuses to partake
Of the wild impulse. From a fount of life 45
Invisible, the long procession moves
Luminous or gloomy, welcome to the vale
Which they are entering, welcome to mine eye
That sees them, to my soul that owns in them,
And in the bosom of the firmament 50
O’er which they move, wherein they are contained,
A type of her capacious self and all
Her restless progeny.
A humble walk
Here is my body doomed to tread, this path,
A little hoary line and faintly traced,[249] 55
Work, shall we call it, of the shepherd’s foot
Or of his flock?--joint vestige of them both.
I pace it unrepining, for my thoughts
Admit no bondage and my words have wings.
Where is the Orphean lyre, or Druid harp, 60
To accompany the verse? The mountain blast
Shall be our _hand_ of music; he shall sweep
The rocks, and quivering trees, and billowy lake,
And search the fibres of the caves, and they
Shall answer, for our song is of the Clouds 65
And the wind loves them; and the gentle gales--
Which by their aid re-clothe the naked lawn
With annual verdure, and revive the woods,
And moisten the parched lips of thirsty flowers--
Love them; and every idle breeze of air 70
Bends to the favourite burthen. Moon and stars
Keep their most solemn vigils when the Clouds
Watch also, shifting peaceably their place
Like bands of ministering Spirits, or when they lie,
As if some Protean art the change had wrought, 75
In listless quiet o’er the ethereal deep
Scattered, a Cyclades[250] of various shapes
And all degrees of beauty. O ye Lightnings!
Ye are their perilous offspring;[251] and the Sun--
Source inexhaustible of life and joy, 80
And type of man’s far-darting reason, therefore
In old time worshipped as the god of verse,[252]
A blazing intellectual deity--
Loves his own glory in their looks, and showers
Upon that unsubstantial brotherhood 85
Visions with all but beatific light
Enriched--too transient were they not renewed
From age to age, and did not, while we gaze
In silent rapture, credulous desire
Nourish the hope that memory lacks not power 90
To keep the treasure unimpaired. Vain thought!
Yet why repine, created as we are
For joy and rest, albeit to find them only
Lodged in the bosom of eternal things?
[241] The title in the edition of 1842 was _Address to the Clouds_.--ED.
[242] See the Fenwick note and compare Dorothy Wordsworth’s Grasmere
Journal, 31st January 1802.--ED.
[243] 1842.
… in …
MS.
[244] 1842.
… wind
MS.
[245] 1842.
… on …
MS.
[246] 1842.
… over dale and mountain height
MS.
[247] 1842.
… mother’s joyous lap?
MS.
[248] 1842.
Or come ye as I hailed you first, a Flight
Aerial, on a due migration bound,
Embodied travellers not blindly led
To milder climes; or rather do ye urge
Your Caravan, your hasty pilgrimage
With hope to pause at last upon the top
Of some remoter mountains more beloved
Than these, …
MS.
[249] Compare, in the “Poems on the Naming of Places” (1805), the lines
beginning, “When, to the attractions of the busy world,” l. 48--
A hoary pathway traced between the trees.
ED.
[250] The fifty-three small islands in the Ægean surrounding Delos, as
with a circle (κύκλος)--hence the name.--ED.
[251] Compare Coleridge’s _Hymn before Sunrise in the Vale of
Chamouni_--
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
ED.
[252] Sol = Phoebus = Apollo.--ED.
AIREY-FORCE VALLEY
Published 1842
First published (1842) in “Poems, chiefly of Early and Late Years.”
Afterwards one of the “Poems of the Imagination.”--ED.
----Not a breath of air
Ruffles the bosom of this leafy glen.
From the brook’s margin, wide around, the trees
Are stedfast as the rocks; the brook itself,
Old as the hills that feed it from afar, 5
Doth rather deepen than disturb the calm
Where all things else are still and motionless.
And yet, even now, a little breeze, perchance
Escaped from boisterous winds that rage without,
Has entered, by the sturdy oaks unfelt, 10
But to its gentle touch how sensitive
Is the light ash! that, pendent from the brow
Of yon dim cave,[253] in seeming silence makes
A soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs,
Powerful almost as vocal harmony 15
To stay the wanderer’s steps and soothe his thoughts.
The Aira beck rises on the slopes of Great Dodd, passes Dockray, and
enters Ullswater between Glencoin Park and Gowbarrow Park, about two
miles from the head of the lake. The Force is quite near to _Lyulph’s
Tower_, where the stream has a fall of about eighty feet. Compare the
reference to it in _The Somnambulist_ (1833), and Wordsworth’s account
of “Aira-Force,” in his _Guide through the District of the Lakes_,
“Here is a powerful Brook, which dashes among rocks through a deep
glen, hung on every side with a rich and happy intermixture of native
wood; here are beds of luxuriant fern, aged hawthorns and hollies
decked with honeysuckles; and fallow deer glancing and bounding over
the lawns and through the thickets.”--ED.
[253] An ash-tree may still be seen at Aira-Force.--ED.
“LYRE! THOUGH SUCH POWER DO IN THY MAGIC LIVE”
Composed 1842 (or earlier).--Published 1842
One of the “Poems of the Imagination.”--ED.
Lyre! though such power do in thy magic live
As might from India’s farthest plain
Recal the not unwilling Maid,
Assist me to detain
The lovely Fugitive: 5
Check with thy notes the impulse which, betrayed
By her sweet farewell looks, I longed to aid.
Here let me gaze enrapt upon that eye,
The impregnable and awe-inspiring fort
Of contemplation, the calm port 10
By reason fenced from winds that sigh
Among the restless sails of vanity.
But if no wish be hers that we should part,
A humbler bliss would satisfy my heart.
Where all things are so fair, 15
Enough by her dear side to breathe the air
Of this Elysian weather;
And, on or in, or near, the brook, espy
Shade upon the sunshine lying
Faint and somewhat pensively; 20
And downward Image gaily vying
With its upright living tree
’Mid silver clouds, and openings of blue sky
As soft almost and deep as her cerulean eye.
Nor less the joy with many a glance 25
Cast up the Stream or down at her beseeching,
To mark its eddying foam-balls prettily distrest
By ever-changing shape and want of rest;
Or watch, with mutual teaching,
The current as it plays 30
In flashing leaps and stealthy creeps
Adown a rocky maze;
Or note (translucent summer’s happiest chance!)
In the slope-channel floored with pebbles bright,
Stones of all hues, gem emulous of gem, 35
So vivid that they take from keenest sight
The liquid veil that seeks not to hide them.[254]
[254] Compare Wordsworth’s description of the Duddon as “diaphanous,
because it travels slowly,”--ED.
LOVE LIES BLEEDING
Composed 1842.--Published 1842
[It has been said that the English, though their country has produced
so many great poets, is now the most unpoetical nation in Europe. It
is probably true; for they have more temptation to become so than any
other European people. Trade, commerce, and manufactures, physical
science, and mechanic arts, out of which so much wealth has arisen,
have made our countrymen infinitely less sensible to movements of
imagination and fancy than were our forefathers in their simple state
of society. How touching and beautiful were, in most instances, the
names they gave to our indigenous flowers, or any other they were
familiarly acquainted with!--Every month for many years have we been
importing plants and flowers from all quarters of the globe, many of
which are spread through our gardens, and some perhaps likely to be met
with on the few Commons which we have left. Will their botanical names
ever be displaced by plain English appellations, which will bring them
home to our hearts by connexion with our joys and sorrows? It can never
be, unless society treads back her steps towards those simplicities
which have been banished by the undue influence of towns spreading and
spreading in every direction, so that city-life with every generation
takes more and more the lead of rural. Among the ancients, villages
were reckoned the seats of barbarism. Refinement, for the most part
false, increases the desire to accumulate wealth; and while theories
of political economy are boastfully pleading for the practice,
inhumanity pervades all our dealings in buying and selling. This
selfishness wars against disinterested imagination in all directions,
and, evils coming round in a circle, barbarism spreads in every quarter
of our island. Oh for the reign of justice, and then the humblest man
among us would have more power and dignity in and about him than the
highest have now!--I.F.]
One of the “Poems of the Fancy.”--ED.
You call it, “Love lies bleeding,”--so you may,[255]
Though the red Flower, not prostrate, only droops,
As we have seen it here from day to day,
From month to month, life passing not away:
A flower how rich in sadness! Even thus stoops, 5
(Sentient by Grecian sculpture’s marvellous power)
Thus leans, with hanging brow and body bent
Earthward in uncomplaining languishment,
The dying Gladiator. So, sad Flower!
(’Tis Fancy guides me willing to be led, 10
Though by a slender thread,)
So drooped Adonis bathed in sanguine dew
Of his death-wound, when he from innocent air
The gentlest breath of resignation drew;
While Venus in a passion of despair 15
Rent, weeping over him, her golden hair
Spangled with drops of that celestial shower.
She suffered, as Immortals sometimes do;
But pangs more lasting far, _that_ Lover knew
Who first, weighed down by scorn, in some lone bower 20
Did press this semblance of unpitied smart
Into the service of his constant heart,
His own dejection, downcast Flower! could share
With thine, and gave the mournful name which thou wilt ever bear.
[255] Compare _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, act II. scene i. ll.
165-168.--ED.
“THEY CALL IT LOVE LIES BLEEDING! RATHER SAY”
The previous poem was originally composed in sonnet form; and it
belongs, in that form, to the year 1833. It occurs in a MS. copy of
the sonnets which record the Tour of 1833 to the Isle of Man and to
Scotland.--ED.
They call it Love lies bleeding! rather say
That in this crimson Flower Love bleeding _droops_,
A Flower how sick in sadness! Thus it stoops
With languid head unpropped from day to day
From month to month, life passing not away. 5
Even so the dying Gladiator leans
On mother earth, and from his patience gleans
Relics of tender thoughts, regrets that stay
A moment and are gone. O fate-bowed flower!
Fair as Adonis bathed in sanguine dew, 10
Of his death-wound, _that_ Lover’s heart was true
As heaven, who pierced by scorn in some lone bower
Could press thy semblance of unpitied smart
Into the service of his constant heart.
COMPANION TO THE FOREGOING
Composed (?)[256]--Published 1845
Never enlivened with the liveliest ray
That fosters growth or checks or cheers decay,
Nor by the heaviest rain-drops more deprest,
This Flower, that first appeared as summer’s guest,
Preserves her beauty ’mid autumnal leaves 5
And to her mournful habits fondly cleaves.
When files of stateliest plants have ceased to bloom,
One after one submitting to their doom,
When her coevals each and all are fled,
What keeps her thus reclined upon her lonesome bed? 10
The old mythologists, more impress’d than we
Of this late day by character in tree
Or herb, that claimed peculiar sympathy,
Or by the silent lapse of fountain clear,
Or with the language of the viewless air 15
By bird or beast made vocal, sought a cause
To solve the mystery, not in Nature’s laws
But in Man’s fortunes. Hence a thousand tales
Sung to the plaintive lyre in Grecian vales.
Nor doubt that something of their spirit swayed 20
The fancy-stricken Youth or heart-sick Maid,
Who, while each stood companionless and eyed
This undeparting Flower in crimson dyed,
Thought of a wound which death is slow to cure,
A fate that has endured and will endure, 25
And, patience coveting yet passion feeding,
Called the dejected Lingerer, _Love lies bleeding_.
[256] The date of the composition of this poem is uncertain, but, as
“companion” to _Love lies Bleeding_, it must be placed in immediate
succession to it.--ED.
THE CUCKOO-CLOCK
Composed 1842.--Published 1842
[Of this clock I have nothing further to say than what the poem
expresses, except that it must be here recorded that it was a
present from the dear friend for whose sake these notes were chiefly
undertaken, and who has written them from my dictation.--I.F.]
One of the “Poems of the Imagination.”--ED.
Wouldst thou be taught, when sleep has taken flight,
By a sure voice that can most sweetly tell,
How far-off yet a glimpse of morning light,
And if to lure the truant back be well,
Forbear to covet a Repeater’s stroke, 5
That, answering to thy touch, will sound the hour;
Better provide thee with a Cuckoo-clock
For service hung behind thy chamber-door;
And in due time the soft spontaneous shock,
The double note, as if with living power, 10
Will to composure lead--or make thee blithe as bird in bower.
List, Cuckoo--Cuckoo!--oft tho’ tempests howl,
Or nipping frost remind thee trees are bare,
How cattle pine, and droop the shivering fowl,
Thy spirits will seem to feed on balmy air: 15
I speak with knowledge,--by that Voice beguiled,
Thou wilt salute old memories as they throng
Into thy heart; and fancies, running wild
Through fresh green fields, and budding groves among,
Will make thee happy, happy as a child; 20
Of sunshine wilt thou think, and flowers, and song,
And breathe as in a world where nothing can go wrong.
And know--that, even for him who shuns the day
And nightly tosses on a bed of pain;
Whose joys, from all but memory swept away, 25
Must come unhoped for, if they come again;
Know--that, for him whose waking thoughts, severe
As his distress is sharp, would scorn my theme,
The mimic notes, striking upon his ear
In sleep, and intermingling with his dream, 30
Could from sad regions send him to a dear
Delightful land of verdure, shower and gleam,
To mock the _wandering_ Voice[257] beside some haunted
stream.[258]
O bounty without measure! while the grace
Of Heaven doth in such wise, from humblest springs, 35
Pour pleasure forth, and solaces that trace
A mazy course along familiar things,
Well may our hearts have faith that blessings come,
Streaming from founts above the starry sky,
With angels when their own untroubled home 40
They leave, and speed on nightly embassy
To visit earthly chambers,--and for whom?
Yea, both for souls who God’s forbearance try,
And those that seek his help, and for his mercy sigh.
[257] Compare _To the Cuckoo_ (vol. ii. p. 289)--
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?
ED.
[258] Professor Dowden has appropriately called attention to the
fact that the cuckoo-clock at Rydal Mount was not stopped during
Wordsworth’s last illness.--ED.
“WANSFELL! THIS HOUSEHOLD HAS A FAVOURED LOT”
Composed 1842.--Published 1845
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Wansfell![259] this Household has a favoured lot,
Living with liberty on thee to gaze,
To watch while Morn first crowns thee with her rays,
Or when along thy breast serenely float
Evening’s angelic clouds. Yet ne’er a note 5
Hath sounded (shame upon the Bard!) thy praise
For all that thou, as if from heaven, hast brought
Of glory lavished on our quiet days.
Bountiful Son of Earth! when we are gone
From every object dear to mortal sight, 10
As soon we shall be, may these words attest
How oft, to elevate our spirits, shone
Thy visionary majesties of light,
How in thy pensive glooms our hearts found rest.
_Dec. 24, 1842._
[259] The Hill that rises to the south-east, above Ambleside.--W.W.
1842.
“THOUGH THE BOLD WINGS OF POESY AFFECT”
Composed (?)--Published 1842
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Though the bold wings of Poesy affect
The clouds, and wheel around the mountain tops
Rejoicing, from her loftiest height she drops
Well pleased to skim the plain with wild flowers deckt,
Or muse in solemn grove whose shades protect 5
The lingering dew--there steals along, or stops
Watching the least small bird that round her hops,
Or creeping worm, with sensitive respect.
Her functions are they therefore less divine,
Her thoughts less deep, or void of grave intent 10
Her simplest fancies? Should that fear be thine,
Aspiring Votary, ere thy hand present
One offering, kneel before her modest shrine,
With brow in penitential sorrow bent!
“GLAD SIGHT WHEREVER NEW WITH OLD”
Composed 1842.[260]--Published 1845
One of the “Poems of the Fancy.”--ED.
Glad sight wherever new with old[261]
Is joined through some dear homeborn tie;
The life[262] of all that we behold
Depends upon that mystery.
Vain is the glory of the sky,[263] 5
The beauty vain of field and grove,
Unless, while with admiring eye[264]
We gaze, we also learn to love.[265]
[260] A MS. copy of this fragment in Wordsworth’s handwriting, 31st
December 1842, fixes the date approximately.--ED.
[261] 1845.
Look up, look round, let things unfold
Far as they may, their mysteries;
What profits it if new with old
Unites not with some homeborn ties.
MS. 31st Dec. 1842.
Welcome the sight when new with old
C.
Glad sight it is when new with old
MS. 1843.
[262] 1845.
The good …
C.
[263] 1845.
… skies,
MS. 1843.
[264] 1845.
… eyes
MS. 1843.
[265] Compare the lines addressed to Mrs. Wordsworth in 1824,
beginning--
True beauty dwells in deep retreats.
ED.
1843
Two sonnets, and an _Inscription_ for a monument to Southey, were
written in 1843.--ED.
“WHILE BEAMS OF ORIENT LIGHT SHOOT WIDE AND HIGH”
Composed 1st January 1843.--Published 1845
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
While beams of orient light shoot wide and high,
Deep in the vale a little rural Town[266]
Breathes forth a cloud-like creature of its own,
That mounts not toward the radiant morning sky,
But, with a less ambitious sympathy, 5
Hangs o’er its Parent waking to the cares
Troubles and toils that every day prepares.
So Fancy, to the musing Poet’s eye,
Endears that Lingerer. And how blest her sway[267]
(Like influence never may my soul reject)[268] 10
If the calm Heaven, now to its zenith decked[269]
With glorious forms in numberless array,
To the lone shepherd on the hills disclose
Gleams from[270] a world in which the saints repose.
_Jan. 1, 1843._
[266] Ambleside.--W.W. 1845.
[267] 1845.
… And blessed be her sway
MS.
So Fancy charms the musing Poet’s eye
Fixed on that Lingerer …
C.
[268] 1845.
Ne’er may my soul like influence reject.
MS.†
[269] 1845.
Endear that Lingerer. And how blest her sway,
The faith how pure and holy in effect,
If the calm Heavens, now to their summit decked
MS.†
[270]
… of …
MS.†
† These MS. variants occur in a copy of the sonnet written by
Wordsworth for Mrs. Arnold at Foxhowe.
INSCRIPTION
FOR A MONUMENT IN CROSTHWAITE CHURCH, IN THE VALE OF KESWICK
Composed 1843.--Published 1845
One of the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces.”--ED.
Ye vales and hills whose beauty hither drew
The poet’s steps, and fixed him here, on you,
His eyes have closed! And ye, lov’d books, no more
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
To works that ne’er shall forfeit their renown 5
Adding immortal labours of his own--
Whether he traced historic truth, with zeal
For the State’s guidance, or the Church’s weal,
Or Fancy, disciplined by studious art,
Inform’d his pen, or wisdom of the heart, 10
Or judgments sanctioned in the Patriot’s mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast
Could private feelings meet for holier rest.
His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud 15
From Skiddaw’s top; but he to heaven was vowed
Through his industrious life, and Christian faith
Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death.
I received, from the late Lord Coleridge, the following extracts
from letters written by Wordsworth to his father, the Hon. Justice
Coleridge, in reference to the Southey Inscription in Crosthwaite
Church. Wordsworth seems to have submitted the proposed Inscription to
Mr. Coleridge’s judgment, and the changes he made upon it, in deference
to the opinions he received, shew, as Lord Coleridge says, “the extreme
care Wordsworth took to have the substance, and the expression also, as
perfect as he could make it.” The original draft of the “Inscription”
was as follows:--
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT SOUTHEY, WHOSE MORTAL REMAINS
ARE INTERRED IN THE ADJOINING CHURCHYARD. HE WAS BORN AT
BRISTOL, OCTOBER YE 4TH, 1774, AND DIED, AFTER A RESIDENCE OF
NEARLY FORTY YEARS, AT GRETA HALL IN THIS PARISH. MARCH 21ST,
1843.
Ye Vales and Hills, whose beauty hither drew
The Poet’s steps, and fixed him here, on you
His eyes have closed; and ye, loved Books, no more
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
To Works that ne’er shall forfeit their renown
Adding immortal labours of his own,
As Fancy, disciplined by studious Art
Informed his pen, or Wisdom of the heart,
Or judgments rooted in a Patriot’s mind
Taught to revere the rights of all mankind.
Friends, Family--ah wherefore touch that string,
To them _so_ fondly did the good man cling!
His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud
From Skiddaw’s top; but He to Heaven was vowed
Through a long life; and calmed by Christian faith,
In his pure soul, the fear of change and death.
This Memorial was erected by friends of Robert Southey.
Alteration in the Epitaph--
… He to Heaven was vowed
Through a life long and pure; and Christian faith
Calmed in his soul the fear of change and death.--W.W.
December the 6th.
MY DEAR MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE,
Notwithstanding what I have written before, I could not but
wish to meet _your wishes_ upon the points which you mentioned,
and, accordingly, have added and altered as on the other side
of this paper. If you approve don’t trouble yourself to answer.
Ever faithfully yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.
Ye torrents, foaming down the rocky steeps,
Ye lakes, wherein the spirit of water sleeps,
Ye vales and hills, etc.
Or judgments sanctioned in the Patriot’s mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
Friends, Family--within no human breast
Could private feelings need a holier nest.
His joys, his griefs, have vanished.
These alterations are approved of by friends here, and I hope
will please you.
* * * * *
MY DEAR MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE,
Pray accept my thanks for the pains you have taken with the
Inscription, and excuse the few words I shall have to say upon
your remarks. There are two lakes in the Vale of Keswick; both
which, along with the lateral Vale of Newlands immediately
opposite Southey’s study window, will be included in the words
“Ye _Vales_ and Hills” by everyone who is familiar with the
neighbourhood.
I quite agree with you that the construction of the lines
that particularize his writings is rendered awkward by so
many participles passive, and the more so on account of the
transitive verb _informed_. One of these participles may be
got rid of, and, I think, a better couplet produced by this
alteration--
Or judgments sanctioned in the Patriot’s mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
As I have entered into particulars as to the character of S.’s
writings, and they are so various, I thought his historic
works ought by no means to be omitted, and therefore, though
unwilling to lengthen the Epitaph, I added the two following--
… Labours of his own,
Whether he traced historic truth with zeal
For the State’s guidance, or the Church’s weal,
Or Fancy, disciplined by studious Art,
Informed his pen, or wisdom of the heart,
Or judgments sanctioned in the Patriot’s mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
I do not feel with you in respect to the word “so”; it refers,
of course, to the preceding line, and as the reference is to
fireside feelings and intimate friends, there appears to me
a propriety in an expression inclining to the colloquial.
The couplet was the dictate of my own feelings, and the
construction is accordingly broken and rather dramatic,--but
too much of this. If you have any objection to the couplet
as altered, be so kind as let me know; if not, on no account
trouble yourself to answer this letter.
_Prematurely_ I object to as you do. I used the word with
reference to that decay of faculties which is not uncommon in
advanced life, and which often leads to dotage,--but the word
must not be retained.
We regret much to hear that Lady Coleridge is unwell, pray
present to her our best wishes.
What could induce the Bishop of London to forbid the choral
service at St. Mark’s? It was in execution, I understand, above
all praise.
Ever most faithfully yours,
W. WORDSWORTH.
* * * * *
_December 2nd, ’43._
MY DEAR MR. JUSTICE COLERIDGE,
The first line would certainly have more spirit by reading
“your” as you suggest. I had previously considered _that_;
but decided in favour of “the,” as “your,” I thought, would
clog the sentence in sound, there being “ye” thrice repeated,
and followed by “_you_” at the close of the 4th line. I also
thought that “_your_” would interfere with the application of
“you” at the end of the fourth line, to the _whole_ of the
particular previous images as I intended it to do. But I don’t
trouble you with this Letter on that account, but merely to ask
you whether the couplet now standing:--
Large were his aims, yet in no human breast
Could private feelings find a holier nest,
would not be better thus
Could private feelings meet in holier rest.
This alteration does not quite satisfy me, but I can do no
better. The word “_nest_” both in itself and in conjunction
with “_holier_” seems to me somewhat bold and rather startling
for marble, particularly in a Church. I should not have thought
of any alteration in a merely printed poem, but this makes a
difference. If you think the proposed alteration better, don’t
trouble yourself to answer this; if not, pray be so kind as to
tell me so by a single line. I would not on any account have
trespassed on your time but for this public occasion. We are
sorry to hear of Lady Coleridge’s indisposition; pray present
to her our kind regards and best wishes for her recovery,
united with the greetings of the season both for her and
yourself, and believe me faithfully,
Your obliged,
WM. WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT, _December 23rd, ’43_.
* * * * *
TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT SOUTHEY, A MAN EMINENT FOR GENIUS,
VERSATILE TALENTS, EXTENSIVE AND ACCURATE KNOWLEDGE, AND
HABITS OF THE MOST CONSCIENTIOUS INDUSTRY. NOR WAS HE LESS
DISTINGUISHED FOR STRICT TEMPERANCE, PURE BENEVOLENCE, AND WARM
AFFECTIONS; BUT HIS MIND, SUCH ARE THE AWFUL DISPENSATIONS OF
PROVIDENCE, WAS PREMATURELY AND ALMOST TOTALLY OBSCURED BY A
SLOWLY-WORKING AND INSCRUTABLE MALADY UNDER WHICH HE LANGUISHED
UNTIL RELEASED BY DEATH IN THE 69TH YEAR OF HIS AGE.
READER! PONDER THE CONDITION TO WHICH THIS GREAT AND GOOD
MAN, NOT WITHOUT MERCIFUL ALLEVIATIONS, WAS DOOMED, AND LEARN
FROM HIS EXAMPLE TO MAKE TIMELY USE OF THY ENDOWMENTS AND
OPPORTUNITIES, AND TO WALK HUMBLY WITH THY GOD.
* * * * *
COPY OF THE PRINTED INSCRIPTION
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT SOUTHEY, WHOSE MORTAL REMAINS
ARE INTERRED IN THE ADJOINING CHURCHYARD. HE WAS BORN AT
BRISTOL, OCTOBER 4TH, 1774, AND DIED AFTER A RESIDENCE OF
NEARLY 40 YEARS AT GRETA HALL, IN THIS PARISH, MARCH 21ST, 1843.
Ye torrents, foaming down the rocky steeps,
Ye lakes, wherein the spirit of water sleeps,
Ye vales and hills, whose beauty hither drew
The Poet’s steps and fixed him here, on you
His eyes have closed! and ye, loved books, no more
Shall Southey feed upon your precious lore,
To works that ne’er shall forfeit their renown
Adding immortal labours of his own--
Whether he traced historic truth, with zeal
For the State’s guidance or the Church’s weal,
Or Fancy, disciplined by studious art,
Informed his pen, or wisdom of the heart,
Or judgments sanctioned in the Patriot’s mind
By reverence for the rights of all mankind.
Wide were his aims, yet in no human breast
Could private feelings find a holier nest.
His joys, his griefs, have vanished like a cloud
From Skiddaw’s top; but he to Heaven was vowed
Through a long life, and calmed by Christian faith,
In his pure soul, the fear of change and death.
This Memorial was erected by friends of Robert Southey.
Edward Quillinan wrote, 25th March 1843, “Yesterday I drove Mr.
Wordsworth early over to Keswick, that he and I might attend the
funeral of Mr. Southey, who was buried in Crosthwaite churchyard there
at eleven A.M. It was very affecting to see Kate Southey with her
brother Cuthbert, and brother-in-law Herbert Hill, at her father’s
grave as the coffin was lowered into it. She looked as if she yearned
to be there too. She says she has now got her father back again.”--ED.
TO THE REV. CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D., MASTER OF HARROW SCHOOL[271]
After the perusal of his _Theophilus Anglicanus_, recently published.
Composed 1843.--Published 1845
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Enlightened Teacher, gladly from thy hand
Have I received this proof of pains bestowed
By Thee to guide thy Pupils on the road
That, in our native isle, and every land,
The Church, when trusting in divine command 5
And in her Catholic attributes, hath trod:
O may these lessons be with profit scanned
To thy heart’s wish, thy labour blest by God!
So the bright faces of the young and gay
Shall look more bright--the happy, happier still; 10
Catch, in the pauses of their keenest play,
Motions of thought which elevate the will
And, like the Spire that from your classic Hill
Points heavenward, indicate the end and way.
RYDAL MOUNT, _Dec. 11, 1843_.
[271] The poet’s nephew, afterwards Canon of Westminster, and Bishop of
Lincoln, and the biographer of his uncle.--ED.
1844
Only four poems were written in 1844.--ED.
“SO FAIR, SO SWEET, WITHAL SO SENSITIVE”
Composed July 1844.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.
So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive,
Would that the little Flowers were born to live,
Conscious of half the pleasure which they give;
That to this mountain-daisy’s self were known[272]
The beauty of its star-shaped shadow, thrown 5
On the smooth surface of this[273] naked stone!
And what if hence a bold desire should mount
High as the Sun, that he could take account
Of all that issues from his glorious fount!
So might he ken how by his sovereign aid 10
These delicate companionships are made;
And how he rules the pomp of light and shade;
And were the Sister-power that shines by night
So privileged, what a countenance of delight
Would through the clouds break forth on human sight! 15
Fond fancies! wheresoe’er shall turn thine eye
On earth, air, ocean, or the starry sky,
Converse with Nature in pure sympathy;[274]
All vain desires, all lawless wishes quelled,
Be Thou to love and praise alike impelled, 20
Whatever boon is granted or withheld.[275][276]
[272] Compare the lines _To a Child, written in her Album_, in
1834.--ED.
[273] 1844.
Its sole companion on this
C.
[274] 1845.
Fond fancies’ bond, between a smile and sigh,
Do thou more wise, where’er thou turn’st thine eye
Converse with Nature in pure sympathy.
C.
… be taught to fix an eye
On holy Nature in pure sympathy.
C.
Fond fancies, wheresoe’er shall range thine eye
Among the forms and powers of earth or sky,
Converse with Nature in pure sympathy.
C.
[275] 1845.
A thankful heart all lawless wishes quelled,
To joy, to praise, to love alike compelled,
Whatever boon be granted or withheld.
C.
The following variation of the two last stanzas is from a MS. copy by
Wordsworth.
Fond fancies! wheresoe’er shall range thine eye
Among the forms and powers of earth and sky,
Converse with nature in pure sympathy.
A thankful heart, all lawless wishes quell’d,
To joy, to praise, to love alike compell’d,
Whatever boon be granted or withheld.
_August, 1844._--ED.
[276] The following account of the circumstance which gave rise to the
preceding poem is from the _Memoir_ of Professor Archer Butler, by Mr.
Woodward, prefixed to the “First Series” of his Sermons. The late Rev.
Archdeacon Graves, of Dublin (in 1849 of Windermere), in writing to Mr.
Woodward, gives an interesting account of a walk, in July 1844, from
Windermere, by Rydal and Grasmere, to Loughrigg Tarn, etc., in which
Butler was accompanied by Wordsworth, Julius Charles Hare, Sir William
Hamilton, etc. He says, “The day was additionally memorable as giving
birth to an interesting minor poem of Mr. Wordsworth’s. When we reached
the side of Loughrigg Tarn (which you may remember he notes for its
similarity, in the peculiar character of its beauty, to the Lago di
Nemi--Dianae Speculum), the loveliness of the scene arrested our steps
and fixed our gaze. The splendour of a July noon surrounded us and
lit up the landscape, with the Langdale Pikes soaring above, and the
bright tarn shining beneath; and when the poet’s eyes were satisfied
with their feast on the beauties familiar to them, they sought relief
in the search, to them a happy vital habit, for new beauty in the
flower-enamelled turf at his feet. There his attention was arrested
by a fair smooth stone, of the size of an ostrich’s egg, seeming to
imbed at its centre, and at the same time to display a dark star-shaped
fossil of most distinct outline. Upon closer inspection this proved
to be the shadow of a daisy projected upon it with extraordinary
precision by the intense light of an almost vertical sun. The poet drew
the attention of the rest of the party to the minute but beautiful
phenomenon, and gave expression at the time to thoughts suggested by
it, which so interested our friend Professor Butler, that he plucked
the tiny flower, and, saying that “it should be not only the theme but
the memorial of the thought they had heard,” bestowed it somewhere
carefully for preservation. The little poem, in which some of these
thoughts were afterwards crystallised, commences with the stanza--
So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive,
Would that the little flowers were born to live,
Conscious of half the pleasure that they give.”
_Memoir_, pp. 27, 28.--ED.
ON THE PROJECTED KENDAL AND WINDERMERE RAILWAY
Composed October 12, 1844.--Published 1844[277]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Is then no nook of English ground secure
From rash assault?[278] Schemes of retirement sown
In youth, and ’mid the busy world kept pure
As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown,
Must perish;--how can they this blight endure? 5
And must he too the ruthless change bemoan
Who scorns a false utilitarian lure
’Mid his paternal fields at random thrown?
Baffle the threat, bright Scene, from Orrest-head[279]
Given to the pausing traveller’s rapturous glance: 10
Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance
Of nature; and, if human hearts be dead,
Speak, passing winds; ye torrents, with your strong
And constant voice, protest against the wrong.
_October 12th, 1844._
[277] In the first edition of his pamphlet “On the projected Kendal and
Windermere Railway.”--ED.
[278] The degree and kind of attachment which many of the yeomanry
feel to their small inheritances can scarcely be over-rated. Near the
house of one of them stands a magnificent tree, which a neighbour of
the owner advised him to fell for profit’s sake. “Fell it!” exclaimed
the yeoman, “I had rather fall on my knees and worship it.” It happens,
I believe, that the intended railway would pass through this little
property, and I hope that an apology for the answer will not be thought
necessary by one who enters into the strength of the feeling.--W.W.
1845.
Compare the two letters on the Kendal and Windermere Railway,
contributed by Wordsworth to _The Morning Post_ in 1844, at Kendal,
revised and reprinted in the same year. See _The Prose Works of
Wordsworth_, vol. ii. pp. 383-405.--ED.
[279] Orresthead is the height close to Windermere, to the north of the
town.--ED.
“PROUD WERE YE, MOUNTAINS, WHEN, IN TIMES OF OLD”
Composed 1844.--Published 1845[280]
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old,
Your patriot sons, to stem invasive war,
Intrenched your brows; ye gloried in each scar:
Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold,
That rules o’er Britain like a baneful star, 5
Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold,
And clear way made for her triumphal car
Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold!
Heard YE that Whistle? As her long-linked Train
Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view? 10
Yes, ye were startled;--and, in balance true,
Weighing the mischief with the promised gain,
Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you
To share the passion of a just disdain.
The following by Canon Rawnsley--suggested by an attempt to introduce
a mineral railway into Borrowdale--may be read in connection with
Wordsworth’s two sonnets.--ED.
A CRY FROM DERWENTWATER
Shall then the stream of ruinous Lodore
Not fill the valley with its changeful sound
Unchallenged! shall grey Derwent’s sacred bound
Hear the harsh brawl and intermittent roar
Of mocking waves upon an iron shore,
Whereby nor health nor happiness is found!--
While steam-wains drag from Honister’s heart wound
The long cooled ashes of its fiery core!
Burst forth ye sulphurous fountains, as ye broke
On Skiddaw, lick the waters, blast the trees,
And let men have the earth they would desire,--
As well go pass our children through the fire
With shrieks, Cath-Belus, round thine altar’s smoke,
As let old Derwent hear such sounds as these.
H.D. RAWNSLEY.
WRAY VICARAGE, AMBLESIDE.
[280] This sonnet was first published in _The Morning Post_, December
17, 1844.--ED.
AT FURNESS ABBEY
Composed 1844.--Published 1845
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Here, where, of havoc tired and rash undoing,
Man left this Structure to become Time’s prey
A soothing spirit follows in the way
That Nature takes, her counter-work pursuing.
See how her Ivy clasps the sacred Ruin[281] 5
Fall to prevent or beautify decay;
And, on the mouldered walls, how bright, how gay,
The flowers in pearly dews their bloom renewing!
Thanks to the place, blessings upon the hour;
Even as I speak the rising Sun’s first smile 10
Gleams on the grass-crowned top of yon tall Tower[282]
Whose cawing occupants with joy proclaim
Prescriptive title to the shattered pile
Where, Cavendish,[283] _thine_ seems nothing but a name!
[281] In the chancel of the church at Furness Abbey, ivy almost covers
the north wall. In the Belfry and in the Chapter House, it is the same.
The “tower,” referred to in the sonnet, is evidently the belfry tower
to the west. It is still “grass-crowned.” The sonnet was doubtless
composed on the spot, and if Wordsworth ascended to the top of the
belfry tower, he might have seen the morning sunlight strike the small
remaining fragment of the central tower. But it is more likely that he
looked up from the nave, or choir, of the church to the belfry, when he
spoke of the sun’s first smile gleaming from the top of the tall tower.
“Flowers”--crowfoot, campanulas, etc.--still luxuriate on the mouldered
walls. With the line,
Fall to prevent or beautify decay;
compare,
Nature softening and concealing,
And busy with a hand of healing,
in the description of Bolton Abbey in _The White Doe of Rylstone_,
canto i. I. 118. Compare also the _Address from the Spirit of
Cockermouth Castle_, vol. vii. p. 347.--ED.
[282] See preceding note.
[283] Furness Abbey is the property of the Duke of Devonshire, whose
family name is Cavendish.--ED.
1845
The Poems of 1845 include one of the group “On the Naming of Places,”
_The Westmoreland Girl_ (addressed to the Poet’s grandchildren),
several fragments addressed to Mrs. Wordsworth, and to friends, with
one or two Sonnets.--ED.
“FORTH FROM A JUTTING RIDGE, AROUND WHOSE BASE”
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems upon the Naming of Places.”--ED.
Forth from a jutting ridge, around whose base
Winds our deep Vale, two heath-clad Rocks ascend[284][285]
In fellowship, the loftiest of the pair
Rising to no ambitious height; yet both,
O’er lake[286] and stream, mountain and flowery mead, 5
Unfolding prospects fair as human eyes[287]
Ever beheld. Up-led with mutual help,
To one or other brow of those twin Peaks
Were two adventurous Sisters wont to climb,
And took no note of the hour while thence they gazed, 10
The blooming heath their couch, gazed, side by side,
In speechless admiration. I, a witness
And frequent sharer of their calm[288] delight
With thankful heart, to either Eminence
Gave the baptismal name each Sister bore. 15
Now are they parted,[289] far as Death’s cold hand
Hath power to part the Spirits of those who love
As they did love. Ye kindred Pinnacles--
That, while the generations of mankind
Follow each other to their hiding-place 20
In time’s abyss, are privileged to endure
Beautiful in yourselves, and richly graced
With like command of beauty--grant your aid
For MARY’S humble, SARAH’S silent, claim,
That their pure joy in nature may survive 25
From age to age in blended memory.
[284] 1845.
Winds our sequestered vale, two rocks ascend
MS.
[285] These two rocks rise to the left of the lower high-road from
Grasmere to Rydal, after it leaves the former lake and turns eastwards
towards the latter. They are still “heath-clad,” and covered with the
coppice of the old Bane Riggs Wood, so named because the shortest
road from Ambleside to Grasmere used to pass through it; “bain” or
“bane” signifying, in the Westmoreland dialect, a short cut. Dr.
Cradock wrote of them thus:--“They are now difficult of approach,
being enclosed in a wood, with dense undergrowth, and surrounded by
a high, well-built wall. They can be well seen from the lower road,
from a spot close to the three-mile stone from Ambleside. They are
some fifty or sixty feet above the road, about twenty yards apart, and
separated by a slight depression of, say, ten feet. The view from the
easterly one is now much preferable, as it is less encumbered with
shrubs; and for that reason also is more heath-clad. The twin rocks
are also well seen, though at a farther distance, from the hill in
White Moss Common between the roads, which Dr. Arnold used to call ‘Old
Corruption,’ and ‘Bit-by-bit Reform.’ Doubtless the rocks were far more
easily approached fifty years ago, when walls, if any, were low and
ill-built. It is probable, however, that even then they were enclosed
and protected; for heath will not grow on the Grasmere hills, on places
much frequented by sheep.” The best view of these “heath-clad” rocks
from the lower carriage road is at a spot two or three yards to the
west of a large rock on the road-side near the milestone. The view
of them from the Loughrigg Terrace walks is also interesting. The
two sisters were Mary and Sarah Hutchinson (Mrs. Wordsworth and her
Sister); and, in the Rydal household, the rocks were respectively named
“Mary-Point,” and “Sarah-Point.”--ED.
[286] 1845.
O’er wood …
MS.
[287] 1845.
… eye
MS.
[288] 1845.
… that deep …
MS.
[289] 1845.
Gone to a common home, their duty done,
In this dear vale the Sisters lived, but long
Have they been parted …
C.
True to a common love, their early choice
In this dear Vale, the sisters lived, but long
Have they been parted-- …
C.
THE WESTMORELAND GIRL[290]
TO MY GRANDCHILDREN
Composed June 6, 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.”--ED.
PART I
Seek who will delight in fable
I shall tell you truth. A Lamb
Leapt from this steep bank to follow
’Cross the brook its thoughtless dam.[291]
Far and wide on hill and valley 5
Rain had fallen, unceasing rain,
And the bleating mother’s Young-one
Struggled with the flood in vain:
But, as chanced, a Cottage-maiden
(Ten years scarcely had she told) 10
Seeing, plunged into the torrent,
Clasped the Lamb and kept her hold.
Whirled adown the rocky channel,
Sinking, rising, on they go,
Peace and rest, as seems, before them 15
Only in the lake below.
Oh! it was a frightful current
Whose fierce wrath the Girl had braved;
Clap your hands with joy my Hearers,
Shout in triumph, both are saved; 20
Saved by courage that with danger
Grew, by strength the gift of love,
And belike a guardian angel
Came with succour from above.
PART II
Now, to a maturer Audience, 25
Let me speak of this brave Child
Left among her native mountains
With wild Nature to run wild.
So, unwatched by love maternal,
Mother’s care no more her guide, 30
Fared this little bright-eyed Orphan
Even while at her father’s side.
Spare your blame,--remembrance makes him
Loth to rule by strict command;
Still upon his cheek are living 35
Touches of her infant hand,
Dear caresses given in pity,
Sympathy that soothed his grief,
As the dying mother witnessed
To her thankful mind’s relief. 40
Time passed on; the Child was happy,
Like a Spirit of air she moved,
Wayward, yet by all who knew her
For her tender heart beloved.
Scarcely less than sacred passions, 45
Bred in house, in grove, and field,
Link her with the inferior creatures,
Urge her powers their rights to shield.
Anglers, bent on reckless pastime,
Learn how she can feel alike 50
Both for tiny harmless minnow
And the fierce and sharp-toothed pike.
Merciful protectress, kindling
Into anger or disdain;
Many a captive hath she rescued, 55
Others saved from lingering pain.
Listen yet awhile;--with patience
Hear the homely truths I tell,
She in Grasmere’s old church-steeple
Tolled this day the passing-bell. 60
Yes, the wild Girl of the mountains
To their echoes gave the sound,
Notice punctual as the minute,
Warning solemn and profound.
She, fulfilling her sire’s office, 65
Rang alone the far-heard knell,
Tribute, by her hand, in sorrow,
Paid to One who loved her well.
When his spirit was departed
On that service she went forth; 70
Nor will fail the like to render
When his corse is laid in earth.[292]
What then wants the Child to temper,
In her breast, unruly fire,
To control the froward impulse 75
And restrain the vague desire?
Easily a pious training
And a stedfast outward power
Would supplant the weeds and cherish,
In their stead, each opening flower. 80
Thus the fearless Lamb-deliv’rer,
Woman-grown, meek-hearted, sage,
May become a blest example
For her sex, of every age.[293]
Watchful as a wheeling eagle, 85
Constant as a soaring lark,
Should the country need a heroine,
She might prove our Maid of Arc.
Leave that thought; and here be uttered
Prayer that Grace divine may raise 90
Her humane courageous spirit
Up to heaven, thro’ peaceful ways.[294]
[290] This Westmoreland Girl was Sarah Mackereth of Wyke Cottage,
Grasmere. She married a man named Davis, and died in 1872 at Broughton
in Furness. The swollen “flood” from which she rescued the lamb,
was Wyke Gill beck, which descends from the centre of Silver Howe.
The picturesque cottage, with round chimney,--a yew tree and Scotch
fir behind it,--is on the western side of the road from Grasmere
over to Langdale by Red Bank. The Mackereths have been a well-known
Westmoreland family for some hundred years. They belong to the “gentry
of the soil,” and have been parish clerks in Grasmere for generations.
One of them was the tenant of the Swan Inn referred to in _The
Waggoner_--the host who painted, with his own hand, the “famous swan,”
used as a sign. (See vol. iii. p. 81.)
The story of _The Blind Highland Boy_, which gave rise to the poem
bearing that name, was told to Wordsworth by one of these Mackereths
of Grasmere. (See the Fenwick note, vol. ii. p. 420.) In a letter to
Professor Henry Reed (31st July 1845) Wordsworth said this poem might
interest him “as exhibiting what sort of characters our mountains
breed. It is truth to the letter.”--ED.
[291] 1845.
… its simple dam.
MS.
[292] 1845.
… must lie in earth.
MS.
[293] Compare _Grace Darling_, p. 311 in this volume.--ED.
[294] 1845.
Leave that word--and here be offered
Prayer that Grace divine would raise
This humane courageous spirit
Up to Heaven through peaceful ways.
In a letter to Henry Reed, July 1845.
AT FURNESS ABBEY
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.
Well have yon Railway Labourers to THIS ground
Withdrawn for noontide rest. They sit, they walk
Among the Ruins, but no idle talk
Is heard; to grave demeanour all are bound;
And from one voice a Hymn with tuneful sound 5
Hallows once more the long-deserted Quire[295]
And thrills the old sepulchral earth, around.
Others look up, and with fixed eyes admire
That wide-spanned arch, wondering how it was raised,
To keep, so high in air, its strength and grace: 10
All seem to feel the spirit of the place,
And by the general reverence God is praised:
Profane Despoilers, stand ye not reproved,
While thus these simple-hearted men are moved?
_June 21st, 1845._
[295] See the note to the previous sonnet on Furness Abbey, p. 168.--ED.
“YES! THOU ART FAIR, YET BE NOT MOVED”
Composed possibly in 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems founded on the Affections.”--ED.
Yes! thou art fair, yet be not moved
To scorn the declaration,
That sometimes I in thee have loved
My fancy’s own creation.
Imagination needs must stir; 5
Dear Maid, this truth believe,
Minds that have nothing to confer
Find little to perceive.
Be pleased that nature made thee fit
To feed my heart’s devotion, 10
By laws to which all Forms submit
In sky, air, earth, and ocean.
“WHAT HEAVENLY SMILES! O LADY MINE”
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems founded on the Affections.”--ED.
What heavenly smiles! O Lady mine
Through my[296] very heart they shine;
And, if my brow gives back their light,
Do thou look gladly on the sight;
As the clear Moon with modest pride
Beholds her own bright beams
Reflected from the mountain’s side
And from the headlong streams.
[296] 1845.
… this …
MS.
TO A LADY,
IN ANSWER TO A REQUEST THAT I WOULD WRITE HER A POEM UPON SOME DRAWINGS
THAT SHE HAD MADE OF FLOWERS IN THE ISLAND OF MADEIRA
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Poems of the Fancy.”--ED.
Fair Lady! can I sing of flowers
That in Madeira bloom and fade,
I who ne’er sate within their bowers,
Nor through their sunny lawns have strayed?
How they in sprightly dance are worn 5
By Shepherd-groom or May-day queen,
Or holy festal pomps adorn,
These eyes have never seen.
Yet tho’ to me the pencil’s art
No like remembrances can give, 10
Your portraits still may reach the heart
And there for gentle pleasure live;
While Fancy ranging with free scope
Shall on some lovely Alien set
A name with us endeared to hope, 15
To peace, or fond regret.[297]
Still as we look with nicer care,
Some new resemblance we may trace:
A _Heart’s-ease_ will perhaps be there,
A _Speedwell_ may not want its place. 20
And so may we, with charmèd mind
Beholding what your skill has wrought,
Another _Star-of-Bethlehem_ find,
A new[298] _Forget-me-not_.
From earth to heaven with motion fleet 25
From heaven to earth our thoughts will pass,
A _Holy-thistle_ here we meet
And there a _Shepherd’s weather-glass_;
And haply some familiar name
Shall grace the fairest, sweetest, plant 30
Whose presence cheers the drooping frame
Of English Emigrant.
Gazing she feels its power beguile
Sad thoughts, and breathes with easier breath;
Alas! that meek that tender smile 35
Is but a harbinger of death:
And pointing with a feeble hand
She says, in faint words by sighs broken,
Bear for me to my native land
This precious Flower, true love’s last token. 40
[297] 1845.
And there in sweet communion live:
Yet those loved most, in which we own
A touching likeness which they bear
To flower or herb, by Nature sown,
To breathe our English air.
MS.
And there in sweet communion live
Admired for beauty of their own,
Loved for the likeness some may bear
To flower …
MS.
Thus tempted Fancy with free scope
Will range, and on these aliens set
Names among us endeared to none,
To hearts a fond regret.
MS.
So tempted …
May range, …
MS.
[298]
Nor miss …
MS.
TO THE PENNSYLVANIANS
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Days undefiled by luxury or sloth,
Firm self-denial, manners grave and staid,
Rights equal, laws with cheerfulness obeyed,
Words that require no sanction from an oath,
And simple honesty a common growth-- 5
This high repute, with bounteous Nature’s aid,
Won confidence, now ruthlessly betrayed
At will, your power the measure of your troth!--
All who revere the memory of Penn
Grieve for the land on whose wild woods his name[299] 10
Was fondly grafted with a virtuous aim,
Renounced, abandoned by degenerate Men
For state-dishonour black as ever came
To upper air from Mammon’s loathsome den.[300]
[299] To William Penn, son of Admiral Sir W. Penn, a printer and
Quaker, Charles II. granted lands in America, to which he gave the name
of Pennsylvania.--ED.
[300] Mr. Ellis Yarnall wrote to me, April 27, 1885: “The three last
lines of the Sonnet _To the Pennsylvanians_, in regard to which you
inquire, I think refer to what at the time Wordsworth wrote was known
as the _repudiation_ by Pennsylvania of her State debt. The language,
however, is too strong, inasmuch as there was _no_ repudiation. For a
year or two the _interest_ on the debt was unpaid, then payment was
resumed. Members of Wordsworth’s family, or his near friends, held, I
believe, some of the Pennsylvania bonds. They held also, as appears
from the _Memoirs_, Mississippi bonds, and these _were_ repudiated, or
at least five million dollars of a certain class of Mississippi bonds.
No such wrong-doing is chargeable to Pennsylvania. I remember the
delight with which Professor Reed showed me the note on the fly-leaf at
the end of the fifth volume of the edition of 1850--words written at
his request, and the last sentences ever composed by the Poet for the
press.”--ED.
“YOUNG ENGLAND--WHAT IS THEN BECOME OF OLD”
Composed 1845.--Published 1845
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”--ED.
Young England--what is then become of Old
Of dear Old England? Think they she is dead,
Dead to the very name? Presumption fed
On empty air! That name will keep its hold
In the true filial bosom’s inmost fold 5
For ever.--The Spirit of Alfred, at the head
Of all who for her rights watch’d, toil’d and bled,
Knows that this prophecy is not too bold.
What--how! shall she submit in will and deed
To Beardless Boys--an imitative race, 10
The _servum pecus_ of a Gallic breed?
Dear Mother! if thou _must_ thy steps retrace,
Go where at least meek Innocency dwells;
Let Babes and Sucklings be thy oracles.
1846
The poems written in 1846 were six sonnets, the lines beginning, “I
know an aged man constrained to dwell,” an “Evening Voluntary,” and
other two short pieces.--ED.
SONNET[301]
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
This was placed among the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Poems.”--ED.
Why should we weep or mourn, Angelic boy,
For such thou wert ere from our sight removed,
Holy, and ever dutiful--beloved
From day to day with never-ceasing joy,
And hopes as dear as could the heart employ 5
In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved
His might, nor less his mercy, as behoved--
Death conscious that he only could destroy
The bodily frame. That beauty is laid low
To moulder in a far-off field of Rome; 10
But Heaven is now, blest Child, thy Spirit’s home:
When such divine communion, which we know,
Is felt, thy Roman-burial place will be
Surely a sweet remembrancer of Thee.
[301] This sonnet refers to the poet’s grandchild, who died at Rome
in the beginning of 1846. Wordsworth wrote of it thus to Professor
Henry Reed, “_Jan. 23, 1846._ … Our daughter-in-law fell into bad
health between three and four years ago. She went with her husband to
Madeira, where they remained nearly a year; she was then advised to go
to Italy. After a prolonged residence there, her six children (whom her
husband returned to England for), went, at her earnest request, to that
country, under their father’s guidance; then he was obliged, on account
of his duty as a clergyman, to leave them. Four of the number resided
with their mother at Rome, three of whom took a fever there, of which
the youngest--as noble a boy of five years as ever was seen--died,
being seized with convulsions when the fever was somewhat subdued.”--ED.
“WHERE LIES THE TRUTH? HAS MAN, IN WISDOM’S CREED”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--ED.
Where lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom’s creed,
A pitiable doom; for respite brief
A care more anxious, or a heavier grief?
Is he ungrateful, and doth little heed
God’s bounty, soon forgotten; or indeed, 5
Must Man, with labour born, awake to sorrow[302]
When Flowers rejoice and Larks with rival speed
Spring from their nests to bid the Sun good morrow?
They mount for rapture as their[303] songs proclaim
Warbled in hearing both of earth and sky; 10
But o’er the contrast wherefore heave a sigh?
Like those aspirants let us soar--our aim,
Through life’s worst trials, whether shocks or snares,
A happier, brighter, purer Heaven than theirs.[304]
[302] 1850.
Who that lies down and may not wake to sorrow
MS.
[303] 1850.
They mount for rapture; this their …
MS.
[304] This sonnet was suggested by the death of Wordsworth’s grandson
commemorated in the previous sonnet, and by the alarming illness of his
brother, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the expected
death of a nephew (John Wordsworth), at Ambleside, the only son of his
eldest brother, Richard.--ED.
TO LUCCA GIORDANO[305]
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--ED.
Giordano, verily thy Pencil’s skill
Hath here portrayed with Nature’s happiest grace
The fair Endymion couched on Latmos-hill;
And Dian gazing on the Shepherd’s face
In rapture,--yet suspending her embrace, 5
As not unconscious with what power the thrill
Of her most timid touch his sleep would chase,
And, with his sleep, that beauty calm and still.
O may this work have found its last retreat
Here in a Mountain-bard’s secure abode, 10
One to whom, yet a School-boy, Cynthia showed
A face of love which he in love would greet,
Fixed, by her smile, upon some rocky seat;
Or lured along where green-wood paths he trod.
RYDAL MOUNT, 1846.
[305] Lucca Giordano was born at Naples, in 1629. He was at first a
disciple of Spagnaletto, next of Pietro da Cortona; but after coming
under the influence of Correggio, he went to Venice, where Titian was
his inspiring master. In his own work the influence of all of these
predecessors may be traced, but chiefly that of Titian, whose style
of colouring and composition he followed so closely that many of his
works might be mistaken for those of his greatest master. The picture
referred to in this sonnet was brought from Italy by the poet’s eldest
son.--ED.
“WHO BUT IS PLEASED TO WATCH THE MOON ON HIGH”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”--ED.
Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Travelling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds
One with its kindling edge declares that soon 5
Will reappear before the uplifted eye
A Form as bright, as beautiful a moon,
To glide in open prospect through clear sky.
Pity that such a promise e’er should prove
False in the issue, that yon seeming space 10
Of sky should be in truth the stedfast face
Of a cloud flat and dense, through which must move
(By transit not unlike man’s frequent doom)
The Wanderer lost in more determined gloom.
ILLUSTRATED BOOKS AND NEWSPAPERS
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.
Discourse was deemed Man’s noblest attribute,
And written words the glory of his hand;
Then followed Printing with enlarged command
For thought--dominion vast and absolute
For spreading truth, and making love expand. 5
Now prose and verse sunk into disrepute
Must lacquey a dumb Art that best can suit
The taste of this once-intellectual Land.
A backward movement surely have we here,[306]
From manhood--back to childhood; for the age-- 10
Back towards caverned life’s first rude career.
Avaunt this vile abuse of pictured page!
Must eyes be all in all, the tongue and ear
Nothing? Heaven keep us from a lower stage!
[306] The _Illustrated London News_--the pioneer of illustrated
newspapers--was first issued on 14th May 1842. The painter and artist
may differ from the poet, in the judgment here pronounced; but had
Wordsworth known the degradation to which many newspapers would sink in
this direction, his censure would have been more severe.--ED.
SONNET
TO AN OCTOGENARIAN
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
Affections lose their object; Time brings forth
No successors; and, lodged in memory,
If love exist no longer, it must die,--
Wanting accustomed food must pass from earth,
Or never hope to reach a second birth.[307] 5
This sad belief, the happiest that is left
To thousands, share not Thou; howe’er bereft,
Scorned, or neglected, fear not such a dearth.
Though poor and destitute of friends thou art,
Perhaps the sole survivor of thy race, 10
One to whom Heaven assigns that mournful part
The utmost solitude of age to face,
Still shall be left some corner of the heart
Where Love for living Thing can find a place.
[307] Compare Tennyson’s _Lines to J.S._--
God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.
ED.
“I KNOW AN AGED MAN CONSTRAINED TO DWELL”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
I know an aged Man constrained to dwell
In a large house of public charity,
Where he abides, as in a Prisoner’s cell,
With numbers near, alas! no company.
When he could creep about, at will, though poor 5
And forced to live on alms, this old Man fed
A Redbreast, one that to his cottage door
Came not, but in a lane partook his bread.
There, at the root of one particular tree,
An easy seat this worn-out Labourer found 10
While Robin pecked the crumbs upon his knee
Laid one by one, or scattered on the ground.
Dear intercourse was theirs, day after day;
What signs of mutual gladness when they met!
Think of their common peace, their simple play, 15
The parting moment and its fond regret.
Months passed in love that failed not to fulfil,
In spite of season’s change, its own demand,
By fluttering pinions here and busy bill;
There by caresses from a tremulous hand. 20
Thus in the chosen spot a tie so strong
Was formed between the solitary pair,
That when his fate had housed him ’mid a throng
The Captive shunned all converse proffered there.
Wife, children, kindred, they were dead and gone; 25
But, if no evil hap his wishes crossed,
One living Stay was left, and on[308] that one
Some recompense for all that he had lost.
O that the good old Man had power to prove,
By message sent through air or visible token, 30
That still he loves the Bird, and still must love;
That friendship lasts though fellowship is broken!
[308] So all the editions have it; but, as Principal Greenwood
suggested to me, the true reading should be “in that one.”--ED.
“THE UNREMITTING VOICE OF NIGHTLY STREAMS”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”--ED.
The unremitting voice of nightly streams
That wastes so oft, we think, its tuneful powers,
If neither soothing to the worm that gleams
Through dewy grass, nor small birds hushed in bowers,
Nor unto silent leaves and drowsy flowers,-- 5
That voice of unpretending harmony
(For who what is shall measure by what seems
To be, or not to be,[309]
Or tax high Heaven with prodigality?)
Wants not a healing influence that can creep 10
Into the human breast, and mix with sleep
To regulate the motion of our dreams
For kindly issues--as through every clime
Was felt near murmuring brooks in earliest time;
As at this day, the rudest swains who dwell 15
Where torrents roar, or hear the tinkling knell
Of water-breaks, with grateful heart could tell.
[309] _Hamlet_, act III. scene i. l. 56.--ED.
“HOW BEAUTIFUL THE QUEEN OF NIGHT, ON HIGH”
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”--ED.
How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high
Her way pursuing among scattered clouds,
Where, ever and anon, her head she shrouds
Hidden from view in dense obscurity.
But look, and to the watchful eye
A brightening edge will indicate that soon
We shall behold the struggling Moon
Break forth,--again to walk the clear blue sky.
ON THE BANKS OF A ROCKY STREAM
Composed 1846.--Published 1850
Behold an emblem of our human mind
Crowded with thoughts that need a settled home
Yet, like to eddying balls of foam
Within this whirlpool, they each other chase
Round and round, and neither find
An outlet nor a resting-place!
Stranger, if such disquietude be thine,
Fall on thy knees and sue for help divine.
ODE
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
Composed 1803-6.--Published 1807
[This was composed during my residence at Town-end, Grasmere. Two years
at least passed between the writing of the four first stanzas and
the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole
sufficiently explains itself; but there may be no harm in adverting
here to particular feelings or _experiences_ of my own mind on which
the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for
me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable
to my own being. I have said elsewhere--
A simple child,
That lightly draws its breath,
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death!--
But it was not so much from feelings of animal vivacity that my
difficulty came as from a sense of the indomitableness of the Spirit
within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and
almost to persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I
should be translated, in something of the same way, to heaven. With
a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external
things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw
as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature.
Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to
recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that
time I was afraid of such processes. In later periods of life I have
deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite
character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in
the lines--
Obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings, etc.
To that dream-like vividness and splendour which invest objects of
sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could
bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the
poem regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence,
I think it right to protest against a conclusion, which has given
pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a
belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith, as
more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear
in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in revelation, there is
nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy
in its favour. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the
popular creeds of many nations; and, among all persons acquainted with
classic literature, is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy.
Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon
to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards
the world of his own mind?[310] Having to wield some of its elements
when I was impelled to write this poem on the “Immortality of the
Soul,” I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient
foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make for my purpose the
best use of it I could as a poet.--I.F.]
The Child is Father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.[311]
I
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream. 5
It is not now as it hath[312] been of yore;--
Turn wheresoe’er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more.
II
The Rainbow comes and goes, 10
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; 15
The sunshine is a glorious birth;
But yet I know, where’er I go,
That there hath passed away a glory from the earth.
III
Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound 20
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; 25
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;
Land and sea 30
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! 35
IV
Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call
Ye to each other make; I see
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee;
My heart is at your festival,
My head hath its coronal,[313] 40
The fulness of your bliss, I feel--I feel it all.[314]
Oh evil day! if I were sullen
While Earth herself is adorning,[315]
This sweet May-morning,
And the Children are culling[316] 45
On every side,
In a 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! 50
--But there’s a Tree, of many, one,
A single Field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that is gone:
The Pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat: 55
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now,[317] the glory and the dream?
V
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting, 60
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home: 65
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; 70
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[318] die away, 75
And fade into the light of common day.[319]
VI
Earth fills her lap with pleasures[320] of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And, even with something of a Mother’s mind,
And no unworthy aim, 80
The homely Nurse doth all she can
To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.
VII
Behold the Child among his new-born blisses, 85
A six years’ Darling[321] of a pigmy size!
See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his father’s eyes!
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart, 90
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 heart, 95
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, 100
And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part;
Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”[322]
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage; 105
As if his whole vocation
Were endless imitation.
VIII
Thou, whose exterior semblance[323] doth belie
Thy Soul’s immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep 110
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,--
Mighty Prophet! Seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest, 115
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;[324]
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;[325] 120
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,[326]
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years to bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife? 125
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom[327] lie upon thee with a weight,[328]
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life!
IX
O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live, 130
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction;[329] not indeed
For that which is most worthy to be blest; 135
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast:--[330]
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise; 140
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, 145
High instincts before 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, 150
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make[331]
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake, 155
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy! 160
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, 165
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.
X
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!
And let the young Lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound! 170
We in thought will join 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 175
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind; 180
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death, 185
In years that bring the philosophic mind.
XI
And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forebode not any severing[332] of our loves!
Yet in my heart of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight 190
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet; 195
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.[333]
Thanks to the human heart by which we live, 200
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows[334] can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears.[335]
This great _Ode_ was first printed as the last poem in the second
volume of the edition of 1807. At that date Wordsworth gave it the
simple title _Ode_, prefixing to it the motto, “Paulò majora canamus.”
In 1815, when he revised the poem throughout, he named it--in
the characteristic manner of many of his titles--diffuse and yet
precise, _Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early
Childhood_; and he then prefixed to it the lines of his own earlier
poem on the Rainbow (March 1802):--
The Child is Father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.
It retained this longer title and motto in all subsequent editions. In
the editions 1807 to 1820, it was placed by itself at the end of the
poems, and formed their natural conclusion and climax. In the editions
1827 and 1832, it was inappropriately put amongst “Epitaphs and Elegiac
Poems.” The evident mistake of placing it amongst these seems to have
suggested to Wordsworth, in 1836, its having a place by itself,--which
he gave it then and retained in the subsequent editions of 1842 and
1849,--when it closed the series of minor poems in Volume V., and
preceded the _Excursion_ in Volume VI. The same arrangement was adopted
in the double-columned single volume edition of 1845.
Mr. Aubrey de Vere has urged me to take it out of its chronological
place, and let it conclude the whole series of Wordsworth’s poems, as
the greatest, and that to which all others lead up. Mr. De Vere’s wish
is based on conversations which he had with the poet himself.
The _Ode, Intimations of Immortality_, was written at intervals,
between the years 1803 and 1806; and it was subjected to frequent and
careful revision. No poem of Wordsworth’s bears more evident traces
in its structure at once of inspiration and elaboration; of original
flight of thought and _afflatus_ on the one hand, and on the other of
careful sculpture and fastidious choice of phrase. But it is remarkable
that there are very few changes of text in the successive editions.
Most of the alterations were made before 1815, and the omission of some
feeble lines which originally stood in stanza viii. in the editions
of 1807 and 1815, was a great advantage in disencumbering the poem.
The main revision and elaboration of this Ode, however--an elaboration
which suggests the passage of the glacier ice over the rocks of White
Moss Common, where the poem was murmured out stanza by stanza--was all
finished before it first saw the light in 1807. In form it is irregular
and original. And perhaps the most remarkable thing in its structure,
is the frequent change of the keynote, and the skill and delicacy with
which the transitions are made. “The feet throughout are iambic. The
lines vary in length from the Alexandrine to the line with two accents.
There is a constant ebb and flow in the full tide of song, but scarce
two waves are alike.” (Hawes Turner, _Selections from Wordsworth_.)
In the “notes” to the _Selections_ just referred to on Immortality,
there is an excellent commentary on this _Ode_, almost every line of
which is worthy of minute analysis and study. Some of the following are
suggested by Mr. Turner’s notes.
(1) _The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep._
The morning breeze blowing from the fields that were dark during the
hours of sleep.
(2) --_But there’s a Tree, of many, one._
Compare Browning’s _May and Death_--
Only one little sight, one plant
Woods have in May, etc.
(3) _The Pansy at my feet_
_Doth the same tale repeat._
French “Pensée.” “Pansies, that’s for thoughts.” Ophelia in _Hamlet_.
(4) _Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting._
This thought Wordsworth owed, consciously or unconsciously, to Plato.
Though he tells us in the Fenwick note that he did not mean to
_inculcate_ the belief, there is no doubt that he clung to the notion
of a life pre-existing the present, on grounds similar to those on
which he believed in a life to come. But there are some differences in
the way in which the idea commended itself to Plato and to Wordsworth.
The stress was laid by Wordsworth on the effect of terrestrial life
in putting the higher faculties to sleep, and making us “forget the
glories we have known.” Plato, on the other hand, looked upon the
mingled experiences of mundane life as inducing a gradual but slow
remembrance (ἀνάμνεσις) of the past. Compare Tennyson’s _Two Voices_,
and Wordsworth’s sonnet, beginning--
Man’s life is like a sparrow, mighty king.
(5) _Filling from time to time his “humorous stage”_
_With all the Persons,_
_i.e._ with the _dramatis personæ_.
(6) … _thou Eye among the blind,_
_That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep._
There is an admirable parallel illustration of Wordsworth’s use of this
figure (describing one sense in terms of another), in the lines in
_Airey-Force Valley_--
A soft eye-music of slow-waving boughs.
(7) _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!_
Compare with this, the lines in the fourth book of _The Excursion_,
beginning--
Alas! the endowment of immortal power
Is matched unequally with custom, time.
(8) _Fallings from us, vanishings._
The outward sensible universe, visible and tangible, seeming to
fall away from us, as unreal, to vanish in unsubstantially. See the
explanation of this youthful experience in the Fenwick note. That
confession of his boyish days at Hawkshead, “many times, while going to
school, have I grasped at a wall or tree, _to recall myself from this
abyss of idealism to the reality_” (by which he explains those--
Fallings from us, vanishings, etc.),
suggests a similar experience and confession of Cardinal Newman’s in
his _Apologia_ (see p. 67).
The late Rev. Robert Perceval Graves, of Windermere, and afterwards of
Dublin, wrote to me in 1850:--“I remember Mr. Wordsworth saying, that
at a particular stage of his mental progress, he used to be frequently
so rapt into an unreal transcendental world of ideas that the external
world seemed no longer to exist in relation to him, and he _had to
reconvince himself of its existence by clasping a tree, or something
that happened to be near him_. I could not help connecting this fact
with that obscure passage in his great _Ode on the Intimations of
Immortality_, in which he speaks of--
Those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things;
Fallings from us, vanishings; etc.”
Professor Bonamy Price further confirms the explanation which
Wordsworth gave of the passage, in a letter written to me in 1881,
giving an account of a conversation he had with the poet, as follows:--
“OXFORD, _April 21, 1881_.
“MY DEAR SIR,--You will be glad, I am sure, to receive an
interpretation, which chance enabled me to obtain from
Wordsworth himself of a passage in the immortal _Ode on
Immortality_.…
“It happened one day that the poet, my wife, and I were taking
a walk together by the side of Rydal Water. We were then by the
sycamores under Nab Scar. The aged poet was in a most genial
mood, and it suddenly occurred to me that I might, without
unwarrantable presumption, seize the golden opportunity thus
offered, and ask him to explain these mysterious words. So
I addressed him with an apology, and begged him to explain,
what my own feeble mother-wit was unable to unravel, and for
which I had in vain sought the assistance of others, what
were those ‘fallings from us, vanishings,’ for which, above
all other things, he gave God thanks. The venerable old man
raised his aged form erect; he was walking in the middle,
and passed across me to a five-barred gate in the wall which
bounded the road on the side of the lake. He clenched the top
bar firmly with his right hand, pushed strongly against it,
and then uttered these ever-memorable words: ‘There was a time
in my life when I had to push against something that resisted,
to be sure that there was anything outside of me. I was sure
of my own mind; everything else fell away, and vanished into
thought.’ Thought, he was sure of; matter for him, at the
moment, was an unreality--nothing but a thought. Such natural
spontaneous idealism has probably never been felt by any other
man.
“BONAMY PRICE.”
This, however, was not an experience peculiar to Wordsworth, as
Professor Price imagined--and its value would be much lessened if it
had been so--but was one to which (as the poet said to Miss Fenwick)
“every one, if he would look back, could bear testimony.”
The following is from S.T. Coleridge’s _Biographia Literaria_ (chap.
xxii. p. 29, edition 1817)--
“To the _Ode on the Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of
Early Childhood_, the poet might have prefixed the lines which Dante
addresses to one of his own Canzoni--
Canzone, i’ credo, che saranno radi
Color che tua ragione intendan bene:
Tanto lor sei faticoso ed alto.
O lyric song, there will be few, think I,
Who may thy import understand aright:
Thou art for them so arduous and so high!
But the Ode was intended for such readers only as had been accustomed
to watch the flux and reflux of their inmost nature, to venture
at times into the twilight realms of consciousness, and to feel a
deep interest in modes of inmost being, to which they know that the
attributes of time and space are inapplicable and alien, but which yet
cannot be conveyed, save in symbols of time and space. For such readers
the sense is sufficiently plain, and they will be as little disposed to
charge Mr. Wordsworth with believing the Platonic pre-existence in the
ordinary interpretation of the words, as I am to believe, that Plato
himself ever meant or taught it.
πολλά μοι ὑπ’ ἀγκῶνος ὠκέα βέλη
ἔνδον ἐντὶ φαρέτρας
φωνᾶντα συνετοῖσιν ἐς
δὲ τὸ πᾶν ἑρμηνέων
χατίζει. σοφὸς ὁ πολλὰ εἰδὼς φυᾷ.
μαθόντες δὲ λάβροι
παγγλωσσίᾳ, κόρακες ὥς,
ἄκραντα γαρύετον
Διὸς πρὸς ὄρνιχα θεῖον.
PINDAR, OLYMP. ii.”[336]
The following parallel passages from _The Excursion_, _The Prelude_,
Ruskin’s _Modern Painters_, Keble’s _Praelectiones de Poeticae vi
Medica_ (p. 788, Prael. xxxix.), and the _Silex Scintillans_ of
Henry Vaughan, are quoted, in an interesting note to the _Ode_ on
Immortality, in Professor Henry Reed’s American edition of the Poems
(1851).
I
Ah! why in age
Do we revert so fondly to the walks
Of childhood--but that there the Soul discerns
The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired
Of her own native vigour--thence can hear
Reverberations; and a choral song,
Commingling with the incense that ascends,
Undaunted, toward the imperishable heavens,
From her own lonely altar?
_The Excursion_, book ix. ll. 36-44.
II
Our childhood sits,
Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne
That hath more power than all the elements.
I guess not what this tells of Being past,
Nor what it augurs of the life to come; etc.
_The Prelude_, book v. ll. 507-511.
III
“ … There was never yet the child of any promise (so far as the
theoretic faculties are concerned) but awaked to the sense of beauty
with the first gleam of reason; and I suppose there are few, among
those who love Nature otherwise than by profession and at second-hand,
who look not back to their youngest and least learned days as those of
the most intense, superstitious, insatiable, and beatific perception of
her splendours. And the bitter decline of this glorious feeling, though
many note it not, partly owing to the cares and weight of manhood,
which leave them not the time nor the liberty to look for their lost
treasure, and partly to the human and divine affections which are
appointed to take its place, yet have formed the subject, not indeed of
lamentation, but of holy thankfulness for the witness it bears to the
immortal origin and end of our nature, to one whose authority is almost
without appeal in all questions relating to the influence of external
things upon the pure human soul.
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise
But for those obstinate questionings, etc. etc.
And if it were possible for us to recollect all the unaccountable and
happy instincts of the careless time, and to reason upon them with the
maturer judgment, we might arrive at more right results than either
the philosophy or the sophisticated practice of art has yet attained.
But we love the perceptions before we are capable of methodising or
comparing them.” (Ruskin’s _Modern Painters_, vol. ii. p. 36, part iii.
ch. v. sec. i.)
“ … Etenim qui velit acutius indagare causas propensae in antiqua
saecula voluntatis, mirum ni conjectura incidat aliquando in commentum
illud Pythagorae, docentis, animarum nostrarum non tum fieri initium,
cum in hoc mundo nascimur; immo ex ignota quadam regione venire eas,
in sua quamque corpora; neque tam penitus Lethaeo potu imbui, quin
permanet quasi quidam anteactae aetatis sapor; hunc autem excitari
identidem, et nescio quo sensu percipi, tacito quidem illo et obscuro,
sed percipi tamen. Atque hac ferme sententia extat summi hac memoria
Poetae nobilissimum carmen; nempe non aliam ob causam tangi pueritiae
recordationem exquisita illa ac pervagata dulcedine, quam propter
debilem quendam prioris aevi Deique propioris sensum.
Quamvis autem hanc opinionem vix ferat divinae philosophiae ratio,
fatemur tamen eam eatenus ad verum accedere, quo sanctum aliquod
et grave tribuit memoriae et caritati puerilium annorum. Nosmet
certe infantes novimus quam prope tetigerit Divina benignitas; quis
porro scit, an omnis illa temporis anteacti dulcedo habeat quandam
significationem Illius Praesentiae?” (Keble, _Praelectiones de Poeticae
vi Medica_, p. 788, Prael. xxxix.)
“CORRUPTION
Sure, it was so. Man in those early days
Was not all stone and earth;
He shined a little, and by those weak rays,
Had some glimpse of his birth.
He saw Heaven o’er his head, and knew from whence
He came condemned hither,
And, as first Love draws strongest, so from hence
His mind sure progressed thither.”
Henry Vaughan, _Silex Scintillans_.
Mr. Reed also quotes a passage from Vaughan’s poem _Childehood_; but
a more apposite passage may be found in _The Retreate_, in _Silex
Scintillans_.
Happy those early dayes, when I
Shined in my Angell-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy ought
But a white celestiall thought;
When yet I had not walkt above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back, at that short space,
Could see a glimpse of his bright face;
When on some _gilded Cloud or Flowre_
My gazing soul would dwell an houre,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity;
…
But felt through all this fleshly dresse
Bright _shootes_ of everlastingnesse.
The extent of Wordsworth’s debt to Vaughan has been discussed a good
deal. There was no copy of the _Silex Scintillans_ in the Rydal
Mount sale-catalogue. I believe that he had read _The Retreate_, and
forgotten it more completely perhaps than Coleridge forgot Sir John
Davies’ _Orchestra, a Poem on Dancing_, when he wrote _The Ancient
Mariner_.
The following may be added from _The Friend_ (the edition of 1818),
vol. i. p. 183:--“To find no contradiction in the union of old and new
to contemplate the Ancient of Days with feelings as fresh as if they
then sprang forth at his own fiat, this characterizes the minds that
feel the riddle of the world, and may help to unravel it! To carry on
the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood, to combine the
child’s sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every
day, for perhaps 40 years, had rendered familiar,
With sun and moon and stars throughout the year
And man and woman----
This is the character and privilege of genius, and one of the marks
which distinguish genius from talent.”--ED.
[310] Compare the Atman of the Vedanta Philosophy.--ED.
[311] See vol. ii. p. 292.--ED.
[312] 1820.
… has …
1807.
[313] Compare _The Idle Shepherd Boys_, ll. 28-30 (vol. ii. p.
138).--ED.
[314] 1807.
Even yet more gladness, I can hold it all.
MS.
[315] 1836.
While the Earth herself …
1807.
… itself …
1827.
The text of 1832 returns to that of 1807.
[316] 1836.
… pulling
1807.
[317]
Where is it gone, …
MS.
[318] 1807.
… beholds it …
MS.
[319] Compare, in Bacon’s Essay _Of Youth and Age_, “A certaine Rabbine
upon the Text, _Your Young Men shall see visions, and your Old Men
shall dream dreames_, inferreth that Young Men are admitted nearer to
God than Old, because _Vision_ is a clearer Revelation than a Dreame.”
See Professor Max Müller’s note to his translation of the Upanishads
(_Sacred Books of the East_, vol. xv. p. 164), beginning “Drivudagomga
uses a curious argument in support of the existence of another
world.”--ED.
[320] 1807.
… pleasure …
MS.
[321] 1815.
A four years’ Darling …
1807.
[322] See, in Daniel’s _Musophilus_, the introductory sonnet to Fulke
Greville, l. 1.--ED.
[323] 1807.
… presence …
MS.
[324] This line is not in the editions of 1807 and 1815.
[325] The editions of 1807 and 1815 have, after “put by”:
To whom the grave
Is but a lowly bed without the sense or sight
Of day or the warm light,
A place of thought where we in waiting lie;
MS.
The subsequent omission of these lines was due to Coleridge’s
disapproval of them, expressed in _Biographia Literaria_.--ED.
[326] 1815.
Of untamed pleasures, on thy Being’s height,
1807.
[327] 1807.
The world upon thy noble nature seize
With all its vanities,
And custom …
MS.
[328] Compare _The Excursion_, book iv. ll. 205, 206--
Alas! the endowment of immortal power
Is matched unequally with custom, time.
ED.
[329] 1827.
Perpetual benedictions: …
1807.
[330] 1815.
Of Childhood, whether fluttering or at rest,
With new-born hope for ever in his breast:
1807.
[331] 1815.
Uphold us, cherish us, and make
1807.
[332] 1836.
Think not of any severing …
1807.
[333] Professor Dowden writes of this line: “It is a sunset reflection,
natural to one who has ‘kept watch o’er man’s mortality’: the day is
closing, as human lives have closed; the sun went forth out of his
chamber as a strong man to run a race, and now the race is over and the
palm has been won: all things have their hour of fulfilment.” (See vol.
v. p. 365, of his edition of Wordsworth’s Poems.)--ED.
[334] Compare the introduction to the first canto of _Marmion_--
The vernal sun new life bestows
Upon the meanest flower that blows,
ED.
[335] Compare Wither’s _The Shepherds Hunting_, the fourth eclogue, ll.
368-380.--ED.
[336] The text of Pindar, as given by S.T.C., is corrected in the above
quotation.--ED.
POEMS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AND BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH NOT INCLUDED IN
THE EDITION OF 1849-50
1787
SONNET, ON SEEING MISS HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS WEEP AT A TALE OF
DISTRESS[337]
She wept.--Life’s purple tide began to flow
In languid streams through every thrilling vein;
Dim were my swimming eyes--my pulse beat slow,
And my full heart was swell’d to dear delicious pain.
Life left my loaded heart, and closing eye; 5
A sigh recall’d the wanderer to my breast;
Dear was the pause of life, and dear the sigh
That call’d the wanderer home, and home to rest.
That tear proclaims--in thee each virtue dwells,
And bright will shine in misery’s midnight hour; 10
As the soft star of dewy evening tells
What radiant fires were drown’d by day’s malignant pow’r,
That only wait the darkness of the night
To chear the wand’ring wretch with hospitable light.
AXIOLOGUS.
[European Magazine, 1787, vol. xi. p. 302.]
S.T.C. addressed some lines to Wordsworth under the name Axiologus. The
following is a sample, sent to me by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell, _Ad
Vilmum Axiologum_.--ED.[338]
AD VILMUM AXIOLOGUM
This be the meed, that thy song creates a thousand-fold echo!
Sweet as the warble of woods, that awakes at the gale of the morning!
List! the Hearts of the Pure, like caves in the ancient mountains
Deep, deep _in_ the Bosom, and _from_ the Bosom resound it,
Each with a different tone, complete or in musical fragments--
All have welcomed thy Voice, and receive and retain and prolong it!
This is the word of the Lord! it is spoken and Beings Eternal
Live and are borne as an Infant, the Eternal begets the Immortal--
Love is the Spirit of Life, and Music the Life of the Spirit!
[337] The only justification for republishing this sonnet is that it is
the earliest authoritative record of Wordsworth’s attempts in Verse. It
is a much more authentic one than the _Extract from the conclusion of
a Poem, composed in anticipation of leaving School_, or than the lines
_Written in very early Youth_, and beginning
Calm is all nature as a resting wheel.
Wordsworth dated the former of these poems 1786, but I do not believe
that he wrote that poem, and still less that he wrote “Calm is all
nature,” etc., _as we now have it_, in that year. Doubtless he wrote
verses on these two subjects; but the best evidence against the notion
that the text, as we now have it, was written in 1786, is this 1787
sonnet on Miss Maria Williams. It is not only dated authoritatively,
but it was _published_ in 1787; and therefore serves (as nothing else
can until we come to 1793) as evidence in regard to the development of
his poetic power. The translation of Francis Wrangham’s lines--which
he called _The Birth of Love_--in 1795, is further evidence in the
same direction. No doubt there were many poor poetic utterances by
Wordsworth later in life--failures in his manhood, as dismal as the
“Walford Tragedy” was in his youth--but I think that the _Lines written
in very early Youth_, and the _Extract from the Poem composed in
anticipation of leaving School_, were rehandled by him, and the text
greatly improved before they were first published. The late Mr. J.
Dykes Campbell wrote to me in 1892: “Poets tell dreadful fibs about
their early verses--as witness S.T.C. who declared he wrote _The Advent
of Love_ at fifteen! I _know_ he didn’t, and am going to print one or
two of his prize school verses of that age, which I have found in his
own fifteen-year-old fist.”--ED.
[338] I should add, in a footnote, that I have no knowledge of the
source whence Mr. Campbell derived this; but I am sure that it must
have reached him from an authentic one.--ED.
LINES WRITTEN BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH AS A SCHOOL EXERCISE AT HAWKSHEAD,
ANNO ÆTATIS 14
In the “Autobiographical Memoranda”--dictated at Rydal Mount in
1847--Wordsworth said, “The first verses which I wrote were a task
imposed by my master: the subject _The Summer Vacation_, and of my
own accord I added others upon _Return to School_. There was nothing
remarkable in either poem; but I was called upon, among other scholars,
to write verses upon the completion of the second century from the
foundation of the school in 1585, by Archbishop Sandys. These verses
were much admired, far more than they deserved, for they were but a
tame imitation of Pope’s versification, and a little in his style.
This exercise, however, put it into my head to compose verses from the
impulse of my own mind; and I wrote, while yet a schoolboy, a long poem
running upon my own adventures, and the scenery of the county in which
I was brought up.”
The _Summer Vacation_, and the _Return to School_, were destroyed by
Wordsworth.--ED.
And has the Sun his flaming chariot driven
Two hundred times around the ring of heaven,
Since Science first, with all her sacred train,
Beneath yon roof began her heavenly reign?
While thus I mused, methought, before mine eyes, 5
The Power of EDUCATION seemed to rise;
Not she whose rigid precepts trained the boy
Dead to the sense of every finer joy;
Nor that vile wretch who bade the tender age
Spurn Reason’s law and humour Passion’s rage; 10
But she who trains the generous British youth
In the bright paths of fair majestic Truth:
Emerging slow from Academus’ grove
In heavenly majesty she seem’d to move.
Stern was her forehead, but a smile serene 15
“Soften’d the terrors of her awful mien.”[339]
Close at her side were all the powers, design’d
To curb, exalt, reform the tender mind:
With panting breast, now pale as winter snows,
Now flushed as Hebe, Emulation rose; 20
Shame follow’d after with reverted eye,
And hue far deeper than the Tyrian dye;
Last Industry appear’d with steady pace,
A smile sat beaming on her pensive face.
I gazed upon the visionary train, 25
Threw back my eyes, return’d, and gazed again.
When lo! the heavenly goddess thus began,
Through all my frame the pleasing accents ran.
When Superstition left the golden light
And fled indignant to the shades of night; 30
When pure Religion rear’d the peaceful breast
And lull’d the warring passions into rest,
Drove far away the savage thoughts that roll
In the dark mansions of the bigot’s soul,
Enlivening Hope display’d her cheerful ray, 35
And beam’d on Britain’s sons a brighter day,
So when on Ocean’s face the storm subsides,
Hush’d are the winds and silent are the tides;
The God of day, in all the pomp of light,
Moves through the vault of heaven, and dissipates the night; 40
Wide o’er the main a trembling lustre plays,
The glittering waves reflect the dazzling blaze;
Science with joy saw Superstition fly
Before the lustre of Religion’s eye;
With rapture she beheld Britannia smile, 45
Clapp’d her strong wings, and sought the cheerful isle.
The shades of night no more the soul involve,
She sheds her beam, and, lo! the shades dissolve;
No jarring monks, to gloomy cell confined,
With mazy rules perplex the weary mind; 50
No shadowy forms entice the soul aside,
Secure she walks, Philosophy her guide.
Britain, who long her warriors had adored,
And deemed all merit centred in the sword;
Britain, who thought to stain the field was fame, 55
Now honour’d Edward’s less than Bacon’s name.
Her sons no more in listed fields advance
To ride the ring, or toss the beamy lance;
No longer steel their indurated hearts
To the mild influence of the finer arts; 60
Quick to the secret grotto they retire
To court majestic truth, or wake the golden lyre;
By generous Emulation taught to rise,
The seats of learning brave the distant skies.
Then noble Sandys, inspir’d with great design, 65
Rear’d Hawkshead’s happy roof, and call’d it mine;
There have I loved to show the tender age
The golden precepts of the classic page;
To lead the mind to those Elysian plains
Where, throned in gold, immortal Science reigns; 70
Fair to the view is sacred Truth display’d,
In all the majesty of light array’d,
To teach, on rapid wings, the curious soul
To roam from heaven to heaven, from pole to pole,
From thence to search the mystic cause of things 75
And follow Nature to her secret springs;
Nor less to guide the fluctuating youth
Firm in the sacred paths of moral truth,
To regulate the mind’s disorder’d frame,
And quench the passions kindling into flame; 80
The glimmering fires of Virtue to enlarge,
And purge from Vice’s dross my tender charge.
Oft have I said, the paths of Fame pursue,
And all that virtue dictates, dare to do;
Go to the world, peruse the book of man, 85
And learn from thence thy own defects to scan;
Severely honest, break no plighted trust,
But coldly rest not here--be more than just;
Join to the rigours of the sires of Rome
The gentler manners of the private dome; 90
When Virtue weeps in agony of woe,
Teach from the heart the tender tear to flow;
If Pleasure’s soothing song thy soul entice,
Or all the gaudy pomp of splendid Vice,
Arise superior to the Siren’s power, 95
The wretch, the short-lived vision of an hour;
Soon fades her cheek, her blushing beauties fly,
As fades the chequer’d bow that paints the sky,
So shall thy sire, whilst hope his breast inspires,
And wakes anew life’s glimmering trembling fires, 100
Hear Britain’s sons rehearse thy praise with joy,
Look up to heaven, and bless his darling boy.
If e’er these precepts quell’d the passions’ strife,
If e’er they smooth’d the rugged walks of life,
If e’er they pointed forth the blissful way 105
That guides the spirit to eternal day,
Do thou, if gratitude inspire thy breast,
Spurn the soft fetters of lethargic rest.
Awake, awake! and snatch the slumbering lyre,
Let this bright morn and Sandys the song inspire. 110
I look’d obedience: the celestial Fair
Smiled like the morn, and vanished into air.
[339] This quotation I am unable to trace--ED.
1792 (or earlier)
“SWEET WAS THE WALK ALONG THE NARROW LANE”
This sonnet is found in one of Dorothy Wordsworth’s letters to her
friend Miss Jane Polland, written from Forncett Rectory, on 6th May
1792. She wrote:--
“I promised to transcribe some of William’s compositions. As I made
the promise I will give you a little sonnet, but all the same I charge
you, as you value our friendship, not to read it, or to show it to
any one--to your sister, or any other person.… I take the first that
offers. It is only valuable to me because the lane which gave birth to
it was the favourite evening walk of my dear William and me.” … “I have
not chosen this sonnet because of any particular beauty it has; it was
the first I laid my hands upon.”--ED.
Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane
At noon, the bank and hedgerows all the way
Shagged with wild pale green tufts of fragrant hay,
Caught by the hawthorns from the loaded wain
Which Age, with many a slow stoop, strove to gain; 5
And Childhood seeming still more busy, took
His little rake with cunning sidelong look,
Sauntering to pluck the strawberries wild unseen.
_Now_ too, on melancholy’s idle dream
Musing, the lone spot with my soul agrees 10
Quiet and dark; for through the thick-wove trees
Scarce peeps the curious star till solemn gleams
The clouded moon, and calls me forth to stray
Through tall green silent woods and ruins grey.
“WHEN LOVE WAS BORN OF HEAVENLY LINE”
Composed 1795 (or earlier).--Published 1795
Translated from some French stanzas by Francis Wrangham, and Printed
in _Poems by Francis Wrangham_, M.A., Member of Trinity College,
Cambridge, London (1795), Sold by J. Mawman, 22 Poultry, pp. 106-111.
In the edition of 1795, the original French lines are printed side by
side with Wordsworth’s translation, which closes the volume.--ED.
When Love was born of heavenly line,
What dire intrigues disturb’d Cythera’s joy!
Till Venus cried, “A mother’s heart is mine;
None but myself shall nurse my boy.”
But, infant as he was, the child 5
In that divine embrace enchanted lay;
And, by the beauty of the vase beguiled,
Forgot the beverage--and pined away.
“And must my offspring languish in my sight?”
(Alive to all a mother’s pain, 10
The Queen of Beauty thus her court address’d)
“No: Let the most discreet of all my train
Receive him to her breast:
Think all, he is the God of young delight.”
Then TENDERNESS with CANDOUR join’d, 15
And GAIETY the charming office sought;
Nor even DELICACY stay’d behind:
But none of those fair Graces brought
Wherewith to nurse the child--and still he pined.
Some fond hearts to COMPLIANCE seem’d inclined; 20
But she had surely spoil’d the boy:
And sad experience forbade a thought
On the wild Goddess of VOLUPTUOUS JOY.
Long undecided lay th’ important choice,
Till of the beauteous court, at length, a voice 25
Pronounced the name of HOPE:--The conscious child
Stretch’d forth his little arms, and smiled.[340]
’Tis said ENJOYMENT (who averr’d
The charge belong’d to her alone)
Jealous that HOPE had been preferr’d 30
Laid snares to make the babe her own.
Of INNOCENCE the garb she took,
The blushing mien and downcast look;
And came her services to proffer:
And HOPE (what has not Hope believed!) 35
By that seducing air deceived,
Accepted of the offer.
It happen’d that, to sleep inclined,
Deluded HOPE for one short hour
To that false INNOCENCE’S power 40
Her little charge consign’d.
The Goddess then her lap with sweetmeats fill’d
And gave, in handfuls gave, the treacherous store:
A wild delirium first the infant thrill’d;
But soon upon her breast he sunk--to wake no more. 45
[340] Compare Gray’s _Progress of Poesy_, iii. I. 87--
The dauntless child
Stretch’d forth his little arms, and smiled.
ED.
THE CONVICT
Composed (?).--Published 1798
The glory of evening was spread through the west;
--On the slope of a mountain I stood,
While the joy that precedes the calm season of rest
Rang loud through the meadow and wood.
“And must we then part from a dwelling so fair?” 5
In the pain of my spirit I said,
And with a deep sadness I turned, to repair
To the cell where the convict is laid.
The thick-ribbed walls that o’ershadow the gate
Resound; and the dungeons unfold: 10
I pause; and at length, through the glimmering grate,
That outcast of pity behold.
His black matted hair on his shoulder is bent,
And deep is the sigh of his breath,
And with stedfast dejection his eyes are intent 15
On the fetters that link him to death.
’Tis sorrow enough on that visage to gaze,
That body dismiss’d from his care;
Yet my fancy has pierced to his heart, and pourtrays
More terrible images there. 20
His bones are consumed, and his life-blood is dried,
With wishes the past to undo;
And his crime, through the pains that o’erwhelm him, descried,
Still blackens and grows on his view.
When from the dark synod, or blood-reeking field, 25
To his chamber the monarch is led,
All soothers of sense their soft virtue shall yield,
And quietness pillow his head.
But if grief, self-consumed, in oblivion would doze,
And conscience her tortures appease, 30
’Mid tumult and uproar this man must repose,
In the comfortless vault of disease.
When his fetters at night have so press’d on his limbs,
That the weight can no longer be borne,
If, while a half-slumber his memory bedims, 35
The wretch on his pallet should turn,
While the jail-mastiff howls at the dull clanking chain,
From the roots of his hair there shall start
A thousand sharp punctures of cold-sweating pain,
And terror shall leap at his heart. 40
But now he half-raises his deep-sunken eye,
And the motion unsettles a tear;
The silence of sorrow it seems to supply,
And asks of me why I am here.
“Poor victim! no idle intruder has stood 45
With o’erweening complacence our state to compare,
But one, whose first wish is the wish to be good,
Is come as a brother thy sorrows to share.
“At thy name though compassion her nature resign,
Though in virtue’s proud mouth thy report be a stain, 50
My care, if the arm of the mighty were mine,
Would plant thee where yet thou might’st blossom again.”
1798
“THE SNOW-TRACKS OF MY FRIENDS I SEE”
The following incomplete stanzas were evidently written when _The
Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman_ was being composed. They were all
discarded, but have a biographical interest. I assign them to the year
1798.--ED.
The snow-tracks of my friends I see,
Their foot-marks do not trouble me,
For ever left alone am I.
Then wherefore should I fear to die?
They to the last my friends did cherish 5
And to the last were good and kind,
Methinks ’tis strange I did not perish
The moment I was left behind.
Why do I watch those running deer?
And wherefore, wherefore come they here? 10
And wherefore do I seem to love
The things that live, the things that move?
Why do I look upon the sky?
I do not live for what I see.
Why open thus mine eyes? To die 15
Is all that now is left for me,
If I could smother up my heart
My life would then at once depart.
My friends, you live, and yet you seem
To me the people of a dream; 20
A dream in which there is no love,
And yet, my friends, you live and move.
When I could live without a pain,
And feel no wish to be alive,
In quiet hopelessness I sleep, 25
Alas! how quiet, and how deep!
Oh no! I do not, cannot rue,
I did not strive to follow you.
I might have dropp’d, and died alone
On unknown snows, a spot unknown. 30
This spot to me must needs be dear,
Of my dear friends I see the trace.
You saw me, friends, you laid me here,
You know where my poor bones shall be,
Then wherefore should I fear to die? 35
Alas that one beloved, forlorn,
Should lie beneath the cold starlight!
With them I think I could have borne
The journey of another night,
And with my friends now far away 40
I could have lived another day.
THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR
MS. Variants, not inserted in Vol. I.
(l. 3) On a small pile of humble masonry
Placed at the foot of …
(l. 24) He travels on, a solitary man.
His age has no companion. He is weak,
So helpless in appearance that, for him
The sauntering horseman-traveller does not throw
With careless hand his pence upon the ground
But stops that he may lodge the coin
Safe in the old man’s hat: nor quits him so,
But as he goes towards him turns a look
Sidelong and half-reverted.…
1800
ANDREW JONES
Composed 1800.--Published 1800
_Andrew Jones_ was included in the “Lyrical Ballads” of 1800, 1802,
1805, and in the Poems of 1815. It was also printed in _The Morning
Post_, February 10, 1801. It was not republished after 1815. With this
poem compare _The Old Cumberland Beggar_.--ED.
I hate that Andrew Jones; he’ll breed
His children up to waste and pillage.
I wish the press-gang or the drum
Would with its rattling music come,[341]
And sweep him from the village! 5
I said not this, because he loves
Through the long day to swear and tipple;
But for the poor dear sake of one
To whom a foul deed he had done,
A friendless man, a travelling cripple! 10
For this poor crawling helpless wretch
Some horseman who was passing by,[342]
A penny on the ground had thrown;
But the poor cripple was alone
And could not stoop--no help was nigh. 15
Inch-thick the dust lay on the ground
For it had long been droughty weather;
So with his staff the cripple wrought
Among the dust till he had brought
The half-pennies together. 20
It chanced that Andrew passed that way
Just at the time; and there he found
The cripple in the mid-day heat
Standing alone, and at his feet
He saw the penny on the ground. 25
He stooped and took the penny up:[343]
And when the cripple nearer drew,
Quoth Andrew, “Under half-a-crown,
What a man finds is all his own,
And so, my friend, good-day to you.” 30
And _hence_ I said, that Andrew’s boys
Will all be trained to waste and pillage:
And wished the press-gang, or the drum
Would with its rattling music come,[344]
And sweep him from the village! 35
[341] 1815.
With its tantara sound would come,
1800.
[342]
It chanc’d some Traveller passing by,
MS.
[343] In the text of 1800, this line is, “He stopped and took the
penny up,” but in the list of _errata_, “stooped” is substituted for
“stopped.”--ED.
[344] 1815.
With its tantara sound would come
1800.
“THERE IS A SHAPELESS CROWD OF UNHEWN STONES”
Numerous fragments of verse, more or less unfinished, occur in the
Grasmere Journals, written by Dorothy Wordsworth. One of these--which
is broken up into irregular fragments, and very incomplete--is
evidently part of the material which was written about the old Cumbrian
shepherd Michael. The successive alterations of the text of the poem
_Michael_ are in the Grasmere Journal. These fragments have a special
topographical interest, from their description of Helvellyn, and its
spring, the fountain of the mists, and the stones on the summit. On the
outside leather cover of the MS. book there is written, “May to Dec.
1802.”
The following lines come first:--
There is a shapeless crowd of unhewn stones[345]
That lie together, some in heaps, and some
In lines, that seem to keep themselves alive
In the last dotage of a dying form.
At least so seems it to a man who stands
In such a lonely place.
These are followed by a few lines, some of which were afterwards used
in _The Prelude_ (see vol. iii. p. 269):--
Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits,
Amid the undistinguishable crowd
Of cities, ’mid the same eternal flow
Of the same objects, melted and reduced
To one identity, by differences
That have no law, no meaning, and no end,
Shall he feel yearning to those lifeless forms,
And shall we think that Nature is less kind
To those, who all day long, through a long life,
Have walked within her sight? It cannot be.
Mary Wordsworth, Dorothy Wordsworth,
William Wordsworth.
Sat. Eve., 20 past 6, May 29.
Other fragments follow, less worthy of preservation. Then the passage,
which occurs in book xiii. of _The Prelude_, beginning--
There are who think that strong affection, love,
(see vol. iii. p. 361), with one or two variations from the final text,
which were not improvements.
Five lines on Helvellyn, afterwards included in the _Musings near
Aquapendente_ (see vol. viii. p. 47, ll. 61-65), come next.
The fragments referring to _Michael_ are written down, probably just
as the brother dictated them to his sister, and would be--if not
unintelligible--certainly without any literary connection or unity,
were they printed in the order in which they occur. I therefore
transpose them slightly, to give something like continuity to the
whole; which remains, of course, a torso.
I will relate a tale for those who love
To lie beside the lonely mountain brooks,
And hear the voices of the winds and flowers.
…
… It befell
At the first falling of the autumnal snows,
Old Michael and his son one day went forth
In search of a stray sheep. It was the time
When from the heights our shepherds drive their flocks
To gather all their mountain family
Into the homestalls, ere they send them back
There to defend themselves the winter long.
Old Michael for this purpose had driven down
His flock into the vale, but as it chanced,
A single sheep was wanting. They had sought
The straggler during all the previous day
All over their own pastures, and beyond.
And now at sunrise, sallying forth again
Far did they go that morning: with their search
Beginning towards the south, where from Dove Crag
(Ill home for bird so gentle), they looked down
On Deep-dale-head, and Brothers water (named
From those two Brothers that were drowned therein);
Thence northward did they pass by Arthur’s seat,[346]
And Fairfield’s highest summit, on the right
Leaving St. Sunday’s Crag, to Grisdale tarn
They shot, and over that cloud-loving hill,
Seat-Sandal, a fond lover of the clouds;
Thence up Helvellyn, a superior mount,
With prospect underneath of Striding edge,
And Grisdale’s houseless vale, along the brink
Of Sheep-cot-cove, and those two other coves,
Huge skeletons of crags which from the coast
Of old Helvellyn spread their arms abroad
And make a stormy harbour for the winds.
Far went these shepherds in their devious quest,
From mountain ridges peeping as they passed
Down into every nook; …
… and many a sheep
On height or bottom[347] did they see, in flocks
Or single. And although it needs must seem
Hard to believe, yet could they well discern
Even at the utmost distance of two miles
(Such strength of vision to the shepherd’s eye
Doth practice give) that neither in the flocks
Nor in the single sheep was what they sought.
So to Helvellyn’s eastern side they went,
Down looking on that hollow, where the pool
Of Thirlmere flashes like a warrior’s shield
His light high up among the gloomy rocks,
With sight of now and then a straggling gleam
On Armath’s[348] pleasant fields. And now they came,
To that high spring which bears no human name,
As one unknown by others, aptly called
The fountain of the mists. The father stooped
To drink of the clear water, laid himself
Flat on the ground, even as a boy might do,
To drink of the cold well. When in like sort
His son had drunk, the old man said to him
That now he might be proud, for he that day
Had slaked his thirst out of a famous well,
The highest fountain known on British land.
Thence, journeying on a second time, they passed
Those small flat stones, which, ranged by traveller’s hands
In cyphers on Helvellyn’s highest ridge,
Lie loose on the bare turf, some half-o’ergrown
By the grey moss, but not a single stone
Unsettled by a wanton blow from foot
Of shepherd, man or boy. They have respect
For strangers who have travelled far perhaps,
For men who in such places, feeling there
The grandeur of the earth, have left inscribed
Their epitaph, which rain and snow
And the strong wind have reverenced.
…
But soon as Luke, full ten years old, could stand
Against the mountain blasts, and to the heights
Not fearing toil, nor length of weary ways,
He with his Father daily went, and they
Were as companions, why should I relate
That objects which the shepherd lov’d before
Were dearer now? that from the Boy there came
Feelings and emanations, things which were
Light to the sun and music to the wind;
And that the old man’s heart seem’d born again?
Thus in his Father’s sight the Boy grew up;
And now when he had reached his eighteenth year,
He was his comfort and his daily hope.
…
Though often thus industriously they passed[349]
Whole hours with but small interchange of speech,
Yet were there times in which they did not want
Discourse both wise and pleasant,[350] shrewd remarks
Of moral prudence,[351] clothed in images
Lively and beautiful, in rural forms,
That made their conversation fresh and fair
As is a landscape; and the shepherd oft
Would draw out of his heart the mysteries[352]
And admirations that were there, of God
And of his works: or, yielding to the bent
Of his peculiar humour, would let loose
His tongue, and give it the wind’s freedom; then,
Discoursing on remote imaginations, strong
Conceits, devices, plans, and schemes,[353]
Of alterations human hands might make
Among the mountains, fens which might be drained,
Mines opened, forests planted, and rocks split,
The fancies of a solitary man.[354]
Not with a waste of words, but for the sake
Of pleasure which I know that I shall give
To many living now, have I described
Old Michael’s manners and discourse, and thus
Minutely spoken of that aged Lamp
Round which the Shepherd and his household sate
--The light was famous in the neighbourhood
And was a public symbol …
Then follow four pages of Dorothy Wordsworth’s Journal (May 4th and
5th, 1802); and then, irregularly written, and with numerous erasures,
the remainder of these unpublished lines.
… At length the boy
Said, “Father, ’tis lost labour; with your leave
I will go back and range a second time
The grounds which we have hunted through before.”
So saying, homeward, down the hill the boy
Sprang like a gust of wind: [and with a heart
Brimful of glory said within himself,
“I know where I shall find him, though the storm
Have driven him twenty miles.”
For ye must know][355] that though the storm
Drive one of those poor creatures miles and miles,
If he can crawl, he will return again
To his own hills, the spots where when a lamb
He learned to pasture at his mother’s side.
Bethinking him of this, again the boy
Pursued his way toward a brook, whose course
Was through that unfenced tract of mountain ground
Which to his father’s little farm belonged,
The home and ancient birthright of their flock.
Down the deep channel of the stream he went,
Prying through every nook. Meanwhile the rain
Began to fall upon the mountain tops,
Thick storm, and heavy, which for three hours’ space
Abated not; and all that time the boy
Was busy in his search, until at length
He spied the sheep upon a plot of grass,
An island in the brook. It was a place
Remote and deep, piled round with rocks, where foot
Of man or beast was seldom used to tread.
But now, when everywhere the summer grass
Began to fail, this sheep by hunger pressed
Had left his fellows, made his way alone
To the green plot of pasture in the brook.
Before the boy knew well what he had seen
He leapt upon the island, with proud heart,
And with a shepherd’s joy. Immediately
The sheep sprang forward to the further shore,
And was borne headlong by the roaring flood.
At this the boy looked round him, and his heart
Fainted with fear. Thrice did he turn his face
To either bank, nor could he summon up
The courage that was needful to leap back
’Cross the tempestuous torrent; so he stood
A prisoner on the island, not without
More than one thought of death, and his last hour.
Meantime the father had returned alone
To his own home, and now at the approach
Of evening he went forth to meet his son,
Nor could he guess the cause for which the boy
Had stayed so long. The shepherd took his way
Up his own mountain grounds, where, as he walked
Along the steep that overhung the brook,
He seemed to hear a voice, which was again
Repeated, like the whistling of a kite.
At this, not knowing why--as often-times
The old man afterwards was heard to say--
Down to the brook he went, and tracked its course
Upwards among the o’erhanging rocks; nor
Had he gone far ere he espied the boy
Right in the middle of the roaring stream.
Without distress or fear the shepherd heard
The outcry of his son: he stretched his staff
Towards him, bade him leap, which word scarce said
The boy was safe.…
…
Of Michael it is said--
No doubt if you in terms direct had asked
Whether he loved the mountains, true it is
That with blunt repetition of your words
He might have stared at you, and said that they
Were frightful to behold, but had you then
Discoursed with him …
Of his own business, and the goings on
Of earth and sky, then truly had you seen
That in his thoughts there were obscurities,
Wonder, and admiration, things that wrought
Not less than a religion in his heart.
And if it was his fortune to converse
With any who could talk of common things
In an unusual way, and give to them
Unusual aspects, or by questions apt
Wake sudden recognitions, that were like
Creations in the mind (and were indeed
Creations often), then when he discoursed
Of mountain sights, this untaught shepherd stood
Before the man with whom he so conversed
And looked at him as with a poet’s eye.
But speaking of the vale in which he dwelt,
And those bare rocks, if you had asked if he
For other pastures would exchange the same
And dwell elsewhere, …
… you then had seen
At once what spirit of love was in his heart.
…
I have related that this Shepherd loved
The fields and mountains, not alone for this
That from his very childhood he had lived
Among them, with a body hale and stout,
And with a vigorous mind …
… But exclude
Such reasons, and he had less cause to love
His native vale and patrimonial fields
Than others have, for Michael had liv’d on
Childless, until the time when he began
To look towards the shutting in of life.
In this MS. book there are also some of the original stanzas of _Ruth_,
with a few variations of text.--ED.
[345] Compare the first line of those _Written with a Slate Pencil upon
a Stone, the largest of a Heap lying near a deserted Quarry, upon one
of the Islands at Rydal_, vol. ii. p. 63.--ED.
[346] Stone Arthur. See, in the “Poems on the Naming of Places,” the
one beginning--
There is an Eminence,
ED.
[347] Bottom is a common Cumbrian word for valley.--ED.
[348] Armboth, on the western side of Thirlmere.--ED.
[349] Though in these occupations they would pass†
[350] … prudent, …†
[351] Of daily Providence …†
[352] … obscurities†
[353] Day-dreams, thoughts, and schemes.†
† These variants occur in a letter of Dorothy Wordsworth to Thomas
Poole.--ED.
[354] All doubt as to these fragments being originally intended to form
part of _Michael_ is set at rest by a letter from Wordsworth to Thomas
Poole, of Nether Stowey, written from Grasmere on the 9th of April
1801, in which he gives first some new lines to be added to _Michael_,
at pp. 210 and 211 of vol. ii. of the “Lyrical Ballads” (ed. 1800); to
which letter Dorothy Wordsworth added the postscript, “My brother has
written the following lines, to be inserted page 206, after the ninth
line--
Murmur as with the sound of summer flies;”
and then follow--
Though in these occupations they would pass
Whole hours, etc.
as printed above.
Dorothy Wordsworth adds, “Tell whether you think the insertion of these
lines an improvement.”--ED.
[355] An erased version.--ED.
1802
“AMONG ALL LOVELY THINGS MY LOVE HAD BEEN”
Composed April 12, 1802.--Published 1807
This poem--known in the Wordsworth household as _The Glowworm_--was
written on the 12th of April 1802, during a ride from Middleham to
Barnard Castle, and was published in the edition of 1807. It was never
reproduced. The “Lucy” of this and other poems was his sister Dorothy.
In a letter to Coleridge, written in April 1802, he thus refers to
the poem, and to the incident which gave rise to it:--“I parted from
M---- on Monday afternoon, about six o’clock, a little on this side
Rushyford. Soon after I missed my road in the midst of the storm.…
Between the beginning of Lord Darlington’s park at Raby, and two or
three miles beyond Staindrop, I composed the poem the opposite page. I
reached Barnard Castle about half-past ten.… The incident of this poem
took place about seven years ago between my sister and me.”
I think it probable that the “incident” occurred near Racedown,
Dorsetshire, where, in the autumn of 1795 Wordsworth settled with his
sister. The following is Dorothy’s account of the composition of the
poem:--“Tuesday, April 20, 1802.--We sate in the orchard and repeated
_The Glowworm_, and other poems. Just when William came to a well, or
trough, which there is in Lord Darlington’s park, he began to write
that poem of _The Glowworm_; interrupted in going through the town of
Staindrop, finished it about two miles and a-half beyond Staindrop. He
did not feel the jogging of the horse while he was writing; but, when
he had done, he felt the effect of it.… So much for _The Glowworm_. It
was written coming from Middleham, on Monday, April 12, 1802.”--ED.
Among all lovely things my Love had been;
Had noted well the stars, all flowers that grew
About her home; but she had never seen
A glow-worm, never one, and this I knew.
While riding near her home one stormy night 5
A single glow-worm did I chance to espy;
I gave a fervent welcome to the sight,
And from my horse I leapt; great joy had I.
Upon a leaf the glow-worm did I lay,
To bear it with me through the stormy night: 10
And, as before, it shone without dismay;
Albeit putting forth a fainter light.
When to the dwelling of my Love I came,
I went into the orchard quietly;
And left the glow-worm, blessing it by name, 15
Laid safely by itself, beneath a tree.
The whole next day I hoped, and hoped with fear;
At night the glow-worm shone beneath the tree;
I led my Lucy to the spot, “Look here,”
Oh! joy it was for her, and joy for me! 20
“ALONG THE MAZES OF THIS SONG I GO”
This, and the next two fragments, by Wordsworth, are extracted from his
sister’s Grasmere Journal.--ED.
Along the mazes of this song I go
As inward motions of the wandering thought
Lead me, or outward circumstance impels.
Thus do I urge a never-ending way
Year after year, with many a sleep between,
Through joy and sorrow; if my lot be joy
More joyful if it be with sorrow sooth’d.
“THE RAINS AT LENGTH HAVE CEAS’D, THE WINDS ARE STILL’D”
The rains at length have ceas’d, the winds are still’d,
The stars shine brightly between clouds at rest,
And as a cavern is with darkness fill’d,
The vale is by a mighty sound possess’d
“WITNESS THOU”
Witness thou
The dear companion of my lonely walk,
My hope, my joy, my sister, and my friend,
Or something dearer still, if reason knows
A dearer thought, or in the heart of love
There be a dearer name.[356]
[356] Compare Byron’s _Epistle to Augusta_--
My sister! my sweet sister! if a name
Dearer and purer were, it should be thine.
It is a mere coincidence, as Byron could not have seen the Wordsworth
MS.--ED.
WILD-FOWL
The order’d troops
In spiral circles mount aloft, and soar
In prospect far above the denser air
That hangs o’er the moist plain. Again they view
The glorious sun, and while the light of day
Still gleams upon their polish’d plumes--the bright
Sonorous squadrons sing their evening hymn.
WRITTEN IN A GROTTO
Published in _The Morning Post_, March 9, 1802
I cannot affirm, with any certainty, that these lines were written by
Wordsworth; but I agree with Mr. Ernest Coleridge in thinking that they
were. He showed them to his relative--the late Chief Justice--who said
that he did not know who else _could_ have written them, at that time.
Lord Coleridge said the same to myself.--ED.
O moon! if e’er I joyed when thy soft light
Danc’d to the murmuring rill on Lomond’s wave,
Or sighed for thy sweet presence some dark night
When thou wert hidden in thy monthly grave,[357]
If e’er on wings which active fancy gave 5
I sought thy golden vale with dancing flight
Then stretcht at ease in some sequestered cave
Gaz’d on thy lovely Nymphs with fond delight,
Thy Nymphs with more than earthly beauty bright,
If e’er thy beam, as Smyrna’s shepherds tell, 10
Soft as the gentle kiss of amorous maid
On the closed eye of young Endymion fell[358]
That he might wake to clasp thee in the shade,
Each night while I recline within this cell
Guide hither, O sweet Moon, the maid I love so well. 15
The shepherds of Smyrna show a cave, where, as they say, Luna descended
to Endymion, laid on a bed under a large oak which was the scene of
their loves. See Chandler’s _Travels in Asia Minor_.
[357] Compare _To the Moon_, vol. viii. p. 15, l. 64.--ED.
[358] Compare, in the “Evening Voluntaries,” _To Lucca Giordano_
(1846), p. 183.--ED.
HOME AT GRASMERE
The canto of Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem, unpublished in _The
Prelude_ (1851), and first given to the world in 1888, is appropriately
entitled “Home at Grasmere.”
The introduction to _The Recluse_ was not only kept back by him during
his lifetime, but was omitted by his representatives--with what must be
regarded as true critical insight--when _The Prelude_ was published in
1850. As a whole, it is not equal to _The Prelude_. Certain passages
are very inferior, but there are others that posterity must cherish,
and “not willingly let die.” It was probably a conviction of its
inequality and inferiority that led Wordsworth to give only one or two
selected extracts from this canto to the world, in his own lifetime.
Two passages were printed in his _Guide to the District of the Lakes_;
another--a description of the flight and movement of birds--was
published in 1827, and subsequent editions, under the title of
_Water-Fowl_; while the Bishop of Lincoln published other two passages
in the _Memoirs_ of his uncle, beginning respectively--
On Nature’s invitation do I come,
and
Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak.
Internal evidence (see the numerous allusions to Dorothy, and the
reference to John Wordsworth) shows that this canto of _The Recluse_
was written at Grasmere, not long after Wordsworth’s arrival there,
and certainly before his marriage. The text, as now printed, has been
carefully compared with the original MS. by Mr. Gordon Wordsworth. The
MS. heading is--THE RECLUSE. BOOK FIRST, PART FIRST.
HOME AT GRASMERE
Once to the verge of yon steep barrier came
A roving school-boy; what the Adventurer’s age
Hath now escaped his memory--but the hour,
One of a golden summer holiday,
He well remembers, though the year be gone. 5
Alone and devious from afar he came;
And, with a sudden influx overpowered
At sight of this seclusion, he forgot
His haste, for hasty had his footsteps been
As boyish his pursuits; and, sighing said, 10
“What happy fortune were it here to live!
And, (if a thought of dying, if a thought
Of mortal separation, could intrude
With paradise before him), here to die!”
No prophet was he, had not even a hope, 15
Scarcely a wish, but one bright pleasing thought,
A fancy in the heart of what might be
The lot of others, never could be his.
The station whence he looked was soft and green,
Not giddy yet aerial, with a depth 20
Of vale below, a height of hills above.
For rest of body, perfect was the spot,
All that luxurious nature could desire,
But stirring to the spirit. Who could gaze
And not feel motions there? He thought of clouds 25
That sail on winds, of breezes that delight
To play on water, or in endless chase
Pursue each other through the yielding plain
Of grass or corn, over and through and through,
In billow after billow, evermore 30
Disporting. Nor unmindful was the Boy
Of sunbeams, shadows, butterflies and birds,
Of fluttering Sylphs, and softly-gliding Fays,
Genii, and winged Angels that are Lords
Without restraint of all which they behold. 35
The illusion strengthening as he gazed, he felt
That such unfettered liberty was his,
Such power and joy; but only for this end,
To flit from field to rock, from rock to field,
From shore to island, and from isle to shore, 40
From open ground to covert, from a bed
Of meadow-flowers into a tuft of wood,
From high to low, from low to high, yet still
Within the bound of this high concave; here
Must be his home, this Valley be his world. 45
Since that day forth the place to him--_to me_
(For I who live to register the truth
Was that same young and happy being) became
As beautiful to thought, as it had been,
When present, to the bodily sense; a haunt 50
Of pure affections, shedding upon joy
A brighter joy; and through such damp and gloom
Of the gay mind, as ofttimes splenetic youth
Mistakes for sorrow darting beams of light
That no self-cherished sadness could withstand: 55
And now ’tis mine, perchance for life, dear Vale,
Beloved Grasmere (let the Wandering Streams
Take up, the cloud-capped hills repeat, the Name),
One of thy lowly dwellings is my Home.
And was the cost so great? and could it seem 60
An act of courage, and the thing itself
A conquest? who must bear the blame? sage man
Thy prudence, thy experience--thy desires;
Thy apprehensions--blush thou for them all.
Yes, the realities of life so cold, 65
So cowardly, so ready to betray,
So stinted in the measure of their grace
As we pronounce them, doing them much wrong,
Have been to me more bountiful than hope,
Less timid than desire--but that is passed. 70
On Nature’s invitation do I come,[359]
By reason sanctioned--Can the choice mislead,
That made the calmest, fairest spot of earth,
With all its unappropriated good,
My own; and not mine only, for with me 75
Entrenched, say rather peacefully embowered,
Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot,
A younger orphan of a home extinct,
The only daughter of my parents, dwells.
Aye, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir, 80
Pause upon that, and let the breathing frame
No longer breathe, but all be satisfied.
--Oh if such silence be not thanks to God
For what hath been bestowed, then where, where then
Shall gratitude find rest? Mine eyes did ne’er 85
Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind
Take pleasure in the midst of happy thoughts,
But either She whom now I have, who now
Divides with me this loved abode, was there,
Or not far off. Where’er my footsteps turned, 90
Her Voice was like a hidden Bird that sang,
The thought of her was like a flash of light,
Or an _unseen_ companionship, a breath,
Or fragrance independent of the wind.
In all my goings, in the new and old 95
Of all my meditations, and in this
Favourite of all, in this the most of all.
--What Being, therefore, since the birth of man
Had ever more abundant cause to speak
Thanks, and if favours of the heavenly Muse 100
Make him more thankful, then to call on verse
To aid him, and in Song resound his joy.
The boon is absolute; surpassing grace
To me hath been vouchsafed; among the bowers
Of blissful Eden this was neither given, 105
Nor could be given, possession of the good
Which had been sighed for, ancient thought fulfilled
And dear Imaginations realized
Up to their highest measure, yea and more.
Embrace me then, ye Hills, and close me in, 110
Now in the clear and open day I feel
Your guardianship; I take it to my heart;
’Tis like the solemn shelter of the night.
But I would call thee beautiful, for mild
And soft, and gay, and beautiful thou art, 115
Dear Valley, having in thy face a smile
Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased,
Pleased with thy crags, and woody steeps, thy Lake,
Its one green Island and its winding shores;
The multitude of little rocky hills, 120
Thy Church and cottages of mountain stone
Clustered like stars some few, but single most,
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats,
Or glancing at[360] each other cheerful looks,
Like separated stars with clouds between. 125
What want we? have we not perpetual streams,
Warm woods, and sunny hills, and fresh green fields,
And mountains not less green, and flocks, and herds,
And thickets full of songsters, and the voice
Of lordly birds, an unexpected sound 130
Heard now and then from morn till latest eve,
Admonishing the man who walks below
Of solitude, and silence in the sky?
These have we, and a thousand nooks of earth
Have also these, but _no_ where else is found, 135
No where (or is it fancy?) _can_ be found
The one sensation that is here; ’tis here,
Here as it found its way into my heart
In childhood, here as it abides by day,
By night, here only; or in chosen minds 140
That take it with them hence, where’er they go.
’Tis, but I cannot name it, ’tis the sense
Of majesty, and beauty, and repose,
A blended holiness of earth and sky,
Something that makes this individual Spot, 145
This small abiding-place of many men,
A termination, and a last retreat,
A centre, come from wheresoe’er you will,
A whole without dependence or defect,
Made for itself; and happy in itself, 150
Perfect Contentment, Unity entire.
Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak,[361]
When hitherward we journeyed, side by side,
Through bursts of sunshine and through flying showers,
Paced the long Vales--how long they were--and yet 155
How fast that length of way was left behind,
Wensley’s rich Vale and Sedbergh’s naked heights.
The frosty wind, as if to make amends
For its keen breath, was aiding to our steps,
And drove us onward like two ships at sea, 160
Or like two birds, companions in mid air,
Parted and re-united by the blast.
Stern was the face of Nature. We rejoiced
In that stern countenance, for our souls thence drew
A feeling of their strength. The naked trees, 165
The icy brooks, as on we passed, appeared
To question us. “Whence come ye? to what end?”
They seemed to say; “What would ye,” said the shower,
“Wild wanderers, whither through my dark domain?”
The sunbeam said, “Be happy.” When this Vale 170
We entered, bright and solemn was the sky
That faced us with a passionate welcoming,
And led us to our threshold. Daylight failed
Insensibly, and round us gently fell
Composing darkness, with a quiet load 175
Of full contentment, in a little shed
Disturbed, uneasy in itself as seemed,
And wondering at its new inhabitants.
It loves us now, this Vale so beautiful
Begins to love us! By a sullen storm, 180
Two months unwearied of severest storm,
It put the temper of our minds to proof,
And found us faithful through the gloom, and heard
The Poet mutter his prelusive songs
With cheerful heart, an unknown voice of joy, 185
Among the silence of the woods and hills;
Silent to any gladsomeness of sound
With all their Shepherds.
But the gates of Spring
Are opened. Churlish Winter hath given leave
That she should entertain for this one day, 190
Perhaps for many genial days to come,
His guests, and make them jocund. They are pleased,
But most of all the Birds that haunt the flood
With the mild summons; inmates though they be
Of winter’s household, they keep festival 195
This day, who drooped, or seemed to droop, so long;
They shew their pleasure, and shall I do less?
Happiest of happy though I be, like them
I cannot take possession of the sky,
Mount with a thoughtless impulse, and wheel there, 200
One of a mighty multitude, whose way
Is a perpetual harmony, and dance
Magnificent. Behold, how with a grace
Of ceaseless motion,[362] that might scarcely seem
Inferior to angelical, they prolong 205
Their curious pastime, shaping in mid air,
And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars
High as the level of the mountain tops,
A circuit ampler than the lake beneath,
Their own domain;--but ever, while intent 210
On tracing and retracing that large round,
Their jubilant activity evolves
Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,
Upwards and downwards, progress intricate
Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed 215
Their indefatigable flight. ’Tis done--
Ten times and more, I fancied it had ceased;
But lo! the vanished company again
Ascending, they approach--I hear their wings
Faint, faint at first; and then an eager sound 220
Passed in a moment--and as faint again!
They tempt the sun to sport among[363] their plumes;
Tempt the smooth water,[364] or the gleaming ice,
To show them a fair image; ’tis themselves,
Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering plain, 225
Painted more soft and fair as they descend,
Almost to touch;--then up again aloft,
Up with a sally, and a flash of speed,
As if they scorned both resting-place and rest![365]
This day is a thanksgiving, ’tis a day 230
Of glad emotion and deep quietness;
Not upon me alone hath been bestowed,
Me rich in many onward-looking thoughts,
The penetrating bliss; oh surely these
Have felt it, not the happy Quires of Spring, 235
Her own peculiar family of love
That sport among green leaves, a blither train.
But two are missing--two, a lonely pair
Of milk-white Swans, wherefore are _they_ not seen
Partaking this day’s pleasure? From afar 240
They came, to sojourn here in solitude,
Choosing this Valley, they who had the choice
Of the whole world.[366] We saw them day by day,
Through these two months of unrelenting storm,
Conspicuous at the centre of the Lake, 245
Their safe retreat. We knew them well, I guess
That the whole Valley knew them; but to us
They were more dear than may be well believed,
Not only for their beauty, and their still
And placid way of life, and constant love 250
Inseparable, not for these alone,
But that _their_ state so much resembled ours,
They having also chosen this abode;
They strangers, and we strangers; they a pair,
And we a solitary pair like them. 255
They should not have departed; many days
Did I look forth in vain, nor on the wing
Could see them, nor in that small open space
Of blue unfrozen water, where they lodged,
And lived so long in quiet, side by side. 260
Shall we behold them, consecrated friends,
Faithful companions, yet another year
Surviving--they for us, and we for them--
And neither pair be broken? Nay perchance
It is too late already for such hope, 265
The Dalesmen may have aimed the deadly tube,
And parted them; or haply both are gone
One death, and that were mercy given to both.
Recal my song the ungenerous thought; forgive,
Thrice favoured Region, the conjecture harsh 270
Of such inhospitable penalty,
Inflicted upon confidence so pure.
Ah, if I wished to follow where the sight
Of all that is before mine eyes, the voice
Which speaks from a presiding Spirit here, 275
Would lead me, I should whisper to myself;
They who are dwellers in this holy place
Must needs themselves be hallowed, they require
No benediction from the stranger’s lips,
For they are blest already. None would give 280
The greeting “peace be with you” unto them,
For peace they have, it cannot but be theirs,
And mercy, and forbearance. Nay--not these,
Their healing offices a pure goodwill
Precludes, and charity beyond the bounds 285
Of charity--an overflowing love,
Not for the creature only, but for all
That is around them, love for every thing
Which in this happy region they behold!
Thus do we soothe ourselves, and when the thought 290
Is past we blame it not for having come.
What, if I floated down a pleasant Stream
And now am landed, and the motion gone,
Shall I reprove myself? Ah no, the stream
Is flowing, and will never cease to flow,[367] 295
And I shall float upon that stream again.
By such forgetfulness the soul becomes,
Words cannot say, how beautiful. Then hail,
Hail to the visible Presence, hail to thee,
Delightful Valley, habitation fair! 300
And to whatever else of outward form
Can give us inward help, can purify,
And elevate, and harmonise, and soothe,
And steal away, and for a while deceive
And lap in pleasing rest, and bear us on 305
Without desire in full complacency,
Contemplating perfection absolute
And entertained as in a placid sleep.
But not betrayed by tenderness of mind
That feared, or wholly overlooked the truth, 310
Did we come hither, with romantic hope
To find, in midst of so much loveliness,
Love, perfect love; of so much majesty
A like majestic frame of mind in those
Who here abide, the persons like the place. 315
Not from such hope, or aught of such belief
Hath issued any portion of the joy
Which I have felt this day. An awful voice,
’Tis true, hath in my walks been often heard,
Sent from the mountains or the sheltered fields; 320
Shout after shout--reiterated whoop
In manner of a bird that takes delight
In answering to itself; or like a hound
Single at chase among the lonely woods,
His yell repeating;[368] yet it was in truth 325
A human voice--a Spirit of coming night,
How solemn when the sky is dark, and earth
Not dark, nor yet enlightened, but by snow
Made visible, amid a noise of winds
And bleatings manifold of mountain sheep, 330
Which in that iteration recognise
Their summons, and are gathering round for food,
Devoured with keenness ere to grove or bank
Or rocky _bield_ with patience they retire.
That very voice, which, in some timid mood 335
Of superstitious fancy, might have seemed
Awful as ever stray Demoniac uttered,
His steps to govern in the Wilderness;
Or as the Norman Curfew’s regular beat,
To hearths when first they darkened at the knell: 340
That Shepherd’s voice, it may have reached mine ear
Debased and under profanation, made
The ready Organ of articulate sounds
From ribaldry, impiety, or wrath
Issuing when shame hath ceased to check the brawls 345
Of some abused Festivity--so be it.
I came not dreaming of unruffled life,
Untainted manners; born among the hills,
Bred also there, I wanted not a scale
To regulate my hopes. Pleased with the good, 350
I shrink not from the evil with disgust,
Or with immoderate pain. I look for Man,
The common creature of the brotherhood,
Differing but little from the Man elsewhere,
For selfishness, and envy, and revenge, 355
Ill neighbourhood--pity that this should be--
Flattery and double-dealing, strife and wrong.
Yet is it something gained, it is in truth
A mighty gain, that Labour here preserves
His rosy face, a servant only here 360
Of the fire-side, or of the open field,
A freeman, therefore, sound and unimpaired;
That extreme penury is here unknown,
And cold and hunger’s abject wretchedness,
Mortal to body, and the heaven-born mind; 365
That they who want, are not too great a weight
For those who can relieve. Here may the heart
Breathe in the air of fellow-suffering
Dreadless, as in a kind of fresher breeze
Of her own native element, the hand 370
Be ready and unwearied without plea
From tasks too frequent, or beyond its power
For languor, or indifference, or despair.
And as these lofty barriers break the force
Of winds, this deep Vale,--as it doth in part 375
Conceal us from the storm,--so here abides
A power and a protection for the mind,
Dispensed indeed to other solitudes,
Favoured by noble privilege like this,
Where kindred independence of estate 380
Is prevalent, where he who tills the field,
He, happy man! is master of the field,[369]
And treads the mountains which his fathers trod.
Not less than half-way up yon Mountain’s side
Behold a dusky spot, a grove of Firs, 385
That seems still smaller than it is. This grove
Is haunted--by what ghost? a gentle spirit
Of memory faithful to the call of love;
For, as reports the dame, whose fire sends up
Yon curling smoke from the grey cot below, 390
The trees (her first-born child being then a babe)
Were planted by her husband and herself,
That ranging o’er the high and houseless ground
Their sheep might neither want (from perilous storms
Of winter, nor from summer’s sultry heat) 395
A friendly covert. “And they knew it well,”
Said she, “for thither as the trees grew up,
We to the patient creatures carried food
In times of heavy snow.” She then began
In fond obedience to her private thoughts 400
To speak of her dead husband. Is there not
An art, a music, and a strain of words
That shall be like the acknowledged voice of life,
Shall speak of what is done among the fields,
Done truly there, or felt, of solid good 405
And real evil, yet be sweet withal,
More grateful, more harmonious than the breath,
The idle breath of softest pipe attuned
To pastoral fancies? Is there such a stream,
Pure and unsullied, flowing from the heart 410
With motions of true dignity and grace?
Or must we seek that stream where Man is not?
Methinks I could repeat in tuneful verse,
Delicious as the gentlest breeze that sounds
Through that aerial fir-grove, could preserve 415
Some portion of its human history
As gathered from the Matron’s lips, and tell
Of tears that have been shed at sight of it,
And moving dialogues between this pair,
Who in their prime of wedlock, with joint hands 420
Did plant the grove, now flourishing, while they
No longer flourish, he entirely gone,
She withering in her loneliness. Be this
A task above my skill; the silent mind
Has her own treasures, and I think of these, 425
Love what I see, and honour humankind.
No, we are not alone, we do not stand,
My Sister, here misplaced and desolate,
Loving what no one cares for but ourselves;
We shall not scatter through the plains and rocks 430
Of this fair Vale, and o’er its spacious heights
Unprofitable kindliness, bestowed
On objects unaccustomed to the gifts
Of feeling, which were cheerless and forlorn
But few weeks past, and would be so again 435
Were we not here; we do not tend a lamp
Whose lustre we alone participate,
Which shines dependent upon us alone,
Mortal though bright, a dying, dying flame.
Look where we will, some human hand has been 440
Before us with its offering; not a tree
Sprinkles these little pastures but the same
Hath furnished matter for a thought; perchance,
For some one, serves as a familiar friend.
Joy spreads, and sorrow spreads; and this whole Vale, 445
Home of untutored shepherds as it is,
Swarms with sensation, as with gleams of sunshine,
Shadows or breezes, scents or sounds. Nor deem
These feelings, though subservient more than ours
To every day’s demand for daily bread, 450
And borrowing more their spirit, and their shape
From self-respecting interests, deem them not
Unworthy therefore, and unhallowed: no,
They lift the animal being, do themselves
By Nature’s kind and ever-present aid 455
Refine the selfishness from which they spring,
Redeem by love the individual sense
Of anxiousness with which they are combined.
And thus it is that fitly they become
Associates in the joy of purest minds, 460
They blend therewith congenially: meanwhile,
Calmly they breathe their own undying life
Through this their mountain sanctuary. Long,
Oh long may it remain inviolate,
Diffusing health and sober cheerfulness, 465
And giving to the moments as they pass
Their little boons of animating thought
That sweeten labour, make it seen and felt
To be no arbitrary weight imposed,
But a glad function natural to man. 470
Fair proof of this, newcomer though I be,
Already have I gained. The inward frame
Though slowly opening, opens every day
With process not unlike to that which cheers
A pensive stranger, journeying at his leisure 475
Through some Helvetian dell, when low-hung mists
Break up, and are beginning to recede;
How pleased he is where thin and thinner grows
The veil, or where it parts at once, to spy
The dark pines thrusting forth their spiky heads; 480
To watch the spreading lawns with cattle grazed,
Then to be greeted by the scattered huts,
As they shine out; and _see_ the streams whose murmur
Had soothed his ear while _they_ were hidden: how pleased
To have about him, which way e’er he goes, 485
Something on every side concealed from view,
In every quarter something visible,
Half-seen or wholly, lost and found again,
Alternate progress and impediment,
And yet a growing prospect in the main. 490
Such pleasure now is mine, albeit forced,
Herein less happy than the Traveller
To cast from time to time a painful look
Upon unwelcome things, which unawares
Reveal themselves; not therefore is my heart 495
Depressed, nor does it fear what is to come,
But confident, enriched at every glance.
The more I see the more delight my mind
Receives, or by reflexion can create.
Truth justifies herself, and as she dwells 500
With Hope, who would not follow where she leads?
Nor let me pass unheeded other loves
Where no fear is, and humbler sympathies.
Already hath sprung up within my heart
A liking for the small grey horse that bears 505
The paralytic man, and for the brute--
In Scripture sanctified--the patient brute,
On which the cripple, in the quarry maimed,
Rides to and fro: I know them and their ways.[370]
The famous sheep-dog, first in all the Vale, 510
Though yet to me a stranger, will not be
A stranger long; nor will the blind man’s guide,
Meek and neglected thing, of no renown!
Soon will peep forth the primrose; ere it fades
Friends shall I have at dawn, blackbird and thrush 515
To rouse me, and a hundred warblers more;
And if those eagles to their ancient hold
Return, Helvellyn’s eagles! with the pair
From my own door I shall be free to claim
Acquaintance as they sweep from cloud to cloud. 520
The owl that gives the name to Owlet-Crag
Have I heard whooping, and he soon will be
A chosen one of my regards. See there
The heifer in yon little croft belongs
To one who holds it dear; with duteous care 525
She reared it, and in speaking of her charge
I heard her scatter some endearing words
Domestic, and in spirit motherly
She being herself a Mother, happy Beast
If the caresses of a human voice 530
Can make it so, and care of human hands.
And ye as happy under Nature’s care,
Strangers to me, and all men, or at least
Strangers to all particular amity,
All intercourse of knowledge or of love 535
That parts the individual from his kind,
Whether in large communities ye keep
From year to year, not shunning Man’s abode,
A settled residence, or be from far,
Wild creatures, and of many homes, that come 540
The gift of winds, and whom the winds again
Take from us at your pleasure--yet shall ye
Not want, for this, your own subordinate place
In my affections. Witness the delight
With which erewhile I saw that multitude 545
Wheel through the sky, and see them now at rest,
Yet not at rest, upon the glassy lake.
They _cannot_ rest, they gambol like young whelps;
Active as lambs, and overcome with joy.
They try all frolic motions; flutter, plunge, 550
And beat the passive water with their wings.
Too distant are they for plain view, but lo!
Those little fountains, sparkling in the sun,
Betray their occupation, rising up,
First one and then another silver spout, 555
As one or other takes the fit of glee,
Fountains and spouts, yet somewhat in the guise
Of play-thing fire-works, that on festal nights
Sparkle about the feet of wanton boys.
--How vast the compass of this theatre, 560
Yet nothing to be seen but lovely pomp
And silent majesty; the birch-tree woods
Are hung with thousand thousand diamond drops
Of melted hoar-frost, every tiny knot
In the bare twigs, each little budding place 565
Cased with its several beads, what myriads there
Upon one tree, while all the distant grove
That rises to the summit of the steep
Shows like a mountain built of silver light.
See yonder the same pageant, and again 570
Behold the universal imagery
Inverted, all its sun-bright features touched
As with the varnish, and the gloss of dreams;
Dreamlike the blending also of the whole
Harmonious landscape; all along the shore 575
The boundary lost, the line invisible
That parts the image from reality;
And the clear hills, as high as they ascend
Heavenward, so piercing deep the lake below.
Admonished of the days of love to come 580
The raven croaks, and fills the upper air
With a strange sound of genial harmony;[371]
And in and all about that playful band,
Incapable although they be of rest,
And in their fashion very rioters, 585
There is a stillness, and they seem to make
Calm revelry in that their calm abode.
Them leaving to their joyous hours I pass,
Pass with a thought the life of the whole year
That is to come, the throng of woodland flowers, 590
And lilies that will dance upon the waves.
Say boldly then that solitude is not
Where these things are. He truly is alone,
He of the multitude whose eyes are doomed
To hold a vacant commerce day by day 595
With objects wanting life, repelling love;
He by the vast Metropolis immured,
Where pity shrinks from unremitting calls,
Where numbers overwhelm humanity,
And neighbourhood serves rather to divide 600
Than to unite. What sighs more deep than his,
Whose nobler will hath long been sacrificed;
Who must inhabit, under a black sky,
A City where, if indifference to disgust
Yield not, to scorn, or sorrow, living men 605
Are ofttimes to their fellow-men no more
Than to the forest hermit are the leaves
That hang aloft in myriads--nay, far less,
For they protect his walk from sun and shower,
Swell his devotion with their voice in storms, 610
And whisper while the stars twinkle among them
His lullaby. From crowded streets remote,
Far from the living and dead wilderness
Of the thronged world, Society is here[372]
A true Community, a genuine frame 615
Of many into one incorporate.
_That_ must be looked for here, paternal sway,
One household under God for high and low,
One family, and one mansion; to themselves
Appropriate, and divided from the world 620
As if it were a cave, a multitude
Human and brute, possessors undisturbed
Of this recess, their legislative hall,
Their Temple, and their glorious dwelling-place.
Dismissing therefore, all Arcadian dreams, 625
All golden fancies of the golden age,
The bright array of shadowy thoughts from times
That were before all time, or is to be
Ere time expire, the pageantry that stirs
And will be stirring when our eyes are fixed 630
On lovely objects, and we wish to part
With all remembrance of a jarring world,
--Take we at once this one sufficient hope,
What need of more? that we shall neither droop,
Nor pine for want of pleasure in the life 635
Scattered about us, nor through dearth of aught
That keeps in health the insatiable mind;
That we shall have for knowledge and for love
Abundance; and that, feeling as we do
How goodly, how exceeding fair, how pure 640
From all reproach is yon ethereal vault,
And this deep vale its earthly counterpart,
By which, and under which, we are enclosed
To breathe in peace, we shall moreover find
(If sound, and what we ought to be ourselves, 645
If rightly we observe and justly weigh)
The inmates not unworthy of their home
The dwellers of their dwelling.
And if this
Were otherwise, we have within ourselves
Enough to fill the present day with joy, 650
And overspread the future years with hope,
Our beautiful and quiet home, enriched
Already with a stranger whom we love
Deeply, a stranger of our father’s house,
A never-resting Pilgrim of the Sea,[373] 655
Who finds at last an hour to his content
Beneath our roof. And others whom we love
Will seek us also, sisters of our hearts,[374]
And one, like them, a brother of our hearts,
Philosopher and Poet,[375] in whose sight 660
These mountains will rejoice with open joy.
--Such is our wealth; O Vale of Peace, we are
And must be, with God’s will, a happy band.
Yet ’tis not to enjoy that we exist,
For that end only; something must be done. 665
I must not walk in unreproved delight
These narrow bounds, and think of nothing more,
No duty that looks further, and no care.
Each being has his office, lowly some
And common, yet all worthy if fulfilled 670
With zeal, acknowledgment that with the gift
Keeps pace, a harvest answering to the seed--
Of ill-advised Ambition and of Pride
I would stand clear, but yet to me I feel
That an internal brightness is vouchsafed 675
That must not die, that must not pass away.
Why does this inward lustre fondly seek,
And gladly blend with outward fellowship?
Why do _they_ shine around me whom I love?
Why do they teach me whom I thus revere? 680
Strange question, yet it answers not itself.
That humble roof embowered among the trees,
That calm fire-side, it is not even in them,
--Blest as they are--to furnish a reply,
That satisfies and ends in perfect rest. 685
Possessions have I that are solely mine,
Something within which yet is shared by none,
Not even the nearest to me and most dear,
Something which power and effort may impart,
I would impart it, I would spread it wide, 690
Immortal in the world which is to come.
Forgive me if I add another claim,
And would not wholly perish even in this,
Lie down and be forgotten in the dust,
I and the modest partners of my days 695
Making a silent company in death;
Love, knowledge, all my manifold delights
All buried with me without monument
Or profit unto any but ourselves.
It must not be, if I, divinely taught, 700
Be privileged to speak as I have felt
Of what in man is human or divine.
While yet an innocent little-one, with a heart
That doubtless wanted not its tender moods,
I breathed (for this I better recollect) 705
Among wild appetites and blind desires,
Motions of savage instinct, my delight
And exaltation. Nothing at that time
So welcome, no temptation half so dear
As that which urged me to a daring feat. 710
Deep pools, tall trees, black chasms, and dizzy crags,
And tottering towers; I loved to stand and read
Their looks forbidding, read and disobey,
Sometimes in act, and evermore in thought.
With impulses that scarcely were by these 715
Surpassed in strength, I heard of danger, met
Or sought with courage; enterprize forlorn
By one, sole keeper of his own intent,
Or by a resolute few who for the sake
Of glory, fronted multitudes in arms. 720
Yea to this hour I cannot read a tale
Of two brave vessels matched in deadly fight,
And fighting to the death, but I am pleased
More than a wise man ought to be. I wish,
Fret, burn, and struggle, and in soul am there; 725
But me hath Nature tamed, and bade to seek
For other agitations, or be calm;
Hath dealt with me as with a turbulent stream,
Some nursling of the mountains, which she leads
Through quiet meadows, after he has learnt 730
His strength, and had his triumph and his joy,
His desperate course of tumult and of glee.
That which in stealth by Nature was performed
Hath Reason sanctioned. Her deliberate voice
Hath said, “Be mild and cleave to gentle things, 735
Thy glory and thy happiness be there.
Nor fear, though thou confide in me, a want
Of aspirations that _have_ been, of foes
To wrestle with, and victory to complete,
Bounds to be leapt, darkness to be explored, 740
All that inflamed thy infant heart, the love,
The longing, the contempt, the undaunted quest,
All shall survive--though changed their office, all
Shall live,--it is not in their power to die.”
Then farewell to the Warrior’s schemes, farewell 745
The forwardness of soul which looks that way
Upon a less incitement than the cause
Of Liberty endangered, and farewell
That other hope, long mine, the hope to fill
The heroic trumpet with the Muse’s breath! 750
Yet in this peaceful Vale we will not spend
Unheard-of days, though loving peaceful thoughts.
A voice shall speak, and what will be the theme?[18]
[359] The following lines, 71-97, and 110-125, were first published in
the _Memoirs of Wordsworth_, in 1851.--ED.
[360]
… on …
1851.
[361] The lines 152-167 were first published in the _Memoirs of
Wordsworth_ in 1851.--ED.
[362]
Mark how the feathered tenants of the flood
With grace of motion …
MS.
[363]
… amid …
MS.
[364]
They tempt the water, or …
MS.
[365] The foregoing twenty-seven lines were published under the title
_Water-Fowl_, in the 1827 edition of Wordsworth’s “Poetical Works.”
They are also printed in the fifth edition of the _Guide through the
District of the Lakes in the North of England_ (section first).--ED.
[366] Compare _Paradise Lost_, book xii. l. 646.--ED.
[367] Compare, in the _After-Thought_ to “The Duddon Sonnets”--
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide.
ED.
[368] Compare, in _An Evening Walk_, l. 378--
Or yell, in the deep woods, of lonely hound.
ED.
[369] Compare Wordsworth’s numerous references to the Cumbrian and
Westmoreland “Statesmen,” in his Prose Works, and elsewhere.--ED.
[370] Compare _Peter Bell_.--ED.
[371] Compare _The Excursion_, book iv. ll. 1175-1187.--ED.
[372] Wordsworth says elsewhere that
Solitude is blithe Society.
ED.
[373] John Wordsworth.--ED.
[374] The Hutchinsons.--ED.
[375] Coleridge.--ED.
“SHALL HE WHO GIVES HIS DAYS TO LOW PURSUITS”
The following lines occur in the experimental efforts made by
Wordsworth to write an autobiographical poem. They occur in one of his
sister’s Journals, entitled “May to December, 1802”; and were probably
either dictated to her in that year, or were copied by her from some
earlier fragment. They stand related to passages in _The Prelude_. (See
vol. iii. p. 269.)--ED.
Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits
Amid the undistinguishable crowd
Of cities, ’mid the same eternal flow
Of the same objects, melted and reduced
To one identity, by differences 5
That have no law, no meaning, and no end,
Shall he feel yearning to those lifeless forms,
And shall we think that Nature is less kind
To those, who all day long, through a busy life,
Have walked within her sight? It cannot be. 10
1803
“I FIND IT WRITTEN OF SIMONIDES”
Published in _The Morning Post_, October 10, 1803
S.T.C. writing to Tom Poole, October 14, 1803, said that Wordsworth
wrote to _The Morning Post_ “as W. L. D., and sometimes with no
signature.” There is ample evidence that the following sonnet was
written by Wordsworth. He had contributed five sonnets to _The Morning
Post_ before the month of September 1803; and on the 10th of October in
that year the following appeared.--ED.
I find it written of Simonides,
That, travelling in strange countries, once he found
A corpse that lay expos’d upon the ground,
For which, with palms, he caus’d due obsequies
To be perform’d, and paid all holy fees. 5
Soon after this man’s ghost unto him came,
And told him not to sail, as was his aim,
On board a ship then ready for the seas.
Simonides, admonish’d by the ghost,
Remain’d behind: the ship the following day 10
Set sail, was wreck’d, and all on board were lost.
Thus was the tenderest Poet that could be,
Who sang in antient Greece his loving lay,
Sav’d out of many by his piety.
1804
“NO WHIMSEY OF THE PURSE IS HERE”
Writing to Sir George Beaumont, on Christmas Day, 1804, Wordsworth
said: “We have lately built in our little rocky orchard a circular
hut, lined with moss, like a wren’s nest, and coated on the outside
with heath, that stands most charmingly, with several views from the
different sides of it, of the Lake, the Valley, and the Church.… I will
copy a dwarf inscription which I wrote for it” (_i.e._ the circular
hut, in his Orchard-Garden) “the other day before the building was
entirely finished, which indeed it is not yet.”[376]--ED.
No whimsey of the purse is here,
No pleasure-house forlorn;
Use, comfort, do this roof endear;
A tributary shed to cheer
The little cottage that is near,
To help it and adorn.
[376] See the _Memorials of Coleorton_, vol. i. p. 81; and Wordsworth’s
letter on the subject in a later volume of this edition.--ED.
1805
“PEACEFUL OUR VALLEY, FAIR AND GREEN”
This is extracted from a copy of an appendix to _Recollections of a
Tour in Scotland_ by Dorothy Wordsworth, written by Mrs. Clarkson,
September-November 1805. It was composed by the poet’s sister. In
February 1892 it was published in _The Monthly Packet_ under the title
“Grasmere: a Fragment,” and with the signature “Rydal Mount, September
26, 1829.” It is now printed from the MS. of 1805.--ED.
Peaceful our valley, fair and green;
And beautiful the cottages
Each in its nook, its sheltered hold,
Or underneath its tuft of trees.
Many and beautiful they are; 5
But there is one that I love best,
A lowly roof in truth it is,
A brother of the rest.
Yet when I sit on rock or hill
Down-looking on the valley fair, 10
That cottage with its grove of trees
Summons my heart; it settles there.
Others there are whose small domain
Of fertile fields with hedgerows green
Might more seduce the traveller’s mind 15
To wish that there his home had been.
Such wish be his! I blame him not,
My fancies they, perchance, are wild;
I love that house because it is
The very mountain’s child. 20
Fields hath it of its own, green fields;
But they are craggy, steep, and bare;
Their fence is of the mountain stone,
And moss and lichen flourish there.
And when the storm comes from the North 25
It lingers near that pastoral spot,
And piping through the mossy walls,
It seems delighted with its lot.
And let it take its own delight,
And let it range the pastures bare 30
Until it reach that grove of trees
----It may not enter there!
A green unfading grove it is,
Skirted with many a lesser tree,
Hazel and holly, beech and oak, 35
A fair and flourishing company!
Precious the shelter of those trees!
They screen the cottage that I love;
The sunshine pierces to the roof
And the tall pine trees tower above. 40
When first I saw that dear abode
It was a lovely winter’s day:
After a night of perilous storm
The West wind ruled with gentle sway;
A day so mild, it might have been 45
The first day of the gladsome spring;
The robins warbled; and I heard
One solitary throstle sing:
A stranger in the neighbourhood,
All faces then to me unknown, 50
I left my sole companion-friend
To wander out alone.
Lur’d by a little winding path,
I quitted soon the public road,
A smooth and tempting path it was 55
By sheep and shepherds trod.
Eastward, toward the mighty hills
This pathway led me on,
Until I reach’d a lofty Rock
With velvet moss o’ergrown. 60
With russet Oak and tufts of Fern
Its top was richly garlanded;
Its sides adorn’d with Eglantine
Bedropp’d with hips of glossy red.
There too in many a shelter’d chink 65
The foxglove’s broad leaves flourish’d fair,
And silver birch whose purple twigs
Bend to the softest breathing air.
Beneath that rock my course I stay’d
And, looking to its summit high, 70
“Thou wear’st,” said I, “a splendid garb,
Here winter keeps his revelry.
“I’ve been a dweller on the plains,
Have sigh’d when summer days were gone;
No more I’ll sigh; for winter here 75
Hath gladsome gardens of his own.
“What need of flowers? The splendid moss
Is gayer than an April mead;
More rich its hues of various green,
Orange and gold and glowing red.” 80
----Beside that gay and lovely rock
There came with merry voice
A foaming streamlet glancing by,
It seem’d to say “Rejoice!”
My youthful wishes all fulfill’d, 85
Wishes matured by thoughtful choice,
I stood an Inmate of this vale,
How could I but rejoice?
“AH! IF I WERE A LADY GAY”
The following two stanzas were added by Wordsworth to his sister’s
poem, entitled _The Cottager to her Infant_--composed in 1805, and
issued in 1815 (see vol. iii. pp. 74, 75); but they were never
published in Wordsworth’s lifetime.--ED.
Ah! if I were a lady gay
I should not grieve with thee to play;
Right gladly would I lie awake
Thy lively spirits to partake,
And ask no better cheer. 5
But, Babe! there’s none to work for me,
And I must rise to industry;
Soon as the cock begins to crow
Thy mother to the fold must go
To tend the sheep and kine. 10
1806
TO THE EVENING STAR OVER GRASMERE WATER, JULY 1806
The Lake is thine,
The mountains too are thine, some clouds there are,
Some little feeble stars, but all is thine,
Thou, thou art king, and sole proprietor.
A moon among her stars, a mighty vale, 5
Fresh as the freshest field, scoop’d out, and green
As is the greenest billow of the sea.
The multitude of little rocky hills,
Rocky or green, that do like islands rise
From the flat meadow lonely there. 10
…
Embowering mountains, and the dome of Heaven
And waters in the midst, a Second Heaven.
MICHAEL ANGELO IN REPLY TO THE PASSAGE UPON HIS STATUE OF NIGHT SLEEPING
In the first volume of a copy of the edition of 1836,--long kept by
Wordsworth at Rydal Mount, and afterwards the property of the late Lord
Coleridge--which has been referred to in the Preface to Vol. 1., and
very often in the footnotes to all the volumes, signed C.--Wordsworth
wrote in MS. two translations of a fragment of Michael Angelo’s on
Sleep, and a translation of some Latin verses by Thomas Warton on the
same subject. These fragments were never included in any edition of his
published works, and it is impossible to say to what year they belong.
From their close relation to other translations from Michael Angelo,
made by Wordsworth in 1806, I assign them, conjecturally, to the same
year. The title is from Wordsworth’s own MS.--ED.
I
Grateful is Sleep, my life, in stone bound fast,
More grateful still: while wrong and shame shall last,
On me can Time no happier state bestow
Than to be left unconscious of the woe.
Ah then, lest you awaken me, speak low. 5
II
Grateful is Sleep, more grateful still to be
Of marble; for while shameless wrong and woe
Prevail, ’tis best to neither hear nor see.
Then wake me not, I pray you. Hush, speak low.
“COME, GENTLE SLEEP, DEATH’S IMAGE THO’ THOU ART”
Come, gentle Sleep, Death’s image tho’ thou art,
Come share my couch, nor speedily depart;
How sweet thus living without life to lie,
Thus without death how sweet it is to die.
The Latin verse by Thomas Warton, of which these lines are a
translation, is as follows:--
Somne veni! quamvis placidissima Mortis imago es,
Consortem cupio te tamen esse tori;
Hue ades, haud abiture citò! nam sic sine vita
Vivere quam suave est, sic sine morte mori!
Thomas Warton, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford, and Professor of
Poetry in that University, is chiefly known by his _History of English
Poetry_ (1774-1781).--ED.
“BROOK, THAT HAST BEEN MY SOLACE DAYS AND WEEKS”
The following version of the sonnet beginning “Brook! whose society the
Poet seeks,” probably written in 1806 and first published in 1815 (see
vol. iv. p. 52), has come to light since that volume was issued. The
variants throughout are sufficient to warrant its publication here. Had
I received it earlier they would have appeared in vol. iv.--ED.
Brook, that hast been my solace days and weeks,
And months, and let me add the long year through,
I come to thee, thou dost my heart renew;
O happy Thing! among thy flowery creeks,
And happy, dancing down thy water-breaks: 5
If I some type of thee did wish to view,
Thee, and not thee thyself, I would not do
Like Grecian Poets, give thee human cheeks,
Channels for tears! No Naiad should’st thou be;
Have neither wings, feet, feathers, joints, nor hairs. 10
It seems the Eternal Soul is clothed in thee
With purer robes than those of flesh and blood,
And hath bestowed on thee a better good;
The joy of fleshly life without its cares.
TRANSLATION FROM MICHAEL ANGELO
The date of this is unknown, and the original MS. is difficult to
decipher. It is here and there illegible. It may belong to the year
of the “Ecclesiastical Sonnets,” but I place it beside the other
translation from Michael Angelo.--ED.
Rid of a vexing and a heavy load,
Eternal Lord! and from the world set free,
Like a frail Bark, weary I turn to Thee,--
From frightful storms into a quiet road.
On much repentance Grace will be bestow’d. 5
The nails, the thorns, and thy two hands, thy face
Benign, meek, …, offers grace
To sinners whom their sins oppress and goad.
Let not thy justice view, O Light Divine,
My fault, and keep it from thy sacred ear. 10
…
Cleanse with thy blood my sins, to this incline
More readily, the more my years require
Prompt aid, forgiveness speedy and entire.
1808
GEORGE AND SARAH GREEN
Composed 1808.--Published 1839
This poem was first printed in De Quincey’s “Recollections of
Grasmere,” which appeared in _Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine_, September
1839, p. 573, and afterwards in his _Recollections of the Lakes_
(1853), p. 23.
The text is printed as it is found in De Quincey’s article. Doubtless
Wordsworth, or some member of the family, had supplied him with a
copy of these verses. Wordsworth himself seemed to have thought them
unworthy of publication. A copy of the poem was transcribed at Grasmere
by Dorothy Wordsworth for Lady Beaumont on the 20th April 1808. In
this copy there are numerous variations from the text as published by
De Quincey, and these are indicated in the footnotes. In the letter to
Lady Beaumont, Dorothy Wordsworth says, “I am going to transcribe a
poem composed by my brother a few days after his return. It was begun
in the churchyard when he was looking at the grave of the Husband and
Wife, and is in fact supposed to be entirely composed there.”
Wordsworth returned to his old home at Dove Cottage, Grasmere, after a
short visit to London, on the 6th April 1808; and there he remained,
till Allan Bank was ready for occupation. I therefore conclude that
this poem was written in April 1808.
Compare De Quincey’s account of the disaster that befell the Greens, as
reported in his _Early Recollections of Grasmere_. The Wordsworths had
evidently taken part in the effort to raise subscriptions in behalf of
the orphan children. They issued a printed appeal on the subject. The
following is an extract from a letter of Dorothy Wordsworth’s to Lady
Beaumont on the subject:--
“GRASMERE, _April 20th, 1808_.
“We received your letter this morning, enclosing the half of a
£5 note. I am happy to inform you that the orphans have been
fixed under the care of very respectable people. The baby is
with its sister--she who filled the Mother’s place in the house
during their two days of fearless solitude. It has clung to her
ever since, and she has been its sole nurse. I went with two
ladies of the Committee (in my sister’s place, who was then
confined to poor John’s bedside) to conduct the family to their
separate homes. The two Girls are together, as I have said; two
Boys at another Home; and the third Boy by himself at the house
of an elderly man who had a particular friendship for their
father. The kind reception that the children met with was very
affecting.”
See the letters from Wordsworth to Richard Sharpe, Esq., Mark Lane,
London, in a subsequent volume, referring to the catastrophe.--ED.
Who weeps for strangers? Many wept
For George and Sarah Green;
Wept for that pair’s unhappy fate,
Whose grave may here be seen.[377]
By night, upon these stormy fells,[378] 5
Did wife and husband roam;
Six little ones at home had left,
And could not find that home.[379]
For _any_ dwelling-place of man
As vainly did they seek. 10
He perish’d; and a voice was heard--
The widow’s lonely shriek.[380]
Not many steps, and she was left[381]
A body without life--
A few short steps were the chain that bound[382] 15
The husband to the wife.[383]
Now do those[384] sternly-featured hills
Look gently on this grave;
And quiet now are the depths[385] of air,
As a sea without a wave. 20
But deeper lies the heart of peace
In quiet more profound;[386]
The heart of quietness is here
Within this churchyard bound.[387]
And from all agony of mind 25
It keeps them safe, and far
From fear and grief, and from all need
Of sun or guiding star.[388]
O darkness of the grave! how deep,[389]
After that living night-- 30
That last and dreary living one
Of sorrow and affright!
O sacred marriage-bed of death,
That keeps[390] them side by side
In bond of peace, in bond of love,[391] 35
That may not be untied!
[377] 1839.
Wept for that Pair’s unhappy end,
Whose Grave may here be seen.
MS. letter of Dorothy Wordsworth’s.
[378] 1839.
… these stormy Heights,
MS.
[379] 1839.
Six little ones the Pair had left,
And could not find their home.
MS.
[380] 1839.
Down the dark precipice he fell,
And she was left alone,
Not long to think of her children dear,
Not long to pray, or groan.
Added in MS.
[381] 1839.
A few wild steps--she too was left,
MS.
[382] 1839.
The chain of but a few wild steps.
MS. in Dorothy Wordsworth’s handwriting--sent to Lady Beaumont.
[383] 1839.
Four stanzas are here added in MS., only one of which need be given--
Our peace is of the immortal soul,
Our anguish is of clay;
Such bounty is in Heaven: so pass
The bitterest pangs away.
[384] 1839.
Now do the …
MS.
[385] 1839.
… is the depth …
MS.
[386] 1839.
In shelter more profound.
MS.
[387] 1839.
… ground.
MS.
[388] 1839.
From fear, and from all need of hope
From sun or guiding star.
MS.
[389] 1839.
… how calm,
MS.
[390] 1839.
That holds …
MS.
[391] 1839.
In bond of love, in bond of God,
MS.
1818
“THE SCOTTISH BROOM ON BIRD-NEST BRAE”[392]
The Scottish Broom on Bird-nest brae[393]
Twelve tedious years ago,
When many plants strange blossoms bore
That puzzled high and low,
A not unnatural longing felt, 5
What longing would ye know?
Why, friend, to deck her supple twigs
With _yellow_ in full blow.
To Lowther Castle she addressed
A prayer both bold and sly, 10
(For all the Brooms on Bird-nest brae
Can talk and speechify)
That flattering breezes blowing thence
Their succour would supply,
Then she would instantly put forth 15
A flag of _yellow_ dye.
But from the Castle turret blew
A chill forbidding blast,
Which the poor Broom no sooner felt
Than she shrank up so fast; 20
Her _wished-for_ yellow she forswore,
And since that time has cast
Fond looks on colours three or four
And put forth _Blue_ at last.
And now, my lads, the Election comes 25
In June’s sunshining hours,
When every field and bank and brae
Is clad with yellow flowers.
While faction Blue from shops and booths
Tricks out her blustering powers, 30
Lo! smiling Nature’s lavish hand
Has furnished wreaths for ours.
[392] “Written, in my opinion, at the General Election of 1818.”--(The
Rev. Thomas Hutchinson of Kimbolton.)
[393] “Bird-nest” was the old name of Brougham Hall.--ED.
PLACARD FOR A POLL BEARING AN OLD SHIRT
Wordsworth was deeply interested in the successive parliamentary
elections for Westmoreland (see his “Addresses to the Freeholders of
Westmorland, 1818,” in the Prose Works.) He particularly disliked
Lord Brougham’s candidature. The following squib is in MS. at Lowther
Castle. He wrote on the MS.--“For a version of part of B.’s famous
London Tower Speech see opposite page.”--ED.
If money’s slack,
The shirt on my back
Shall off, and go to the hammer:
Though I sell shirt and skin
By Jove I’ll be in,
And raise up a radical clamor!
“CRITICS, RIGHT HONOURABLE BARD, DECREE”
I have found this in a catalogue of Autograph Letters, and have no
knowledge of its date, or of the Bard referred to. Solomon Gesner wrote
a poem on _The Death of Abel_, which was translated into English. See
footnote to _The Prelude_, book vii. l. 564.--ED.
“Critics, right honourable Bard, decree
Laurels to some, a night-shade wreath to thee,
Whose muse a sure though late revenge hath ta’en
Of harmless Abel’s death, by murdering Cain.”
On Cain, a Mystery, dedicated to Sir Walter Scott:--
“A German Haggis from receipt
Of him who cooked the death of Abel,
And sent ‘warm-reeking, rich and sweet,’
From Venice to Sir Walter’s table.”
1819
“THROUGH CUMBRIAN WILDS, IN MANY A MOUNTAIN COVE”
In 1819 Wordsworth wrote the sonnet beginning, “Grief, thou hast lost
an ever ready friend.” In the note to that sonnet (vol. vi. p. 196)
I have given a different version of its last six lines, from a MS.
sonnet. But as these six lines also form the conclusion of another
unpublished sonnet, it may be given in full by itself, in this
Appendix.--ED.
Through Cumbrian wilds, in many a mountain cove,
The pastoral Muse laments the Wheel--no more
Engaged, near blazing hearth on clean-swept floor,
In tasks which guardian Angels might approve,
Friendly the weight of leisure to remove, 5
And to beguile the lassitude of ease;
Gracious to all the dear dependencies
Of house and field,--to plenty, peace, and love.
There too did _Fancy_ prize the murmuring wheel;
For sympathies, inexplicably fine, 10
Instilled a confidence--how sweet to feel!
That ever in the night-calm, when the Sheep
Upon their grassy beds lay couch’d in sleep,
The quickening spindle drew a trustier line.
“MY SON! BEHOLD THE TIDE ALREADY SPENT”
The following sonnet occurs after the above in the same MS. whence both
are extracted.--ED.
My Son! behold the tide already spent
That rose, and steadily advanced to fill
The shores and channels, working Nature’s will
Among the mazy streams that backward went,
And in the sluggish Ports where ships were pent. 5
And now, its task performed, the flood stands still
At the green base of many an inland hill,
In placid beauty and entire content.
Such the repose that Sage and Hero find,
Such measured rest the diligent and good 10
Of humbler name, whose souls do like the flood
Of ocean press right on, or gently wind,
Neither to be diverted nor withstood
Until they reach the bounds by Heaven assigned.
1820
AUTHOR’S VOYAGE DOWN THE RHINE
(THIRTY YEARS AGO)
The confidence of Youth our only Art,
And Hope gay Pilot of the bold design,
We saw the living Landscapes of the Rhine,
Reach after reach, salute us and depart;
Slow sink the Spires,--and up again they start! 5
But who shall count the Towers as they recline
O’er the dark steeps, or in the horizon line
Striding, with shattered crests, the eye athwart?
More touching still, more perfect was the pleasure,
When hurrying forward till the slack’ning stream 10
Spread like a spacious Mere, we there could measure
A smooth free course along the watery gleam,
Think calmly on the past, and mark at leisure
Features which else had vanished like a dream.
This sonnet was published in the first edition of the Memorials of
this Tour (1822), but was struck out of the next edition, and never
republished. Its rejection by Wordsworth is curious.
It refers to the pedestrian tour which the Poet took, with his
friend Jones, in 1790, which he afterwards recorded in full in his
_Descriptive Sketches_.
Dorothy Wordsworth, in her Journal of the Tour in 1820, refers to it
thus:--“Our journey through the narrower and most romantic passages
of the Vale of the Rhine was connected with times long past, when my
brother and his Friend (it was thirty years ago) floated down the
stream in their little Bark. Often did my fancy place them with a
freight of happiness in the centre of some bending reach, overlooked
by tower or castle, or (when expectation would be most eager) at the
turning of a promontory, which had concealed from their view some
delicious winding which we had left behind; but no more of my own
feelings, a record of his will be more interesting.”
She then quotes the sonnet, beginning
The confidence of Youth our only Art.
There are also numerous allusions in Mrs. Wordsworth’s Journal to
this early tour; _e.g._ under date August 13. “We left Meyringen;
soon reached a sort of Hotel, which Wm. pointed out to us with great
interest, as being the only spot where he and his friend Jones were ill
used, during the course of their adventurous journey--a wild looking
building, a little removed from the road, where the vale of Hasli
ends.” Again, in describing the sunset from the woody hill Colline de
Gibet, overlooking the two lakes of Brienz and Thun, at Interlaken,
“with the loveliest of green vallies between us and Jungfrau,” “Surely
William must have had this Paradise in his thoughts when he began his
_Descriptive Sketches_--
Were there, below, a spot of holy ground,
By Pain and her sad family unfound, etc.
But no habitation was there among these rocky knolls, and tiny
pastures. One fragment, something like a ruined convent, lurked under
a steep, woody-fringed crag. What a Refuge for a pious Sisterhood!”
Compare also the note to _Stanzas composed in the Simplon Pass_, vol.
vi. p. 359.--ED.
1822
“THESE VALES WERE SADDENED WITH NO COMMON GLOOM”
In the _Memoirs of William Wordsworth_ by his nephew (the late Bishop
of Lincoln) vol. i. chap. xxx. the following occurs as an addendum
transferred to the footnotes:--
“The first six lines of an epitaph in Grasmere Church were also his
composition. The elegant marble tablet on which they were engraved was
designed by Sir Francis Chantry, and prepared by Allan Cunningham,
1822. It is over the chancel door.”
The following is the Inscription:--
In the Burial Ground
of this Church are deposited the remains of
JEMIMA ANNE DEBORAH,
second daughter of
Sir Egerton Brydges, of Denton Court, Kent, Bart.
She departed this life at the Ivy Cottage, Rydal,
May 25th 1822, aged 28 years.
This memorial is erected by her husband
EDWARD QUILLINAN.
The entire sonnet, of which Wordsworth wrote the “first six lines,” is
as follows:--
These vales were saddened with no common gloom
When good Jemima perished in her bloom;
When, such the awful will of heaven, she died
By flames breathed on her from her own fireside.
On earth we dimly see, and but in part 5
We know, yet faith sustains the sorrowing heart;
And she, the pure, the patient and the meek,
Might have fit epitaph could feelings speak;
If words could tell and monuments record,
How Treasures lost are inwardly deplored, 10
No name by grief’s fond eloquence adorned
More than Jemima’s would be praised and mourned.
The tender virtues of her blameless life,
Bright in the daughter, brighter in the wife,
And in the cheerful mother brightest shone,-- 15
That light hath past away--the will of God[394] be done.
[394]
… of Heaven …
MS.
TRANSLATION OF PART OF THE FIRST BOOK OF THE ÆNEID
Composed 1823 (?).--Published 1836
This translation was included in the _Philological Museum_, edited
by Julius Charles Hare, and published at Cambridge in 1832 (vol. i.
p. 382, etc.). Three Books were translated by Wordsworth, but the
greater portion is still in MS., unpublished. What is now reproduced
appeared in the _Museum_. As it was never included by Wordsworth
himself in any edition of his Works, his own estimate of its literary
value was slight. It was published by Professor Henry Reed in his
American reprint of 1851. Writing to Lord Lonsdale on 9th Nov. 1823,
Wordsworth says, “I have just finished a Translation into English rhyme
of the First _Æneid_. Would you allow me to send it to you? I would
be much gratified if you would take the trouble of comparing some
passages with the original. I have endeavoured to be much more literal
than Dryden, or Pitt--who keeps more close to the original than his
predecessor.”--ED.
TO THE EDITORS OF THE “PHILOLOGICAL MUSEUM”
Your letter, reminding me of an expectation I some time since
held out to you of allowing some specimens of my translation
from the _Æneid_ to be printed in the _Philological Museum_
was not very acceptable; for I had abandoned the thought of
ever sending into the world any part of that experiment,--for
it was nothing more,--an experiment begun for amusement, and I
now think a less fortunate one than when I first named it to
you. Having been displeased in modern translations with the
additions of incongruous matter, I began to translate with a
resolve to keep clear of that fault, by adding nothing; but
I became convinced that a spirited translation can scarcely
be accomplished in the English language without admitting a
principle of compensation. On this point, however, I do not
wish to insist, and merely send the following passage, taken at
random, from a wish to comply with your request.--W.W.
But Cytherea, studious to invent
Arts yet untried, upon new counsels bent,
Resolves that Cupid, chang’d in form and face
To young Ascanius, should assume his place;
Present the maddening gifts, and kindle heat 5
Of passion at the bosom’s inmost seat.
She dreads the treacherous house, the double tongue;
She burns, she frets--by Juno’s rancour stung;
The calm of night is powerless to remove
These cares, and thus she speaks to wingèd Love: 10
“O son, my strength, my power! who dost despise
(What, save thyself, none dares through earth and skies)
The giant-quelling bolts of Jove, I flee,
O son, a suppliant to thy deity!
What perils meet Æneas in his course, 15
How Juno’s hate with unrelenting force
Pursues thy brother--this to thee is known;
And oft-times hast thou made my griefs thine own.
Him now the generous Dido by soft chains
Of bland entreaty at her court detains; 20
Junonian hospitalities prepare
Such apt occasion that I dread a snare.
Hence, ere some hostile God can intervene,
Would I, by previous wiles, inflame the queen
With passion for Æneas, such strong love 25
That at my beck, mine only, she shall move.
Hear, and assist;--the father’s mandate calls
His young Ascanius to the Tyrian walls;
He comes, my dear delight,--and costliest things
Preserv’d from fire and flood for presents brings. 30
Him will I take, and in close covert keep,
’Mid groves Idalian, lull’d to gentle sleep,
Or on Cythera’s far-sequestered steep,
That he may neither know what hope is mine,
Nor by his presence traverse the design. 35
Do thou, but for a single night’s brief space,
Dissemble; be that boy in form and face!
And when enraptured Dido shall receive
Thee to her arms, and kisses interweave
With many a fond embrace, while joy runs high, 40
And goblets crown the proud festivity,
Instil thy subtle poison, and inspire,
At every touch, an unsuspected fire.”
Love, at the word, before his mother’s sight
Puts off his wings, and walks, with proud delight, 45
Like young Iulus; but the gentlest dews
Of slumber Venus sheds, to circumfuse
The true Ascanius steep’d in placid rest;
Then wafts him, cherish’d on her careful breast,
Through upper air to an Idalian glade, 50
Where he on soft _amaracas_ is laid,
With breathing flowers embraced, and fragrant shade.
But Cupid, following cheerily his guide
Achates, with the gifts to Carthage hied;
And, as the hall he entered, there, between 55
The sharers of her golden couch, was seen
Reclin’d in festal pomp the Tyrian queen.
The Trojans, too (Æneas at their head),
On couches lie, with purple overspread:
Meantime in canisters is heap’d the bread, 60
Pellucid water for the hands is borne,
And napkins of smooth texture, finely shorn.
Within are fifty handmaids, who prepare,
As they in order stand, the dainty fare;
And fume the household deities with store 65
Of odorous incense; while a hundred more
Match’d with an equal number of like age,
But each of manly sex, a docile page,
Marshal the banquet, giving with due grace
To cup or viand its appointed place. 70
The Tyrians rushing in, an eager band,
Their painted couches seek, obedient to command.
They look with wonder on the gifts--they gaze
Upon Iulus, dazzled with the rays
That from his ardent countenance are flung, 75
And charm’d to hear his simulating tongue;
Nor pass unprais’d the robe and veil divine,
Round which the yellow flowers and wandering foliage twine.
But chiefly Dido, to the coming ill
Devoted, strives in vain her vast desires to fill; 80
She views the gifts; upon the child then turns
Insatiable looks, and gazing burns.
To ease a father’s cheated love he hung
Upon Æneas, and around him clung;
Then seeks the queen; with her his arts he tries; 85
She fastens on the boy enamour’d eyes,
Clasps in her arms, nor weens (O lot unblest!)
How great a God, incumbent o’er her breast,
Would fill it with his spirit. He, to please
His Acidalian mother, by degrees 90
Blots out Sichaeus, studious to remove
The dead, by influx of a living love,
By stealthy entrance of a perilous guest.
Troubling a heart that had been long at rest.
Now when the viands were withdrawn, and ceas’d 95
The first division of the splendid feast,
While round a vacant board the chiefs recline,
Huge goblets are brought forth; they crown the wine;
Voices of gladness roll the walls around;
Those gladsome voices from the courts rebound; 100
From gilded rafters many a blazing light
Depends, and torches overcome the night.
The minutes fly--till, at the queen’s command,
A bowl of state is offered to her hand:
Then she, as Belus wont, and all the line 105
From Belus, filled it to the brim with wine;
Silence ensued. “O Jupiter, whose care
Is hospitable dealing, grant my prayer!
Productive day be this of lasting joy
To Tyrians, and these exiles driven from Troy; 110
A day to future generations dear!
Let Bacchus, donor of soul-quick’ning cheer,
Be present; kindly Juno, be thou near!
And, Tyrians, may your choicest favours wait
Upon this hour, the bond to celebrate!” 115
She spake and shed an offering on the board;
Then sipp’d the bowl whence she the wine had pour’d
And gave to Bitias, urging the prompt lord;
He rais’d the bowl, and took a long deep draught;
Then every chief in turn the beverage quaff’d. 120
Graced with redundant hair, Iopas sings
The lore of Atlas, to resounding strings,
The labours of the Sun, the lunar wanderings;
Whence human kind, and brute; what natural powers
Engender lightning, whence are falling showers. 125
He haunts Arcturus,--that fraternal twain
The glittering Bears,--the Pleiads fraught with rain;
--Why suns in winter, shunning heaven’s steep heights
Post seaward,--what impedes the tardy nights.
The learned song from Tyrian hearers draws 130
Loud shouts,--the Trojans echo the applause.
--But, lengthening out the night with converse new,
Large draughts of love unhappy Dido drew;
Of Priam ask’d, of Hector--o’er and o’er--
What arms the son of bright Aurora wore;-- 135
What steeds the car of Diomed could boast;
Among the leaders of the Grecian host
How look’d Achilles, their dread paramount--
“But nay--the fatal wiles, O guest, recount,
Retrace the Grecian cunning from its source, 140
Your own grief and your friends’--your wandering course;
For now, till this seventh summer have ye rang’d
The sea, or trod the earth, to peace estrang’d.”
1823
“ARMS AND THE MAN I SING, THE FIRST WHO BORE”
The following version of the first few lines of the _Æneid_ were copied
by Professor Reed of Philadelphia, with Mrs. Wordsworth’s permission,
during a visit to Rydal Mount in 1854, four years after the poet’s
death. Mrs. Reed kindly sent them to me.--ED.
Arms and the Man I sing, the first who bore
His course to Latium from the Trojan shore,
A fugitive of fate. Long time was he
By powers celestial tossed on land and sea
Thro’ wrathful Juno’s far-famed enmity;
Much too from war endured till new abodes
He planted, and in Latium fixed his Gods,
Whence flows the Latin people, whence have come
The Alban Sites and walls of lofty Rome.
1826
LINES ADDRESSED TO JOANNA H. FROM GWERNDWFFNANT IN JUNE 1826
BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH[395]
A twofold harmony is here;
I listen with the bodily ear,
But dull and cheerless is the sound
Contrasted with the heart’s rebound.
Now at the close of fervid June, 5
Upon this breathless hazy noon,
I seek the deepest darkest shade
Within the covert of that glade,
Which you and I first named our own
When primroses were fully blown, 10
Oaks just were budding, and the grove
Rang with the gladdest songs of love.
Then did the Leader of the Band,
A gallant thrush, maintain his stand
Unshrouded from the eye of day 15
Upon yon Beech’s topmost spray.
Within the selfsame lofty tree
A thrush sings now--perchance ’tis he--
The lusty joyous gallant bird,
Which on that April morn we heard. 20
But oh! how different that voice
Which bade the very hills rejoice.
Through languid air, through leafy boughs
It falls, and can no echo rouse.
But on the workings of my heart 25
Doth memory act a busy part;
That jocund April morn lives there,
Its cheering sounds, its hues so fair.
Why mixes with remembrance blithe
What nothing but the restless scythe 30
Of Death can utterly destroy,
A heaviness, a dull alloy?
Ah Friend! thy heart can answer why.
Even then I heaved a bitter sigh,
No word of sorrow did’st thou speak, 35
But tears stole down thy tremulous cheek.
The wished for hour at length was come,
And thou had’st housed me in thy home,
On fair Gwerndwffnant’s billowy hill,
Had’st led me to its crystal rill, 40
And led me through the dingle deep
Up to the highest grassy steep,
The sheep walk where the snow-white lambs
Sported beside their quiet dams.
But thou wert destined to remove 45
From all these objects of thy love,
In this thy later day to roam
Far off, and seek another home.
_Now_ thou art gone--belike ’tis best--
And I remain a passing guest, 50
Yet for thy sake, beloved Friend,
When from this spot my way shall tend,
And if my timid soul might dare
To shape the future in its prayer,
Then fervently would I entreat 55
Our gracious God to guide thy feet
Back to the peaceful sunny cot,
Where thou so oft hast blessed thy lot.
[395] I owe my knowledge of this and the following poem to the nephew
of Mrs. Wordsworth, the Reverend Thomas Hutchinson of Kimbolton,
Herefordshire, who wrote: “The two following poems were found among his
papers on the demise of Mr. Monkhouse--a first cousin of Wordsworth;
the first in the hand-writing of Wordsworth’s wife, and the second of
her daughter.”--ED.
HOLIDAY AT GWERNDWFFNANT, MAY 1826
IRREGULAR STANZAS
BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH
You’re here for one long vernal day;
We’ll give it all to social play,
Though forty years have rolled away
Since we were young as you.
Then welcome to our spacious Hall! 5
Tom, Bessy, Mary, welcome all!
Though removed from busy men,
Yea lonesome as the foxes’ den,
’Tis a place for joyance fit,
For frolic games and inborn wit. 10
’Twas nature built this hall of ours;
She shap’d the bank; she framed the bowers
That close it all around;
From her we hold our precious right,
And here, thro’ live-long day and night, 15
She rules with modest sway.
Our carpet is our verdant sod;
A richer one was never trod
In prince’s proud saloon.
Purple, and gold, and spotless white, 20
And quivering shade, and sunny light,
Blend with the emerald green.
She opened for the mountain brook
A gentle winding pebbly way
Into this placid secret nook. 25
Its bell-like tinkling--list, you hear--
’Tis never loud, yet always clear
As linnet’s song in May.
And we have other music here:
A thousand songsters through the year 30
Dwell in these happy groves,
And in this season of their loves
They join their voices with the doves
To raise a perfect harmony.
Thus spake I while with sober pace 35
We slipped into that chosen place
And from the centre of our Hall
The young ones played around,
Then, like a flock of vigorous lambs,
That quit their grave and slow-paced dams 40
To frolic o’er the mead,
That innocent fraternal troop
Erewhile a steady listening group
Off starting--Girl and Boy
In gamesome race with agile bound 45
Beat o’er and o’er the grassy ground
As if in motion--perfect joy.
So vanishes my idle scheme
That we through this long vernal day,
Associates in their youthful play, 50
With them might travel in one stream.
Ah! how should we whose heads are grey?
Light was my heart, my spirits gay,
And fondly did I dream.
But now, recalled to consciousness, 55
With weight of years, of changed estate,
Thought is not needed to repress
Those shapeless fancies of delight
That flash before my dazzled sight
Upon this joy-devoted morn. 60
Gladly we seek the stillest nook
Whence we may read, as in a book,
A history of years gone by,
Recalled to faded memory’s eye
By bright reflection from the mirth 65
Of youthful hearts--a transient second-birth
Of our own childish days.
Pleasure unbidden is their guide
Their leader--faithful to their side
Prompting each wayward feat of strength: 70
The ambitious leap, the emulous race,
The startling shout, the mimic chase,
The simple half-disguisèd wile
Detected through the flattering smile.
A truce to this unbridled course 75
Doth intervene--no need of force.
We spread upon the flowery grass
The noontide meal--each lad and lass
Obeys the call--we form a Round,
And all are seated on the ground. 80
The sun’s meridian hour is passed,
Again begins the emulous race,
Again succeeds the sportive chase.
And thus was spent that vernal day,
Till twilight checked the noisy play; 85
Then did they feel a languor spread
Over their limbs, the beating tread
Was stilled--the busy throbbing heart--
And silently we all depart.
The shelter of our rustic cot 90
Receives us, and we envy not
The palace, or the stately dome;
But wish that _all_ had such a home.
Each child repeats his nightly prayer
That God may bless their parents’ care 95
To guide them in the way of truth
Through helpless childhood, giddy youth.
The closing hymn of cheerful praise
Doth yet again their spirits raise;
But ’tis not now a thoughtless joy. 100
For tender parents, loving friends,
And all the gifts God’s blessing sends,
Feelingly do they bless his name.
That homage paid, the young retire
With no unsatisfied desire; 105
Theirs is one long, one steady sleep,
Till the sun, tip-toe on the steep
In front of our beloved cot,
Casts on the walls her brightest beams.
Within, a startling lustre streams. 110
They all awaken suddenly;
As at the touch of magic skill,
Or, as the pilgrim, at the bell
That summons him to matin-prayer.
And is it sorrow that they feel? 115
Nay! call it not by such a name,
The stroke of sadness that doth steal
With rapid motion through their hearts,
When comes the thought that yesterday
With all its joys is passed away, 120
The long expected happy day.
An instant--and all sadness goes;
Nor brighter looks the half-blown rose
Than does the countenance of each child
Whether of ardent soul or mild. 125
The hour was fixed--they are prepared--
And homeward now they must depart,
And after many a brisk adieu,
On pony trim, and fleet of limb,
Their bustling journey they pursue. 130
The fair-hair’d gentle quiet maid,
And she who is of daring mood,
The valiant and the timid Boy
Alike are ranged to hardihood;
And wheresoe’er the troop appear 135
They scatter smiles, a hearty cheer
Comes from both old and young,
And blessings fall from many a tongue.
They reach the dear paternal roof,
Nor dread a cold or stern reproof, 140
While they pour forth the history
Of three days’ mirth and revelry.
Ah! Children, happy is your lot,
Still bound together in one knot
Beneath your tender mother’s eye! 145
Too soon these blessed days shall fly,
And brothers shall from sisters part;
And, trust me, whatsoe’er your doom,
Whate’er betide through years to come,
The punctual pleasures of your home 150
Shall linger in your thoughts,
More clear than any future hope
Though fancy take her freest scope.
For oh! too soon your hearts shall own
The past is all that is your own. 155
And every day of _festival_
Gratefully shall ye then recal,
Less for their own sakes than for this,
That each shall be a resting-place
For memory, and divide the race 160
Of childhood’s smooth and happy years,
Thus lengthening out that term of life
Which governed by your parents’ care
Is free from sorrow and from strife.
COMPOSED WHEN A PROBABILITY EXISTED OF OUR BEING OBLIGED TO QUIT RYDAL
MOUNT AS A RESIDENCE
The following lines were written by Wordsworth in 1826. He never
published them. They were the result of a slight disagreement between
the Wordsworth family and the Le Flemings, which led the former to fear
that they might have to “quit Rydal Mount as a residence.” It was an
insignificant difference, and the Wordsworths did not leave their home.
The only thing worthy of record, in connection with the matter, is that
the fear of being dispossessed led the poet to write what follows.--ED.
The doubt to which a wavering hope had clung
Is fled; we must depart, willing or not;
Sky-piercing Hills! must bid farewell to you
And all that ye look down upon with pride,
With tenderness, embosom; to your paths, 5
And pleasant dwellings, to familiar trees
And wild-flowers known as well as if our hands
Had tended them: and O pellucid Spring!
Unheard of, save in one small hamlet, here
Not undistinguished, for of wells that ooze 10
Or founts that gurgle from yon craggy steep,
Their common sire, thou only bear’st his name.
Insensibly the foretaste of this parting
Hath ruled my steps, and seals me to thy side,
Mindful that thou (ah! wherefore by my Muse 15
So long unthanked) hast cheered a simple board
With beverage pure as ever fixed the choice
Of hermit, dubious where to scoop his cell;
Which Persian kings might envy; and thy meek
And gentle aspect oft has ministered 20
To finer uses. They for me must cease;
Days will pass on, the year, if years be given,
Fade,--and the moralising mind derive
No lessons from the presence of a Power
By the inconstant nature we inherit 25
Unmatched in delicate beneficence;
For neither unremitting rains avail
To swell thee into voice; nor longest drought
Thy bounty stints, nor can thy beauty mar,
Beauty not therefore wanting change to stir 30
The fancy pleased by spectacles unlooked for.
Nor yet, perchance, translucent Spring, had tolled
The Norman curfew bell when human hands
First offered help that the deficient rock
Might overarch thee, from pernicious heat 35
Defended, and appropriate to man’s need.
Such ties will not be severed: but, when we
Are gone, what summer loiterer will regard,
Inquisitive, thy countenance, will peruse,
Pleased to detect the dimpling stir of life, 40
The breathing faculty with which thou yield’st
(Tho’ a mere goblet to the careless eye)
Boons inexhaustible? Who, hurrying on
With a step quickened by November’s cold,
Shall pause, the skill admiring that can work 45
Upon thy chance-defilements--withered twigs
That, lodged within thy crystal depths, seem bright,
As if they from a silver tree had fallen--
And oaken leaves that, driven by whirling blasts,
Sunk down, and lay immersed in dead repose 50
For Time’s invisible tooth to prey upon
Unsightly objects and uncoveted,
Till thou with crystal bead-drops didst encrust
Their skeletons, turned to brilliant ornaments.
But, from thy bosom, should some venturous[396] hand 55
Abstract those gleaming relics, and uplift them,
However gently, toward the vulgar air,
At once their tender brightness disappears,
Leaving the intermeddler to upbraid
His folly. Thus (I feel it while I speak), 60
Thus, with the fibres of these thoughts it fares;
And oh! how much, of all that love creates
Or beautifies, like changes undergo,
Suffers like loss when drawn out of the soul,
Its silent laboratory! Words should say 65
(Could they depict the marvels of thy cell)
How often I have marked a plumy fern
From the live rock with grace inimitable
Bending its apex toward a paler self
Reflected all in perfect lineaments-- 70
Shadow and substance kissing point to point
In mutual stillness; or, if some faint breeze
Entering the cell gave restlessness to one,
The other, glassed in thy unruffled breast,
Partook of every motion, met, retired, 75
And met again. Such playful sympathy,
Such delicate caress as in the shape
Of this green plant had aptly recompensed
For baffled lips and disappointed arms
And hopeless pangs, the spirit of that youth, 80
The fair Narcissus by some pitying God
Changed to a crimson flower; when he, whose pride
Provoked a retribution too severe,
Had pined; upon his watery duplicate
Wasting that love the nymphs implored in vain. 85
Thus while my Fancy wanders, thou, clear Spring,
Moved (shall I say?) like a dear friend who meets
A parting moment with her loveliest look,
And seemingly her happiest, look so fair
It frustrates its own purpose, and recalls 90
The grieved one whom it meant to send away--
Dost tempt me by disclosures exquisite
To linger, bending over thee: for now,
What witchcraft, mild enchantress, may with thee
Compare! thy earthly bed a moment past 95
Palpable to sight as the dry ground,
Eludes perception, not by rippling air
Concealed, nor through effect of some impure
Upstirring; but, abstracted by a charm
Of my own cunning, earth mysteriously 100
From under thee hath vanished, and slant beams
The silent inquest of a western sun,
Assisting, lucid well-spring! Thou revealest
Communion without check of herbs and flowers,
And the vault’s hoary sides to which they cling, 105
Imaged in downward show; the flower, the Herbs,[397]
_These_ not of earthly texture, and the vault
Not _there_ diminutive, but through a scale
Of vision less and less distinct, descending
To gloom imperishable. So (if truths 110
The highest condescend to be set forth
By processes minute), even so--when thought
Wins help from something greater than herself--
Is the firm basis of habitual sense
Supplanted, not for treacherous vacancy 115
And blank dissociation from a world
We love, but that the residues of flesh,
Mirrored, yet not too strictly, may refine
To Spirit; for the idealising Soul
Time wears the features of Eternity; 120
And Nature deepens into Nature’s God.
Millions of kneeling Hindoos at this day
Bow to the watery element, adored
In their vast stream, and if an age hath been
(As books and haply votive altars vouch) 125
When British floods were worshipped, some faint trace
Of that idolatry, through monkish rites
Transmitted far as living memory,
Might wait on thee, a silent monitor,
On thee, bright Spring, a bashful little one, 130
Yet to the measure of thy promises
True, as the mightiest; upon thee, sequestered
For meditation, nor inopportune
For social interest such as I have shared.
Peace to the sober matron who shall dip 135
Her pitcher here at early dawn, by me
No longer greeted--to the tottering sire,
For whom like service, now and then his choice,
Relieves the tedious holiday of age--
Thoughts raised above the Earth while here he sits 140
Feeding on sunshine--to the blushing girl
Who here forgets her errand, nothing loth
To be waylaid by her betrothed, peace
And pleasure sobered down to happiness!
But should these hills be ranged by one whose soul 145
Scorning love-whispers shrinks from love itself
As Fancy’s snare for female vanity,
Here may the aspirant find a trysting-place
For loftier intercourse. The Muses crowned
With wreaths that have not faded to this hour 150
Sprung from high Jove, of sage Mnemosyne
Enamoured, so the fable runs; but they
Certes were self-taught damsels, scattered births
Of many a Grecian vale, who sought not praise,
And, heedless even of listeners, warbled out 155
Their own emotions given to mountain air
In notes which mountain echoes would take up
Boldly and bear away to softer life;
Hence deified as sisters they were bound
Together in a never-dying choir; 160
Who with their Hippocrene and grottoed fount
Of Castaly, attest that Woman’s heart
Was in the limpid age of this stained world
The most assured seat of [ ]
And new-born waters, deemed the happiest source 165
Of inspiration for the conscious lyre.
Lured by the crystal element in times
Stormy and fierce, the Maid of Arc withdrew
From human converse to frequent alone
The Fountain of the Fairies. What to her, 170
Smooth summer dreams, old favours of the place.
Pageant and revels of blithe elves--to her
Whose country groan’d under a foreign scourge?
She pondered murmurs that attuned her ear
For the reception of far other sounds 175
Than their too happy minstrelsy,--a Voice
Reached her with supernatural mandate charged
More awful than the chambers of dark earth
Have virtue to send forth. Upon the marge
Of the benignant fountain, while she stood 180
Gazing intensely, the translucent lymph
Darkened beneath the shadow of her thoughts
As if swift clouds swept o’er it, or caught
War’s tincture, ’mid the forest green and still,
Turned into blood before her heart-sick eye. 185
Erelong, forsaking all her natural haunts,
All her accustomed offices and cares
Relinquishing, but treasuring every law
And grace of feminine humanity,
The chosen Rustic urged a warlike steed 190
Toward the beleaguered city, in the might
Of prophecy, accoutred to fulfil,
At the sword’s point, visions conceived in love.
The cloud of rooks descending thro’ mid air
Softens its evening uproar towards a close[398] 195
Near and more near; for this protracted strain
A warning not unwelcome. Fare thee well!
Emblem of equanimity and truth,
Farewell!--if thy composure be not ours,
Yet as thou still, when we are gone, wilt keep 200
Thy living chaplet of fresh flowers and fern,
Cherished in shade tho’ peeped at[399] by the sun;
So shall our bosoms feel a covert growth
Of grateful recollections, tribute due
To thy obscure and modest attributes 205
To thee, dear Spring,[400] and all-sustaining Heaven!
[396] The MS. has a second reading, “covetous hand.”--ED.
[397] In MS. also “its herbs.”--ED.
[398]
… to a close
From a MS. copied at Rydal by Professor Reed in 1854.
[399]
… pecked at …
From a MS. copied at Rydal by Professor Reed in 1854.
[400]
… clear Spring …
From a MS. copied at Rydal by Professor Reed in 1854.
“I, WHOSE PRETTY VOICE YOU HEAR”
These lines were written for Miss Fanny Barlow of Middlethorpe Hall,
York. She was first married to the Rev. E. Trafford Leigh, and
afterwards to Dr. Eason Wilkinson of Manchester.--ED.
I, whose pretty Voice you hear,
Lady (you will think it queer),
Have a Mother, once a Statue,
I, thus boldly looking at you,
Do the name of Paphus bear, 5
Fam’d Pygmalion’s Son and Heir,
By that wondrous marble wife
That from Venus took her life.
Cupid’s Nephew then am I,
Nor unskill’d his darts to ply; 10
But from Him I crav’d no warrant,
Coming thus to seek my Parent;
Not equipp’d with bow and quiver
Her by menace to deliver,
But resolv’d with filial care 15
Her captivity to share.
Hence, while on your toilet, She
Is doom’d a Pincushion to be,
By her side I’ll take my place,
As a humble Needle-case; 20
Furnish’d too with dainty thread,
For a Sempstress thorough-bred.
Then let both be kindly treated,
Till the Term, for which She’s fated
Durance to sustain, be over; 25
So will I ensure a Lover
Lady! to your heart’s content;
But on harshness are you bent
Bitterly shall you repent,
When to Cyprus back I go 30
And take up my Uncle’s bow.
_Composed_, and in part transcribed, for Fanny Barlow, by her
affectionate Friend
WM. WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT,
_Shortest Day, 1826_.
1827
TO MY NIECE DORA
BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH
The following lines were written in Dora Wordsworth’s “Album,” in which
Sir Walter Scott also wrote some verses.--ED.
Confiding hopes of youthful hearts,
And each bright visionary scheme,
Shall here remain in vivid hues
The hues of a celestial dream.
The farewell of the laurelled Knight 5
Traced by a brave but tremulous hand,
Pledge of his truth and loyalty
Thro’ changeful years, unchanged shall stand.
But why should I inscribe my name,
No Poet I--no longer young? 10
The ambition of a loving heart
Makes garrulous the tongue.
Memorials of thy aged Friend
Dora thou dost not need;
And when the cold earth covers her 15
No flattery shall she heed.
Yet still a lurking wish prevails
That when from life we all have passed
The friends who loved thy Father’s name
On her’s a thought may cast. 20
DOROTHY WORDSWORTH.
_January 1827._
1829
“MY LORD AND LADY DARLINGTON”
These lines were written by Wordsworth, after reading a sentence in
the Stranger’s Book at “The Station,”--not a railway station!--on
the western side of Windermere lake, opposite Bowness. Their poetic
merit is slight, but they illustrate the honesty and directness of
the writer’s mind. The Stranger’s Book at “The Station” contained the
following:--
“Lord and Lady Darlington, Lady Vane, Miss Taylor, and Captain
Stamp pronounce this Lake superior to Lac de Genève, Lago
de Como, Lago Maggiore, L’Eau de Zurich, Loch Lomond, Loch
Katerine, or the Lakes of Killarney.”-ED.
My Lord and Lady Darlington,
I would not speak in snarling-tone;
Nor, to you, good Lady Vane,
Would I give one moment’s pain;
Nor Miss Taylor, Captain Stamp, 5
Would I your flights of _memory_ cramp.
Yet, having spent a summer’s day
On the green margin of Loch Tay,
And doubled (prospect ever bettering)
The mazy reaches of Loch Katerine, 10
And more than once been free at Luss,
Loch Lomond’s beauties to discuss,
And wished, at least, to hear the blarney
Of the sly boatmen of Killarney,
And dipped my hand in dancing wave 15
Of Eau de Zurich, Lac Genève,
And bowed to many a major domo
On stately terraces of Como,
And seen the Simplon’s forehead hoary,
Reclined on Lago Maggiore 20
At breathless eventide at rest
On the broad water’s placid breast,
I, not insensible, Heaven knows,
To all the charms this Station shows,
Must tell you, Captain, Lord, and Ladies-- 25
For honest worth one poet’s trade is--
That your praise appears to me
Folly’s own hyperbole.
1833
TO THE UTILITARIANS
These lines were written and sent in a letter to Henry Crabb Robinson,
dated 5th May 1833.--ED.
Avaunt this œconomic rage!
What would it bring?--an iron age,
Where Fact with heartless search explored
Shall be Imagination’s Lord,
And sway with absolute controul 5
The god-like Functions of the Soul.
Not _thus_ can knowledge elevate
Our Nature from her fallen state.
With sober Reason Faith unites
To vindicate the ideal rights 10
Of human-kind--the tone agreeing
Of objects with internal seeing,
Of effort with the end of Being.
Wordsworth added, in the letter to Robinson, “Is the above
intelligible? I fear not! I know, however, my own meaning, and that’s
enough for Manuscripts.”--ED.
1835
“THRONED IN THE SUN’S DESCENDING CAR”
These lines were placed by Wordsworth amongst the “Evening Voluntaries”
in the two editions of _Yarrow Revisited and other Poems_ (1835, 1836);
but they were never afterwards reprinted in his life-time.--ED.
For printing the following Piece, some reason should be given, as not
a word of it is original: it is simply a fine stanza of Akenside,[401]
connected with a still finer from Beattie[402]by a couplet of
Thomson.[403] This practice, in which the author sometimes indulges, of
linking together, in his own mind, favourite passages from different
authors, seemed in itself unobjectionable; but, as the _publishing_
such compilations might lead to confusion in literature, he should
deem himself inexcusable in giving this specimen, were it not from
a hope that it might open to others a harmless source of _private_
gratification.--W. W. 1835.
Throned in the Sun’s descending car,
What Power unseen diffuses far
This tenderness of mind?
What Genius smiles on yonder flood?
What God in whispers from the wood 5
Bids every thought be kind?
O ever-pleasing solitude,
Companion of the wise and good.
Thy shades, thy silence, now be mine
Thy charms my only theme; 10
Why haunt the hollow cliff whose Pine
Waves o’er the gloomy stream;
Whence the scared Owl on pinions grey
Breaks from the rustling boughs,
And down the lone vale sails away 15
To more profound repose!
[401] See his Ode V., _Against Suspicion_, stanza viii.--ED.
[402] See his poem, _Retirement_, 1758.--ED.
[403] See his _Hymn on Solitude_, which begins, “Hail, ever-pleasing
Solitude!”--ED.
“AND OH! DEAR SOOTHER OF THE PENSIVE BREAST”
The following ten lines were written by Wordsworth in a copy of his
works, after the lines _To the Moon_ (Rydal) 1835. They may have been
intended as a possible sequel to them, or to the lines _To the Moon,
composed by the Seaside--on the coast of Cumberland_ (1835).--ED.
And oh! dear soother of the pensive breast,
Let homelier words without offence attest
How where on random topics as they hit
The moments’ humour, rough Tars spend their wit.
Thy changes, which to wiser Spirits seem 5
Dark as a riddle, prove a favourite theme;
Thy motions, intricate and manifold,
Oft help to make bold fancy’s flight more bold;
Beget strange themes; and to freaks give birth
Of speech as wild as ever heightened mirth. 10
1836
“SAID RED-RIBBONED EVANS”
On the 26th of March 1836, Wordsworth sent the following lines to Henry
Crabb Robinson; written, he tells him, “immediately on reading Evans’s
modest self-defence speech the other day.” George de Lacy Evans was
radical member of Parliament for Westminster. “In 1835, he took command
of the British Legion raised for the service of the Queen Regent of
Spain against Don Carlos.” (Professor Dowden.)--ED.
Said red-ribboned Evans:
“My legions in Spain
Were at sixes and sevens;
Now they’re famished or slain:
But no fault of mine, 5
For, like brave Philip Sidney,
In campaigning I shine,
A true knight of his kidney.
Sound flogging and fighting
No chief, on my troth, 10
E’er took such delight in
As I in them both.
Fontarabbia can tell
How my eyes watched the foe,
Hernani knows well 15
That our feet were not slow;
Our hospitals, too,
They are matchless in story;
Where her thousands Fate slew,
All panting for glory.” 20
Alas for this Hero!
His fame touched the skies,
Then fell below zero,
Never, never to rise!
For him to Westminster 25
Did Prudence convey,
There safe as a Spinster
The Patriot to play.
But why be so glad on
His feats or his fall? 30
He’s got his red ribbon,
And laughs at us all.
1837
ON AN EVENT IN COL. EVANS’S REDOUBTED PERFORMANCES IN SPAIN
Mrs. Wordsworth sent this to Henry Crabb Robinson in 1837, “to show
you that _we_ can write an Epigram--we _do not say_ a good one.” She
then quoted it, and added, “The Producer thinks it not amiss, as being
murmured between sleep and awake over the fire, while thinking of you
last night!”--Ed.
The Ball whizzed by,--it grazed his ear,
And whispered as it flew,
“I only touch--not take--don’t fear,
For both, my honest Buccaneer!
Are to the Pillory due.”
1838
“WOULDST THOU BE GATHERED TO CHRIST’S CHOSEN FLOCK”
The following lines were cut on the face of a rock at Rydal Mount in
1838. There, they still remain.--ED.
Wouldst thou be gathered to Christ’s chosen flock,
Shun the broad way too easily explored,
And let thy path be hewn out of the Rock,
The living Rock of God’s eternal Word.
PROTEST AGAINST THE BALLOT, 1838[404]
Composed 1838.--Published 1838
Forth rushed, from Envy sprung and Self-conceit,
A Power misnamed the SPIRIT OF REFORM,
And through the astonished Island swept in storm,
Threatening to lay all Orders at her feet
That crossed her way. Now stoops she to entreat 5
Licence to hide at intervals her head,
Where she may work, safe, undisquieted,
In a close Box, covert for Justice meet.
St. George of England! keep a watchful eye
Fixed on the Suitor; frustrate her request-- 10
Stifle her hope; for, if the State comply,
From such Pandorian gift may come a Pest
Worse than the Dragon that bowed low his crest,
Pierced by thy spear in glorious victory.
[404] In his notes to the volume of Collected Sonnets (1838),
Wordsworth writes:--“‘_Protest against the Ballot._’ Having in this
notice alluded only in general terms to the mischief which, in my
opinion, the Ballot would bring along with it, without especially
branding its immoral and antisocial tendency (for which no political
advantages, were they a thousand times greater than those presumed
upon, could be a compensation), I have been impelled to subjoin a
reprobation of it upon that score. In no part of my writings have
I mentioned the name of any contemporary, that of Buonaparte only
excepted, but for the purpose of eulogy; and therefore, as in the
concluding verse of what follows, there is a deviation from this rule
(for the blank will be easily filled up) I have excluded the sonnet
from the body of the collection, and placed it here as a public record
of my detestation, both as a man and a citizen, of the proposed
contrivance.”
Then follows the sonnet beginning--
Said Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud.
ED.
“SAID SECRECY TO COWARDICE AND FRAUD”
Composed, probably, in 1838.--Published 1838[405]
Said Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud,
Falsehood and Treachery, in close council met,
Deep under ground, in Pluto’s cabinet,
“The frost of England’s pride will soon be thawed;
Hooded the open brow that overawed 5
Our schemes; the faith and honour, never yet
By us with hope encountered, be upset;--
For once I burst my bands, and cry, applaud!”
Then whispered she, “The Bill is carrying out!”
They heard, and, starting up, the Brood of Night 10
Clapped hands, and shook with glee their matted locks;
All Powers and Places that abhor the light
Joined in the transport, echoed back their shout,
Hurrah for ----, hugging his Ballot-box![406]
[405] This was first published in a note to the sonnet entitled
_Protest against the Ballot_, in the volume of 1838. It was never
republished by Wordsworth.
[406] See the note to the previous sonnet. George Grote was the
person satirised. “Since that time,” adds Mr. Reed, in a note to his
American edition, “Mr. Grote’s political notoriety, as an advocate of
the ballot, has been merged in the high reputation he has acquired as
probably the most eminent modern historian of ancient Greece”--ED.
A POET TO HIS GRANDCHILD
(SEQUEL TO THE FOREGOING)[407]
Published 1838
“Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand
Is clasping mine, it saddens me to think
How Want may press thee down, and with thee sink
Thy Children left unfit, through vain demand
Of culture, even to feel or understand 5
My simplest Lay that to their memory
May cling;--hard fate! which haply need not be
Did Justice mould the Statutes of the Land.
A Book time-cherished and an honoured name
Are high rewards; but bound they Nature’s claim 10
Or Reason’s? No--hopes spun in timid line
From out the bosom of a modest home
Extend through unambitious years to come,
My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!”[408][409]
[407] “The foregoing” was the Sonnet named _A Plea for Authors, May
1838_.--ED.
[408] 1836.
Son of my buried Son, whose tiny hand
Thus clings to mine, it {saddens} me to think
{troubles}
That thou pressed down by poverty mayst sink
Even till thy children shall in vain demand
{Culture and neither feel nor} understand
{Culture required to feel and}
{My simplest lay that to their memory}
{My least recondite lay, which memory}
{Perchance may cleave}; hard fate, which need not be
{May keep in trust }
Did justice mould the statutes of the land.
{A book time-cherished} and an honoured name
{A cherished volume }
Are high rewards, but bound not {Reason’s} claim.
{Nature’s}
No--hopes {in fond hereditary line }
{and wishes in a living line}
Spun from the bosom of a modest home
Extend thro’ unambitious years to come,
My careless Little-one, for thee and thine!
MS.
[409] The author of an animated article, printed in the _Law Magazine_,
in favour of the principle of Serjeant Talfourd’s Copyright Bill,
precedes me in the public expression of this feeling; which had been
forced too often upon my own mind, by remembering how few descendants
of men eminent in literature are even known to exist.--W.W. 1838.
This sonnet was not addressed to any grandson of the Poet’s.--ED.
1840
ON A PORTRAIT OF I.F., PAINTED BY MARGARET GILLIES[410]
Composed 1840.--Published 1850
We gaze--nor grieve to think that we must die,
But that the precious love this friend hath sown
Within our hearts, the love whose flower hath blown
Bright as if heaven were ever in its eye,
Will pass so soon from human memory; 5
And not by strangers to our blood alone,
But by our best descendants be unknown,
Unthought of--this may surely claim a sigh.
Yet, blessèd Art, we yield not to dejection:
Thou against Time so feelingly dost strive; 10
Where’er, preserved in this most true reflection,
An image of her soul is kept alive,
Some lingering fragrance of the pure affection,
Whose flower with us will vanish, must survive.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT,
_New Year’s Day, 1840_.
[410] See the note to the next sonnet.--ED.
TO I.F.[411]
Composed 1840.--Published 1850
The star which comes at close of day to shine
More heavenly bright than when it leads the morn,
Is friendship’s emblem,[412] whether the forlorn
She visiteth, or, shedding light benign
Through shades that solemnize Life’s calm decline, 5
Doth make the happy happier. This have we
Learnt, Isabel, from thy society,
Which now we too unwillingly resign
Though for brief absence. But farewell! the page
Glimmers before my sight through thankful tears, 10
Such as start forth, not seldom, to approve
Our truth, when we, old yet unchill’d by age,
Call thee, though known but for a few fleet years,
The heart-affianced sister of our love!
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
RYDAL MOUNT,
_Feb. 1840_.
[411] This and the preceding sonnet, beginning “We gaze--nor grieve
to think that we must die,” were addressed to Miss Fenwick, to whom
we owe the invaluable “Fenwick Notes.” Were it not that the date is
very minutely given, I would believe that they belong to 1841, as Miss
Gillies told me she resided at Rydal Mount in that year, when she
painted Mrs. Wordsworth’s portrait.--ED.
[412] 1850.
Bright is the star which comes at eve to shine
More heavenly bright than when it leads the morn,
And such is Friendship, whether the forlorn, etc.
1840.
“OH BOUNTY WITHOUT MEASURE, WHILE THE GRACE”
In his copy of the edition of 1845 at the close of the poem, _Animal
Tranquillity and Decay_ (1798) (see the “Poem referring to the Period
of Old Age,” vol. i. p. 307), Henry Crabb Robinson wrote the following
lines, sent to him by Wordsworth.--ED.
Oh Bounty without measure, while the Grace
Of Heaven doth in such wise from humblest springs
Pour pleasures forth, and solaces that trace
A mazy course along familiar things,
Well may our hearts have faith that blessings come 5
Streaming from points above the starry sky,
With angels, when their own untroubled home
They leave, and speed on mighty embassy
To visit earthly chambers,--and for whom?
Yea, both for souls who God’s forbearance try, 10
And those that seek his help and for his mercy sigh.
_7th April 1840. My 70th Birthday._
W.W.
1842
THE EAGLE AND THE DOVE[413]
The following poem was contributed to, and printed in, a volume
entitled “_La Petite Chouannerie, ou Histoire d’un Collège Breton sous
l’Empire_. Par A. F. Rio. Londres: Moxon, Dover Street, 1842,” pp. 62,
63. The Hon. Mrs. Norton, Walter Savage Landor, and Monckton Milnes
(Lord Houghton), were among the other English contributors to the
volume, the bulk of which is in French. It was printed at Paris, and
numbered 398 pages, including the title. It was a narrative of “the
romantic revolt of the royalist students of the college of Vannes in
1815, and of their battles with the soldiers of the French Empire.” (H.
REED.)--ED.
Composed (?).--Published 1842
Shade of Caractacus, if spirits love
The cause they fought for in their earthly home,
To see the Eagle ruffled by the Dove
May soothe thy memory of the chains of Rome.
These children claim thee for their sire; the breath 5
Of thy renown, from Cambrian mountains, fans
A flame within them that despises death,
And glorifies the truant youth of Vannes.
With thy own scorn of tyrants they advance,
But truth divine has sanctified their rage, 10
A silver cross enchased with flowers of France
Their badge, attests the holy fight they wage.
The shrill defiance of the young crusade
Their veteran foes mock as an idle noise;
But unto Faith and Loyalty comes aid 15
From Heaven, gigantic force to beardless boys.
[413] In the volume from which the above is copied, the original French
lines (commencing at p. 106) are printed side by side with Wordsworth’s
translation, which ends on p. 111, and closes the volume.--ED.
GRACE DARLING[414]
Composed 1842.--Published 1845
Wordsworth’s lines on Grace Darling were printed privately, and
anonymously, at Carlisle, before they were included in the 1845 edition
of his works. A copy was sent to Mr. Dyce, and is preserved in the Dyce
Library at South Kensington. Another was sent to Professor Reed (March
27, 1843), with a letter, in which the following occurs: “I threw it
off two or three weeks ago, being in a great measure impelled to it
by the desire I felt to do justice to the memory of a heroine, whose
conduct presented, some time ago, a striking contrast to the inhumanity
with which our countrymen, shipwrecked lately upon the French coast,
have been treated.”
Edward Quillinan, writing on 25th March 1843, enclosed a copy, adding,
“Mr. Wordsworth desires me to send you the enclosed eulogy on Grace
Darling, recently composed. He begs me to say that he wishes it kept
out of the newspapers, as he has printed it only for some of his
friends, and his friends’ friends more peculiarly interested in the
subject, for the present. Do not therefore give a copy to any one.”
“Almost immediately after I had composed my tribute to the memory of
Grace Darling, I learnt that the Queen and Queen Dowager had both just
subscribed towards the erection of a monument to record her heroism,
upon the spot that witnessed it.” (Wordsworth to Sir W. Gomm, March 24,
1843.)--ED.
Among the dwellers in the silent fields
The natural heart is touched, and public way
And crowded streets resound with ballad strains,
Inspired by ONE whose very name bespeaks
Favour divine, exalting human love; 5
Whom, since her birth on bleak Northumbria’s coast,
Known unto few but prized as far as known,
A single Act endears to high and low
Through the whole land--to Manhood, moved in spite
Of the world’s freezing cares--to generous Youth-- 10
To Infancy, that lisps her praise--to Age
Whose eye reflects it, glistening through a tear
Of tremulous admiration. Such true fame
Awaits her _now_; but, verily, good deeds
Do no imperishable record find 15
Save in the rolls of heaven, where hers may live
A theme for angels, when they celebrate
The high-souled virtues which forgetful earth
Has witness’d. Oh! that winds and waves could speak
Of things which their united power called forth 20
From the pure depths of her humanity!
A Maiden gentle, yet, at duty’s call,
Firm and unflinching, as the Lighthouse reared
On the Island-rock, her lonely dwelling-place;
Or like the invincible Rock itself that braves, 25
Age after age, the hostile elements,
As when it guarded holy Cuthbert’s cell.[415]
All night the storm had raged, nor ceased, nor paused,
When, as day broke, the Maid, through misty air,
Espies far off a Wreck, amid the surf, 30
Beating on one of those disastrous isles--
Half of a Vessel, half--no more; the rest
Had vanished, swallowed up with all that there
Had for the common safety striven in vain,
Or thither thronged for refuge.[416] With quick glance 35
Daughter and Sire through optic-glass discern,
Clinging about the remnant of this Ship,
Creatures--how precious in the Maiden’s sight!
For whom, belike, the old Man grieves still more
Than for their fellow-sufferers engulfed 40
Where every parting agony is hushed,
And hope and fear mix not in further strife.
“But courage, Father! let us out to sea--
A few may yet be saved.” The Daughter’s words,
Her earnest tone, and look beaming with faith, 45
Dispel the Father’s doubts: nor do they lack
The noble-minded Mother’s helping hand
To launch the boat; and with her blessing cheered,
And inwardly sustained by silent prayer,
Together they put forth, Father and Child! 50
Each grasps an oar, and struggling on they go--
Rivals in effort; and, alike intent
Here to elude and there surmount, they watch
The billows lengthening, mutually crossed
And shattered, and re-gathering their might; 55
As if the tumult, by the Almighty’s will
Were, in the conscious sea, roused and prolonged,[417]
That woman’s fortitude--so tried, so proved--
May brighten more and more!
True to the mark,
They stem the current of that perilous gorge, 60
Their arms still strengthening with the strengthening heart,
Though danger, as the Wreck is near’d, becomes
More imminent. Not unseen do they approach;
And rapture, with varieties of fear
Incessantly conflicting, thrills the frames 65
Of those who, in that dauntless energy,
Foretaste deliverance; but the least perturbed
Can scarcely trust his eyes, when he perceives
That of the pair--tossed on the waves to bring
Hope to the hopeless, to the dying, life-- 70
One is a Woman, a poor earthly sister,
Or, be the Visitant other than she seems,
A guardian Spirit sent from pitying Heaven,
In woman’s shape. But why prolong the tale,
Casting weak words amid a host of thoughts 75
Armed to repel them? Every hazard faced
And difficulty mastered, with resolve
That no one breathing should be left to perish,
This last remainder of the crew are all
Placed in the little boat, then o’er the deep 80
Are safely borne, landed upon the beach,
And, in fulfilment of God’s mercy, lodged
Within the sheltering Lighthouse.--Shout, ye Waves!
Send forth a song of triumph. Waves and Winds,
Exult in this deliverance wrought through faith 85
In Him whose Providence your rage hath served![418]
Ye screaming Sea-mews, in the concert join!
And would that some immortal Voice--a Voice
Fitly attuned to all that gratitude
Breathes out from floor or couch, through pallid lips 90
Of the survivors--to the clouds might bear--
Blended with praise of that parental love,
Beneath whose watchful eye the Maiden grew
Pious and pure, modest and yet so brave,
Though young so wise, though meek so resolute-- 95
Might carry to the clouds and to the stars,
Yea, to celestial Choirs, GRACE DARLING’S name!
[414] Grace Darling was the daughter of William Darling, the lighthouse
keeper on Longstone, one of the Farne Islands on the Northumbrian
coast. On the 7th of September 1838, the Forfarshire steamship was
wrecked on these islands. At the instigation of his daughter, and
accompanied by her, Darling went out in his lifeboat through the surf,
to the wreck, and --by their united strength and daring--rescued the
nine survivors.--ED.
[415] St. Cuthbert of Durham, born about 635, was first a shepherd boy,
then a monk in the monastery of Melrose, and afterwards its prior. He
left Melrose for the island monastery of Lindisfarne; but desiring
an austerer life than the monastic, he left Lindisfarne, and became
an anchorite, in a hut which he built with his own hands, on one of
the Farne Islands. He was afterwards induced to accept the bishopric
of Hexham, but soon exchanged it for the see in his old island home
at Lindisfarne, and after two years there resigned his bishopric,
returning to his cell in Farne Island, where he died in 687. His
remains were carried to Durham, and placed within a costly shrine.--ED.
[416] Fifty-four persons had perished, before Grace Darling’s lifeboat
reached the wreck.--ED.
[417] 1845.
As if the wrath and trouble of the sea
Were by the Almighty’s sufferance prolonged,
In privately printed edition.
[418] 1845.
For the last three lines, the privately printed edition has the single
one--
Pipe a glad song of triumph, ye fierce Winds.
“WHEN SEVERN’S SWEEPING FLOOD HAD OVERTHROWN”
Composed 23rd January 1842.--Published 1842
In 1842 a bazaar was held in Cardiff Castle to aid in the erection of
a Church, on the site of one which had been washed away by a flood in
the river Severn (and a consequent influx of waters into the estuary
of the British Channel) two hundred years before. Wordsworth and James
Montgomery were asked to write some verses, which might be printed and
sold to assist the cause. They did so. The following was Wordsworth’s
contribution.--ED.
When Severn’s sweeping flood had overthrown
St. Mary’s Church, the preacher then would cry:--
“Thus, Christian people, God his might hath shown
That ye to him your love may testify;
Haste, and rebuild the pile.”--But not a stone 5
Resumed its place. Age after age went by,
And Heaven still lacked its due, though piety
In secret did, we trust, her loss bemoan.
But now her Spirit hath put forth its claim
In Power, and Poesy would lend her voice; 10
Let the new Church be worthy of its aim,
That in its beauty Cardiff may rejoice!
Oh! in the past if cause there was for shame,
Let not our times halt in their better choice.
RYDAL MOUNT, _23rd Jan. 1842_.
THE PILLAR OF TRAJAN
The Fenwick note to _The Pillar of Trajan_ mentions that the author’s
son having declined to attempt to compete for the Oxford prize poem on
“The Pillar of Trajan,” his father wrote it, to show him how the thing
might be done. This son--the Rev. John Wordsworth of Brigham--wrote
Latin verse with considerable success; and as specimens of the poetic
work of Dorothy Wordsworth and of Sarah Hutchinson are included in
these volumes, the following _Epistola ad Patrem suum_, written at
Madeira by John Wordsworth in 1844, may be reproduced.--ED.
I pete longinquas, non segnis Epistola, terras,
I pete, Rydaliae conscia saxa lyrae:
I pete quà valles rident, sylvaeque lacusque,
Quamvis Arctoo paenè sub axe jacent.
Parvos quaere Lares, non aurea Tecta, poetae, 5
Qui tamen ingenii sceptraque mentis habet.
Quid faciat genitor? valeatne, an cura senilis
Opprimat? Ista refer, filius ista rogat.
Scire velit, quare venias tu scripta _latine_?
Dic “fugio linguam, magne poeta, tuam! 10
Quem Regina jubet circumdare tempora lauro,
Quem verè vatem saecula nostra vocant.”
Inde refer gressus responsaque tradita curae
Fida tuae, numeris in loca digna senis,
Haec ego tradiderim, majoribus ire per altum 15
Nunc velis miserum me mea musa rapit.
Solvimus è portu, navisque per aequora currit
Neptuni auxilio fluctifragisque rotis.
Neptunus videt attonitus, Neptunia conjux,
Omnis et aequorei nympha comata chori. 20
Radimus Hispanum litus, loca saxea crebris
Gallorum belli nobilitata malis.
Haud mora, sunt visae Gades,[419] urbs fabula quondam,
Claraque ab Herculeo nomine, clara suo.
Hanc magnam cognovit Arabs, Romanus candem, 25
Utraque gens illi vimque decusque tulit.
Hora brevis, fragilisque viris! similisque ruina
Viribus humanis omnia facta manet
Pulchra jaces, olim Carthaginis aemula magnae,
Nataque famosae non inhonesta Tyri! 30
En! ratibus navale caret, nautis caret alnus,
Mercatorque fugit dives inane Forum.
Templa vacant pompâ, nitidisque theatra catervis,
Tristis et it foedâ foemina virque via.
Segnis in officiis, nec rectus ad aethera miles 35
Pauperis et vestes, armaque juris habet.
Sic gens quaeque perit,[420] quando civilia bella
Viscera divellunt, jusque fidesque fugit.
Auspiciis laetam nostris lux proxima pandit
Te, Calpe[421] celsis imperiosa jugis. 40
Urbs munimen habet nullo quassabile bello,
Claustrum Tyrrhenis, claustrum et Atlantis, aquis.
Undique nam vastae sustentant moenia rupes,
Quae torvè in terras inque tuentur aquas.
Arteque sunt mirâ sectae per saxa cavernae, 45
Atria sanguineo saeva sacrata Deo.
Urbs invicta tamen populis commercia tuta
Praebet, et in portus illicit inque Forum.
Hic Mercator adest Maurus cui rebus agendis.
Ah! nimis est cordi Punica prisca fides; 50
Afer et è mediis Libyae sitientis arenis,
Suetus in immundâ vivere barbarie;
Multus et aequoreis, ut quondam, Graius in undis,
Degener, antiquum sic probat ille genus;
Niliacae potator aquae, Judaeus, et omne 55
Litus Tyrrhenum quos, et Atlantis, alit.
Hos quàm dissimiles (linguae sive ora notentur)
Hos quàm felices pace Britannus habet!
Anglia! dum pietas et honos, dum nota per orbem
Sit tibi in intacto pectore prisca fides; 60
Dum pia cura tibi, magnos meruisse triumphos,
Justaque per populos jura tulisse feros;
Longinquas teneat tua vasta potentia terras,
Et maneat Calpe gloria magna Tibi!
Insula Atlanteis assurgit ab aequoris undis, 65
Insula flammigero semper amata Deo,
Seu teneat celsi flagrantia signa Leonis,
Seu gyro Pisces interiore petat.
“Hic ver assiduum atque alienis mensibus aestas,”
Flavus et autumnus frugibus usque tumet. 70
Non jacet Ionio felicior Insula ponto
Ulla, nec Eoi fluctibus oceani.
Vix, Madeira! tuum nunc refert dicere nomen,
Floribus, et Bacchi munere pingue solum.
Te vetus haud vanis cumulavit laudibus aetas, 75
O fortunato conspicienda choro!
Haec nunc terra sinu nos detinet alma, proculque
A Patriae curis, anxietate domi.
Sic cepisse ferunt humanae oblivia curae
Quisquis Lethaeae pocula sumpsit aquae: 80
Sic semota sequi studiisque odiisque docebas
Otia discipulos, docte Epicure, tuos.
Sed non ulla dies grato sine sole, nec ullo
Fruge carens hortus tempore,[422] fronde nemus;[423]
Nec levis ignotis oneratus odoribus aer, 85
Quales doctus equum flectere novit Arabs;
Nec caecae quaecumque jacent sub rupe cavernae,[424]
Queîs nunquam radiis Phoebus adire potest;
Nec currentis aquae strepitus,[425] nec saxa, petensque
Mons[426] excelsa suis sidera culminibus; 90
Nec tranquilla quies, rerumque oblivia, ponti
Suadebunt iterum solicitare vias!
Rideat at quamvis haec vultu terra sereno,
Tabescit pravo gens malefida jugo:
Dum sedet heu! tristis morborum pallor in ore, 95
Crebraque anhelanti pectore tussis inest.
Ambitus et luxus, totoque accersita mundo,
Queîs omnis populus quoque sub axe peril;
Famae dira sitis, rerumque onerosa cupido,
Raptaque ab irato templa diesque Deo, 100
Supplicium non lene suum, poenasque tulerunt;
Saepè petis proprio, vir miser, ense latus!
Uxor adhuc aegros dilecta resuscitat artus;
Anxia cura suis, anxia cura mihi.
Altera quodque dies jam roboris attulit, illud 105
Altera dura suis febribus abstulerit.
Aurea mens illi, mollique in pectore corda,
Et clarum longâ nobilitate genus.
Quanquàm saepe trahunt Libycum non[427] aera sanum
(Gratia magna Dei), pignora nostra vigent. 110
Iamque vale grandaeve Pater, grandaevaque Mater,
Tuque O dilecto conjuge laeta soror!
Quaeque pias nobis partes cognata ferebas,
Nomina vana cadunt, Tu mihi Mater eras;
Ingenioque mari, pietate ornata fideque, 115
Sanguine nulla domûs, semper amore, soror;
Tu quoque, care, vale, Frater, quamvis procul absis,
Per virides campos, quà petit aequor Eden.
Denique tota domus, cunctique valete propinqui,
Carmina plura mihi musa manusque negat. 120
MADEIRAE, _MARTIIS CALENDIS_, 1844.
[419] Cadiz.
[420] Hispania hoc tempore bello civili divulsa fuit.
[421] Gibraltar.
[422] Sunt hibernis mensibus aurea mala.
[423] Laureae sylvae sunt.
[424] Antris abundat Insula.
[425] Multos rivos naturâ, mirâque humani ingenii arte constructos
continet Madeira.
[426] Pace Lusitanorum Insula nil nisi mons est, rectis culminibus mari
conspicua.
[427] Ventus ex Africa.--_Leste._
See also the _Carmen Maiis calendis compositum_, the _Carmen ad Maium
mensem_, and the _Somnivaga_,--evidently by the same writer,--in the
appendix to the second edition of _Yarrow Revisited_, 1836.--ED.
1846
“DEIGN, SOVEREIGN MISTRESS! TO ACCEPT A LAY”
In January 1846 Wordsworth sent a copy of his Poems to the Queen, for
the Royal Library at Windsor, and inscribed the following lines upon
the fly-leaf. For their republication I am indebted to the gracious
permission of Her Majesty.--ED.
Deign, Sovereign Mistress![428] to accept a lay,
No Laureate offering of elaborate art;
But salutation taking its glad way
From deep recesses of a loyal heart.
Queen, Wife, and Mother! may All-judging Heaven 5
Shower with a bounteous hand on Thee and Thine
Felicity that only can be given
On earth to goodness blest by grace divine.
Lady! devoutly honoured and beloved
Through every realm confided to thy sway; 10
Mayst thou pursue thy course by God approved,
And He will teach thy people to obey.
As thou art wont, thy sovereignty adorn
With woman’s gentleness, yet firm and staid;
So shall that earthly crown thy brows have worn 15
Be changed for one whose glory cannot fade.
And now, by duty urged, I lay this Book
Before thy Majesty, in humble trust
That on its simplest pages thou wilt look
With a benign indulgence more than just. 20
Nor wilt thou blame an aged Poet’s prayer,
That issuing hence may steal into thy mind
Some solace under weight of royal care,
Or grief--the inheritance of humankind.
For know we not that from celestial spheres, 25
When Time was young, an inspiration came
(Oh, were it mine!) to hallow saddest tears,
And help life onward in its noblest aim.
W.W.
_9th January 1846._
[428] Compare the address presented by the Deputies of the Kingdom of
Italy to Buonaparte, on Oct. 27, 1808, beginning, “Deign, Sovereign
Master of all Things.”--ED.
1847
ODE, PERFORMED IN THE SENATE-HOUSE, CAMBRIDGE, ON THE 6TH OF JULY 1847,
AT THE FIRST COMMENCEMENT AFTER THE INSTALLATION OF HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE PRINCE ALBERT, CHANCELLOR OF THE UNIVERSITY.[429]
INSTALLATION ODE
Composed 1847.--Published 1847.
INTRODUCTION AND CHORUS
For thirst of power that Heaven disowns,
For temples, towers, and thrones,
Too long insulted by the Spoiler’s shock,
Indignant Europe cast
Her stormy foe at last
To reap the whirlwind on a Libyan rock.
SOLO.--TENOR
War is passion’s basest game
Madly played to win a name;
Up starts some tyrant, Earth and Heaven to dare;
The servile million bow;
But will the lightning glance aside to spare
The Despot’s laurelled brow?
CHORUS
War is mercy, glory, fame,
Waged in Freedom’s holy cause;
Freedom, such as Man may claim
Under God’s restraining laws.
Such is Albion’s fame and glory:
Let rescued Europe tell the story.
RECIT. (_accompanied_).--CONTRALTO
But lo, what sudden cloud has darkened all
The land as with a funeral pall?
The Rose of England suffers blight,
The flower has drooped, the Isle’s delight,
Flower and bud together fall--
A Nation’s hopes lie crushed in Claremont’s desolate hall.
AIR.--SOPRANO
Time a chequered mantle wears;--
Earth awakes from wintry sleep;
Again the Tree a blossom bears,--
Cease, Britannia, cease to weep!
Hark to the peals on this bright May-morn!
They tell that your future Queen is born!
SOPRANO SOLO AND CHORUS
A Guardian Angel fluttered
Above the Babe, unseen;
One word he softly uttered--
It named the future Queen:
And a joyful cry through the Island rang,
As clear and bold as the trumpet’s clang,
As bland as the reed of peace--
“VICTORIA be her name!”
For righteous triumphs are the base
Whereon Britannia rests her peaceful fame.
QUARTETT
Time, in his mantle’s sunniest fold,
Uplifted in his arms the child;
And, while the fearless Infant smiled,
Her happier destiny foretold:--
“Infancy, by Wisdom mild,
Trained to health and artless beauty;
Youth, by Pleasure unbeguiled
From the lore of lofty duty;
Womanhood in pure renown,
Seated on her lineal throne:
Leaves of myrtle in her Crown,
Fresh with lustre all their own.
Love, the treasure worth possessing
More than all the world beside,
This shall be her choicest blessing,
Oft to royal hearts denied.”
RECIT. (_accompanied_).--BASS
That eve, the Star of Brunswick shone
With stedfast ray benign
On Gotha’s ducal roof, and on
The softly flowing Leine;
Nor failed to gild the spires of Bonn,
And glittered on the Rhine.--
Old Camus too on that prophetic night
Was conscious of the ray;
And his willows whispered in its light,
Not to the Zephyr’s sway,
But with a Delphic life, in sight
Of this auspicious day:
CHORUS
This day, when Granta hails her chosen Lord,
And proud of her award,
Confiding in the Star serene
Welcomes the Consort of a happy Queen.
AIR.--CONTRALTO
Prince, in these Collegiate bowers,
Where Science, leagued with holier truth,
Guards the sacred heart of youth,
Solemn monitors are ours.
These reverend aisles, these hallowed towers,
Raised by many a hand august,
Are haunted by majestic Powers,
The memories of the Wise and Just,
Who, faithful to a pious trust,
Here, in the Founder’s spirit sought
To mould and stamp the ore of thought
In that bold form and impress high
That best betoken patriot loyalty.
Not in vain those Sages taught.--
True disciples, good as great,
Have pondered here their country’s weal,
Weighed the Future by the Past,
Learned how social frames may last,
And how a Land may rule its fate
By constancy inviolate,
Though worlds to their foundations reel,
The sport of factious Hate or godless Zeal.
AIR.--BASS
Albert, in thy race we cherish
A Nation’s strength that will not perish
While England’s sceptered Line
True to the King of Kings is found;
Like that Wise[430] Ancestor of thine
Who threw the Saxon shield o’er Luther’s life,
When first, above the yells of bigot strife,
The trumpet of the Living Word
Assumed a voice of deep portentous sound
From gladdened Elbe to startled Tiber heard.
CHORUS
What shield more sublime
E’er was blazoned or sung?
And the PRINCE whom we greet
From its Hero is sprung.
Resound, resound the strain
That hails him for our own!
Again, again, and yet again;
For the Church, the State, the Throne!--
And that Presence fair and bright,
Ever blest wherever seen,
Who deigns to grace our festal rite,
The pride of the Islands, VICTORIA THE QUEEN!
[429] This “Ode” was printed and sung at Cambridge on the occasion of
the installation of His Royal Highness Prince Albert as Chancellor of
the University. It was published in the newspapers of the following
day, as “written for the occasion by the Poet Laureate, by royal
command.”
There is no evidence, however, that Wordsworth wrote a single line
of it. Dr. Cradock used to attribute the authorship to the poet’s
nephew, the late Bishop of Lincoln. It is much more likely that Edward
Quillinan was the author of the whole, although Christopher Wordsworth
may have revised it. Mr. Aubrey de Vere wrote to me, November 12,
1893, “It was from Miss Fenwick that I heard that the Laureate poem
(_Ode, etc._), was written by Quillinan, at Wordsworth’s request, he
having himself wholly failed in a reluctant attempt to write one. If
he _had_ written it, I doubt much whether he would ever have admitted
it to a place among his works, for he did not hold ‘Laureate Odes’ in
honour, and had only taken the Laureateship on the condition that he
was to write none. Tennyson made the same condition: which could not,
of course, interfere with either poet addressing lines to the Queen, if
they felt specially moved from within to do so.”
Miss Frances Arnold writes, “Miss Quillinan was my authority for saying
that the Cambridge Ode had been written by her father, owing to the
deep depression in which Wordsworth then was.”--ED.
[430] Frederic the Wise, Elector of Saxony (1847).
TO MISS SELLON
This sonnet exists, _in Wordsworth’s handwriting_; but it is doubtful
whether it was written by him, or not. Possibly Mr. Quillinan wrote it.
The place, and the date of composition--given in MS.--are, “Ambleside,
22nd February, 1849.” Miss Sellon was a relation of the late Count
Cavour.--ED.
The vestal priestess of a sisterhood who knows
No self, and whom the selfish scorn--
She seeks a wilderness of weed and thorn,
And, undiverted from the blessed mood
By keen reproach or blind ingratitude, 5
A wreath she twines of blossoms lowly born--
An amaranthine crown of flowers forlorn--
And hangs her garland on the Holy Rood.
Sister of Mercy, bravely hast thou won
From men who winnow charity from Faith 10
The Pharasaic sneer that treats as dross
The works by faith ordained. Pursue thy path,
Till, at the last, thou hear the voice--“Well done,
Thou good and faithful servant of the Cross.”
“THE WORSHIP OF THIS SABBATH MORN”
BY DOROTHY WORDSWORTH
These lines were published in _The Monthly Packet_, in July 1891, where
the following note is appended by Miss Christabel Coleridge:--“Written
_circa_ 1852-3, and given to Mrs. Derwent Coleridge.” But Miss Edith
Coleridge, and Mr. E. H. Coleridge, tell me that they think they
“belong to an earlier period.” Mr. Coleridge writes, “I have heard Miss
Wordsworth repeat the lines now printed, seated in her arm-chair, on
the terrace at Rydal Mount.”--ED.
The worship of this Sabbath morn,
How sweetly it begins!
With the full choral hymn of birds
Mingles no sad lament for sins.
Alas! my feet no more may join 5
The cheerful Sabbath train;
But if I inwardly lament,
Oh! may a will subdued all grief restrain.
No prisoner am I on this couch,
My mind is free to roam, 10
And leisure, peace, and loving friends,
Are the best treasures of an earthly home.
Such gifts are mine, then why deplore
The body’s slow decay?
A warning mercifully sent 15
To fix my hopes upon a surer stay.
A WORDSWORTH BIBLIOGRAPHY
I.--_GREAT BRITAIN_
I
EDITIONS PUBLISHED DURING WORDSWORTH’S LIFETIME
In the Bibliographies by Mr. Tutin and Professor Dowden there are
numerous and valuable details as to these editions, which it is
unnecessary to reproduce here.--ED.
1
1793. AN EVENING WALK. An Epistle; in verse. Addressed to a Young
Lady, from the Lakes of the North of England. By W. Wordsworth, B. A.,
of St. John’s, Cambridge. London: printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul’s
Church-yard. 4to.
2
1793. DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES. In verse. Taken during a pedestrian tour
in the Italian, Grison, Swiss, and Savoyard Alps. By W. Wordsworth,
B. A., of St. John’s, Cambridge. Loca pastorum deserta atque otia
dia.--_Lucret._ Castella in tumulis--Et longe saltus lateque
vacantes.--_Virgil._ London: printed for J. Johnson, St. Paul’s
Churchyard. 4to.
3
1798. LYRICAL BALLADS, with a few other Poems. Bristol: printed by
Biggs and Cottle; for T. N. Longman, Paternoster-Row, London. 8vo.
1798. LYRICAL BALLADS, with a few other Poems. London: printed for J. &
A. Arch, Gracechurch Street. 8vo.[431]
4
1800. LYRICAL BALLADS, with other Poems. In two volumes. By W.
Wordsworth. Quam nihil ad genium. Papiniane, tuum! Vol. I. Second
Edition. [Vol. II.] London: printed for T. N. Longman and O. Rees,
Paternoster-Row, by Biggs and Co., Bristol. 8vo.[432]
5
1802. LYRICAL BALLADS, with Pastoral and other Poems. In two volumes.
By W. Wordsworth. Quam nihil ad genium, Papiniane, tuum! Third Edition.
London: printed for T. N. Longman & O. Rees, Paternoster-Row, by Biggs
and Cottle, Crane-Court, Fleet-Street. 8vo.[433]
6
1805. LYRICAL BALLADS, with Pastoral and other Poems. In two volumes.
By W. Wordsworth. Quam nihil ad genium, Papiniane, tuum! Fourth
Edition. London: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, & Orme, by R.
Taylor and Co., 38 Shoe Lane. 8vo.[434]
7
1807. POEMS, in two volumes, By William Wordsworth, Author of the
Lyrical Ballads. _Posterius graviore sono tibi Musa loquetur Nostra,
dabunt cum securos mihi tempora fructus._ Vol. I. [Vol. II.] London:
printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row. 12mo.
8
1809. CONCERNING THE RELATIONS OF GREAT BRITAIN, SPAIN, AND
PORTUGAL, TO EACH OTHER, AND TO THE COMMON ENEMY, AT THIS CRISIS;
and specifically as affected by the Convention of Cintra: _The whole
brought to the test of those principles by which alone the Independence
and Freedom of Nations can be Preserved or Recovered_. Qui didicit
patriae quid debeat;--Quod sit conscripti, quod judicis officium; quae
Partes in bellum missi ducis. By William Wordsworth. London: printed
for Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme, Paternoster-Row. 8vo.
9
1814. THE EXCURSION, being a portion of The Recluse, a Poem. By William
Wordsworth. London: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
Paternoster-Row. 4to.[435]
10
1815. POEMS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: including Lyrical Ballads, and
the Miscellaneous Pieces of the Author. With additional Poems, a new
Preface, and a Supplementary Essay. In two volumes. Vol. I. [Vol.
II.] London: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
Paternoster-Row. 8vo.[436]
11
1815. THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE; OR, THE FATE OF THE NORTONS. A Poem.
By William Wordsworth. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme,
and Brown, Paternoster-Row, by James Ballantyne and Co., Edinburgh.
4to.[437]
12
1816. A LETTER TO A FRIEND OF ROBERT BURNS: occasioned by an intended
republication of the account of the Life of Burns, by Dr. Currie;
and of the Selection made by him from his Letters. By William
Wordsworth. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
Paternoster-Row. 8vo.[438]
13
1816. THANKSGIVING ODE, January 18, 1816. With other short Pieces,
chiefly referring to Recent Public Events. By William Wordsworth.
London: Printed by Thomas Davison, Whitefriars; for Longman, Hurst,
Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row. 8vo.
14
1818. TWO ADDRESSES TO THE FREEHOLDERS OF WESTMORELAND. Kendal: Printed
by Airy and Bellingham. 8vo.
15
1819. PETER BELL, a Tale in Verse, by William Wordsworth. London:
Printed by Strahan and Spottiswoode. Printers-Street; for Longman,
Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row. 8vo.[439]
16
1819. PETER BELL, A Tale in Verse, by William Wordsworth. Second
Edition. London: Printed by Strahan and Spottiswoode, Printers-Street;
for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row. 8vo.
17
1819. THE WAGGONER, a Poem, to which are added, Sonnets. By William
Wordsworth. “What’s in a NAME?” “Brutus will start a Spirit as soon as
Cæsar,” London: Printed by Strahan & Spottiswoode, Printers-Street; for
Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, Paternoster-Row. 8vo.[440]
18
1820. THE RIVER DUDDON, a Series of Sonnets; Vaudracour and Julia:
and other Poems. To which is annexed, a Topographical Description
of the Country of the Lakes, in the North of England. By William
Wordsworth. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
Paternoster-Row. 8vo.[441]
19
1820. THE MISCELLANEOUS POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. In four
volumes. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
Paternoster-Row. 12mo.[442]
20
1820. THE EXCURSION, being a portion of The Recluse, A Poem. By William
Wordsworth. Second Edition. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees,
Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row. 8vo.
21
1822. MEMORIALS OF A TOUR ON THE CONTINENT, 1820. By William
Wordsworth. London: Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown,
Paternoster-Row. 8vo.
22
1822. ECCLESIASTICAL SKETCHES. By William Wordsworth. London: Printed
for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, Paternoster-Row. 8vo.[443]
23
1822. A DESCRIPTION OF THE SCENERY OF THE LAKES IN THE NORTH OF
ENGLAND. Third Edition (now first published separately), with
additions, and illustrative remarks upon the Scenery of the Alps. By
William Wordsworth. London: printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme,
and Brown, Paternoster-Row. 12mo.[444]
24
1827. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. In five volumes.
London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green,
Paternoster-Row. 12mo.[445]
25
1828. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Complete in one volume.
Paris: Published by A. and W. Galignani, No. 18, Rue Vivienne. 8vo.[446]
26
1831. SELECTIONS FROM THE POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, ESQ., chiefly
for the use of Schools and Young Persons. London: Edward Moxon, 64 New
Bond Street. 12mo.[447]
27
1832. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. A new Edition. In four
volumes. London: Printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, &
Longman, Paternoster-Row. 8vo.[448]
28
SELECTIONS FROM THE POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, ESQ., chiefly for the
use of Schools and young persons. A New Edition. London: Edward Moxon,
Dover Street. MDCCCXXXIV.
29
The Memorial Lines “Written after the Death of Charles Lamb” were
issued privately, without title or date, probably late in 1835, or
early in 1836. 8vo. pp. 7.
30
1835. YARROW REVISITED, AND OTHER POEMS. By William Wordsworth.
Poets … dwell on earth
To clothe whate’er the soul admires and loves;
With language and with numbers.--AKENSIDE.
London: printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longman,
Paternoster-Row; and Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 12mo.
31
1835. A GUIDE THROUGH THE DISTRICT OF THE LAKES IN THE NORTH OF
ENGLAND, with a Description of the Scenery, &c. For the use of Tourists
and Residents. Fifth Edition, with considerable additions. By William
Wordsworth. Kendal: published by Hudson and Nicholson; and in London by
Longman & Co., Moxon, and Whittaker and Co. 12mo.
32
1836. YARROW REVISITED, AND OTHER POEMS. By William Wordsworth.
Poets … dwell on earth
To clothe whate’er the soul admires and loves;
With language and with numbers.--AKENSIDE.
Second Edition. London: printed for Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green,
& Longman, Paternoster-Row; and Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 8vo.[449]
33
THE EXCURSION. A Poem. By William Wordsworth. A New Edition. London:
Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXXXVI. 8vo.[450]
34
THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. A New Edition. In six
volumes. Vol. I. (Vol. II.-VI.) London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street.
MDCCCXXXVI.-MDCCCXXXVII. Fcap. 8vo.[451]
35
THE SONNETS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Collected in one volume, with a
few additional ones, now first published. London: Edward Moxon, Dover
Street. MDCCCXXXVIII. 8vo.[452]
36
YARROW REVISITED; AND OTHER POEMS. By William Wordsworth. London:
Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXXXIX. 18mo.[453]
37
POEMS, CHIEFLY OF EARLY AND LATE YEARS; including The Borderers, a
Tragedy. By William Wordsworth. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street.
MDCCCXLII. 8vo.[454]
38
1843. SELECT PIECES FROM THE POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. London: James
Burns. Sq. 12mo.[455]
39
1844. KENDAL AND WINDERMERE RAILWAY. Two Letters, re-printed from
the Morning Post. Revised, with additions. Kendal: printed by R.
Branthwaite and Son.
40
1845. THE POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, D.C.L., Poet Laureate, etc. etc.
A New Edition. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. MDCCCXLV. Royal
8vo.[456]
41
1847. ODE, performed in the Senate-House, Cambridge, on the sixth of
July, M.DCCC.XLVII. At the first commencement after the Installation
of his Royal Highness the Prince Albert, Chancellor of the University.
Cambridge: printed at the University Press. 4to.
42
1847. ODE on the installation of His Royal Highness Prince Albert as
Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. By William Wordsworth, Poet
Laureate. London: Printed, by permission, by Vizetelley Brothers & Co.
Published by George Bell, Fleet Street. 4to.
43
THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, D.C.L., Poet Laureate, etc.
etc. In six volumes. A New Edition. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street.
MDCCCXLIX.-MDCCCL. 12mo.[457]
[431] These two editions of 1798 are the same; but as Cottle sold to
Arch most of the copies printed, the majority bear the name of Arch as
publisher.
Four of the poems were by S.T. Coleridge, viz. _The Rime of the
Ancyent Marinere_; _The Foster-Mother’s Tale_; _The Nightingale, a
Conversational Poem_; and _The Dungeon_.--ED.
[432] The first volume of this edition is a reprint of the editions
of 1798, _The Convict_ being left out. In it there is one poem by
Coleridge entitled _Love_, which was not in the edition of 1798. The
poems in the second volume are new. The preface to Volume 1. contains
Wordsworth’s poetical theory in its original form. This preface was
included in the 1802 and 1805 editions of Lyrical Ballads, and also--in
an expanded form--in almost every subsequent edition of his poems.--ED.
[433] This was almost a reproduction of the two volumes of 1800, with
a few variations of text. The preface, however, was much enlarged.
The poem _A Character in the Antithetical Manner_ was left out, also
Coleridge’s poem _The Dungeon_.--ED.
[434] A reprint of the edition of 1802, with slight variations of
text.--ED.
[435] The _Essay on Epitaphs_ inserted in the notes to this volume was
originally published in _The Friend_, February 22, 1810.--ED.
[436] This was the first edition of Wordsworth’s Poems arranged by
him under distinctive headings, viz. “Poems referring to the Period
of Childhood,” “Juvenile Pieces,” “Poems founded on the Affections,”
“Poems of the Fancy,” “Poems of the Imagination,” “Poems proceeding
from Sentiment and Reflection,” “Miscellaneous Sonnets,” “Sonnets,
etc., dedicated to Liberty,” “Poems on the Naming of Places,”
“Inscriptions,” “Poems referring to the Period of Old Age,” “Epitaphs
and Elegiac Poems,” “Ode, Intimations of Immortality from Recollections
of Childhood.” In it, he gave _dates_ to his poems.
In Volume I. is an engraving by Mr. Bromley from a picture by Sir
George Beaumont; Volume II. has an engraving by Mr. Reynolds from Sir
George’s picture of Peele Castle in a storm.--ED.
[437] The poem _The Force of Prayer; or, the Founding of Bolton Priory_
follows the _White Doe of Rylstone_; and the volume contains an
engraving by Mr. Bromley from a painting of Bolton Abbey by Sir George
Beaumont.--ED.
[438] The “Friend” was Mr. James Gray, Edinburgh.--ED.
[439] The volume contains an engraving by Mr. Bromley from a painting
by Sir George Beaumont. In addition to _Peter Bell_, this volume
contained four sonnets.--ED.
[440] This volume was dedicated to Charles Lamb.--ED.
[441] In 1820 the four separate publications, _The Waggoner_, etc.,
_Thanksgiving Ode_, etc., _Peter Bell_, etc., and _The River Duddon,
Vaudracour and Julia_, etc., were bound up together with their separate
title-pages, and issued under the title, _Poems by William Wordsworth_,
making Volume III. of the _Miscellaneous Poems_.--ED.
[442] Each of these volumes contained an engraving from a picture by
Sir George Beaumont. They were “Lucy Gray,” “Peter Bell,” “The White
Doe of Rylstone,” and “Peele Castle.” All had appeared in previous
editions. The “Advertisement” states that this edition contains the
whole of the published poems of the Author, with the exception of _The
Excursion_, and that a few Sonnets “are now first published.”
It is worthy of note that, in this edition, Wordsworth for the first
time abandoned the practice of putting in an apostrophe, instead of
a vowel letter, in words ending with “ed,” and in similar cases of
contraction.--ED.
[443] Wordsworth added to this series of Sonnets, in the one-volume
edition of 1845 which contained 132. In the first edition, there were
102 sonnets.--ED.
[444] This originally appeared as an Introduction to Wilkinson’s
_Select Views in Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Lancashire_, which was
published in 1810. In 1820 it was included (see No. 18) in _The River
Duddon: A Series of Sonnets_. In 1823 a fourth edition appeared which
was a reprint of that of 1822.--ED.
[445] To this edition Wordsworth prefixed the following
“Advertisement”:--“In these volumes will be found the whole of the
Author’s published poems, for the first time collected in a uniform
edition, with several new pieces interspersed.”--ED.
[446] In this edition--copied without authority, from the poet or
his publishers, and with many errata, from the issue of 1827--there
is an engraving of Wordsworth by Mr. Wedgewood, after the portrait
by Carruthers, now in the possession of Mr. Hutchinson at Kimbolton.
The Galignani edition of Southey is even worse; three poems, not by
Southey, being included in it.--ED.
[447] The editor of these selections was Joseph Hine.--ED.
[448] The “Advertisement” to this edition is as follows:--“The contents
of the last edition in five volumes are compressed into the present
of four, with some additional pieces reprinted from miscellaneous
publications.”--ED.
[449] As this volume (No. 32 in the list) was the last printed for the
Messrs. Longman, and issued by that firm and by Mr. Moxon jointly,
it is desirable to mention here, in a footnote, that, with the
exception of _The Evening Walk_ and _Descriptive Sketches_ (which were
published by J. Johnson) every one of Wordsworth’s works from 1798 to
1836--thirty in number--were introduced to the world by the Messrs.
Longman. It is questionable if any firm has ever had a similar “record”
in connection with the works of any great poet.--ED.
[450] A reprint of the sixth volume of the 1836-37 edition. It was
again reprinted in 1841, 1844, and 1847.--ED.
[451] Volumes one and two are dated 1836; the remaining four 1837. This
edition was stereotyped. It was reprinted in 1840, 1841, 1842, 1843,
1846, 1849, etc.; and some of the reprints contain slight variations
of text, etc. All the editions issued after 1841 include the volume,
_Poems of Early and Late Years_ (see No. 37) as a seventh volume. After
1850 _The Prelude_ was added as an eighth volume.
In the first volume of this edition there is a steel engraving by
Mr. Watt of a portrait of the Poet by W. Pickersgill, which is in
St. John’s College, Cambridge. This engraving was reproduced in the
editions of 1840, 1841, and following ones.--ED.
[452] This edition includes (as its “Advertisement” tells us) “twelve
new Sonnets which were composed while the sheets were going through the
press.”--ED.
[453] Mr. Tutin writes in his Wordsworth Bibliography:--“This Pocket
edition of _Yarrow Revisited_, etc., is the third separate issue of the
Poem. It seems to have been intended as a supplementary volume to the
four vol. edition of 1832, as the sheets of it are all imprinted ‘Vol.
v.,’ but I have no direct proof that it was ever so issued.”--ED.
[454] In his “Advertisement” the Author states that about one-third of
the Poem _Guilt and Sorrow_ was written in 1794, and was published in
the year 1798 under the title of _The Female Vagrant_.--ED.
[455] This volume is dedicated “To her Most Sacred Majesty,
Victoria.”--ED.
[456] Frequently republished. After 1851 _The Prelude_ was included.
The edition of 1869 has “nine additional poems,” dated 1846. All the
editions which I have seen contain an engraving by Mr. Finden from the
bust of Wordsworth by Chantrey--the original of which is at Coleorton
Hall--and a picture of Rydal Mount engraved by Mr. House after Finden.
Professor Dowden tells us that, in some later editions “the Pickersgill
portrait, engraved by J. Skelton, replaces Chantrey’s bust.” In this
edition, as in that of 1815, Wordsworth gave dates to his poems.--ED.
[457] Volumes I. and II. are dated 1849, and Volumes III.-VI. 1850.
_The Excursion_ formed the sixth volume. It was reprinted separately in
1851, 1853, and 1857.--ED.
II
EDITIONS OF THE POEMS, AND OF SELECTIONS FROM THEM, PUBLISHED AFTER THE
POET’S DEATH.
1
1850. THE PRELUDE, OR GROWTH OF A POET’S MIND; an Autobiographical
Poem; by William Wordsworth. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. Demy
8vo.
2
1851. THE PRELUDE, OR GROWTH OF A POET’S MIND; an Autobiographical
Poem; By William Wordsworth. Second Edition. London: Edward Moxon,
Dover Street. Fcap. 8vo.
3
1855. SELECT PIECES FROM THE POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. London:
Edward Moxon. Sq. 12mo.
4
1857. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. In six volumes. A new
Edition. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. 8vo.[458]
5
THE EARLIER POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Corrected as in the latest
Editions. With Preface, and Notes showing the text as it stood in 1815.
By William Johnston. London: Edward Moxon, Dover Street. Fcap. 8vo.
6
1859. THE DESERTED COTTAGE. By William Wordsworth. Illustrated with
twenty-one designs by Birket Foster, J. Wolf, and John Gilbert,
engraved by the Brothers Dalziel. London: George Routledge and Co.,
Farringdon Street. New York: 18 Beekman Street. Small 4to.[459]
7
POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Selected and Edited by Robert Aris
Willmott, Incumbent of Bear Wood. Illustrated with one hundred designs
by Birket Foster, J. Wolf, and John Gilbert, Engraved by the Brothers
Dalziel. London: George Routledge and Co., Farringdon Street. New York:
18 Beekman Street, MDCCCLIX. Small 4to.
8
THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE; OR, THE FATE OF THE NORTONS. By William
Wordsworth. London: Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans, and Roberts. Small
4to.[460]
9
PASSAGES FROM “THE EXCURSION,” by William Wordsworth, Illustrated
with Etchings on Steel by Agnes Fraser. London: published by Paul and
Dominic Colnaghi and Co., publishers to Her Majesty, 13 and 14 Pall
Mall East. Oblong 4to.[461]
10
THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE; OR, THE FATE OF THE NORTONS. With
Illustrations by Birket Foster, and others. London: Longman, Brown,
Green, Longmans, and Roberts.
11
PASTORAL POEMS, by William Wordsworth. London: Sampson, Low, etc.
12
1864. THE SELECT POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Copyright
Edition. In two volumes. Leipzig, Bernhard Tauchnitz.[462]
13
1865. A SELECTION FROM THE WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Poet Laureate.
Moxon’s Miniature Poets. Selected and arranged by Francis Turner
Palgrave. Published in London: Edward Moxon & Co., Dover Street. Sq.
12mo.[463]
14
THE POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. A new Edition. London: Edward Moxon &
Co., Dover Street.
15
1867. THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE; OR, THE FATE OF THE NORTONS. By
William Wordsworth. London: Bell and Daldy, 186 Fleet Street. 8vo.[464]
16
1869. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. A new Edition. London:
Edward Moxon, Son, & Co., 44 Dover Street, Piccadilly.
17
1870. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edited, with a critical
Memoir, by William Michael Rossetti. Illustrated by artistic etchings
by Edwin Edwards. London: E. Moxon, Son, & Co., Dover Street. Small 4to.
18
THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edited, with a critical
Memoir, by William Michael Rossetti. Illustrated by Henry Dell. London:
E. Moxon, Son, & Co., Dover Street. 8vo.[465]
19
1876. THE PROSE WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. For the first time
collected, with additions from unpublished manuscripts. Edited, with
Preface, Notes and Illustrations, by the Rev. Alexander B. Grosart, St.
George’s, Blackburn, Lancashire. In three volumes. Volume I. Political
and Ethical. Volume II. Æsthetical and Literary. Volume III. Critical
and Ethical. London: Edward Moxon, Son, and Co., 1 Amen Corner,
Paternoster Row. 8vo.
20
1879. POEMS OF WORDSWORTH, chosen and edited by Matthew Arnold. London:
Macmillan and Co. 18mo.[466]
21
THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edited by William Knight,
LL.D., Professor of Moral Philosophy, St. Andrews. Edinburgh: William
Paterson. MDCCCLXXXII. [MDCCCLXXXII.-- MDCCCLXXXVI.] 8 vols. Demy
8vo.[467]
22
SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. Edited, with an Introductory Memoir, by J.
S. Fletcher. London: Alex. Gardner, 12 Paternoster Row, and Paisley.
MDCCCLXXXIII. Fcap. 8vo. Parchment.[468]
23
1883. WINNOWINGS FROM WORDSWORTH. Edited by J. Robertson. Simpkin & Co.
1883.
24
THE BROTHERS, AND OTHER POEMS FOUNDED ON THE AFFECTIONS. 18mo. Collins.
25
1884. THE RIVER DUDDON. A Series of Sonnets. By William Wordsworth.
With ten Etchings by R. S. Chattock, The Fine Art Society, 148 New Bond
Street, London. Folio.
26
THE SONNETS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Collected in one volume, with an
Essay on The History of the English Sonnet by Richard Chenevix Trench,
D.D., Archbishop of Dublin, Chancellor of the Order of St. Patrick.
London: Suttaby and Co., Amen Corner. MDCCCLXXXIV. 8vo.[469]
27
SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. By Misses Wordsworth. London: Kegan Paul, &
Co. April 8, 1884.
28
THE WORDSWORTH BIRTHDAY BOOK. Edited by Adelaide and Violet Wordsworth.
London: Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co.
29
BIRTHDAY TEXTS FROM WORDSWORTH. Edinburgh: W. P. Nimmo. N. D.
30
THE GOLDEN POETS. “Wordsworth.” London: Marcus Ward & Co. N. D.
31
1885. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, With a Prefatory
Notice, Biographical and Critical. By Andrew James Symington. London:
Walter Scott, 14 Paternoster Square and Newcastle-on-Tyne. 16mo.[470]
32
WORDSWORTH’S EXCURSION. THE WANDERER. Edited, with Notes, etc., by H.
H. Turner. London: Rivingtons. N. D.
33
ODE ON IMMORTALITY, AND LINES ON TINTERN ABBEY. Illustrated. Cassell.
4to.
34
TINTERN ABBEY, ODES, AND THE HAPPY WARRIOR. 8vo. Chambers. (Republished
in 1892.)
35
1887. THROUGH THE WORDSWORTH COUNTRY. By Harry Goodwin and Professor
Knight. London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., Paternoster Square.
Imperial 8vo.[471]
36
WORDSWORTH AND KEATS, Selections. In 16mo. M. Ward.
37
1888. THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. With an
Introduction by John Morley. With a Portrait. London: Macmillan & Co.
Crown 8vo.
38
1888. SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. By William Knight, and other Members
of the Wordsworth Society. With Preface and Notes. London: Kegan
Paul, Trench, & Co., 1 Paternoster Square. MDCCCLXXXVIII. Large Crown
8vo.[472]
39
1888. THE RECLUSE. By William Wordsworth. London: Macmillan and Co.[473]
40
1888. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WORDSWORTH. With Memoir, Explanatory Notes,
etc. London: Griffith, Farren, & Co., Newbury House, Charing Cross Road.
41
PROSE WRITINGS OF WORDSWORTH: Selected and Edited, with an
Introduction, by William Knight. London: Walter Scott. No date.
42
1889. WE ARE SEVEN. Illustrated by Agnes Gardner King. 16mo.
43
1891. LYRICS AND SONNETS OF WORDSWORTH. With Introduction and
Bibliography. By Clement R. Shorter. Scott Library. 32mo.
44
THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edited, with Memoir, by
Edward Dowden. London: George Bell & Sons. 1892-1893.[474]
45
1891. LYRICAL BALLADS, ETC. A reprint of the original edition of 1798.
Edited by Edward Dowden. London: David Nutt. 16mo.
46
1891. THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE, WITH THE SONG AT THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM
CASTLE. Edited, with introduction and notes, by William Knight. Oxford:
At the Clarendon Press.
47
THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edinburgh: W.P. Nimmo, Hay,
and Mitchell. 1892.
48
WORDSWORTH FOR THE YOUNG. With notes by J.C. Wright. 8vo. 1893.
49
1895. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, with introductions and
notes. Edited by Thomas Hutchinson, M.A. London: Henry Froude, Oxford
University Press Warehouse, Amen Corner, E.C.
50
THE PENNY POETS, in “The Masterpiece Library.” Wordsworth. Nos. XXXII.
and XXXVII.
51
1896. LYRIC POEMS. Edited by Ernest Rhys. 8vo. London: Dent & Co.
52
THE PRELUDE; OR, GROWTH OF A POET’S MIND. 18mo. London: Dent & Co.
53
“The Lansdowne Poets” included one of Wordsworth. The “Albion” edition
was published by Messrs. Froude, Oxford University Press.[475]
[458] In this edition--reprinted as “The Centenary Edition” in 1870,
1881, and 1882--the Fenwick notes were printed, for the first time in
full, as prefatory notes to the poems.--ED.
[459] Reproduced in 1864.--ED.
[460] It contains illustrations by H. N. Humphreys and Birket
Foster.--ED.
[461] This volume contains eleven etchings of varying merit.--ED.
[462] These are volumes 707 and 708 of Tauchnitz’s “Collection of
British Authors.”--ED.
[463] It contains a steel engraving from Chantrey’s bust of the Poet.
This selection was re-issued in 1866, and 1869; and, recently, in a
small pocket edition.--ED.
[464] This is a reprint, in a different form, of No. 8.--ED.
[465] In this edition, which is a reprint, on smaller paper, of No. 19.
there is an engraving from one of the portraits of the Poet by Miss
Gillies. The engraving first appeared in Volume I. of _The New Spirit
of the Age_, edited by R. H. Horne.--ED.
[466] It contains an idealised engraving of one of Haydon’s portraits
of Wordsworth, after Lupton, by C. H. Jeens, and on the outside cover a
drawing of Dove Cottage.--ED.
[467] In this edition the Poems were arranged for the first time
in the chronological order of composition; the changes of text, in
the successive editions, were given in footnotes, with the dates of
these changes; many new readings, or suggested changes of text--which
were written by the Poet on the margins of a copy of the edition of
1836-37, kept at Rydal Mount, and afterwards in the possession of Lord
Coleridge--were added; all the Fenwick notes were printed as Prefatory
notes; Topographical notes--containing allusions to localities in the
English Lake District, and elsewhere--were given; several Poems and
Fragments hitherto unpublished were printed; a Bibliography of the
Poems, and of editions published in England and America from 1793 to
1850 was added. Etchings of localities associated with the Poet, from
drawings by Mr. MacWhirter, were given as frontispieces to Volumes I.,
II., III., IV., V., VI., and VII. The text adopted was Wordsworth’s
final text of 1849-50.--ED.
[468] It contains an engraving of Rydal Mount on the fly-leaf.--ED.
[469] This volume is a reprint of Wordsworth’s own edition of his
Sonnets, published in 1838, with the addition of Archbishop Trench’s
_History of the English Sonnet_.--ED.
[470] This is one of the volumes of _The Canterbury Poets_. It is only
a selection, though described on the title as “The Poetical Works.”--ED.
[471] This volume contains fifty-five engravings from drawings by
Harry Goodwin of scenes in the English Lake District associated with
Wordsworth, with the poems, or portions of poems, referring to the
places.--ED.
[472] The poems are arranged in chronological order of composition;
and there is, as frontispiece, an etched portrait of the Poet from a
miniature by Margaret Gillies in the possession of Sir Henry Doulton.
Amongst those who contributed to it were Robert Browning, James
Russell Lowell, the late Lord Selborne, Mr. R. H. Hutton, the Dean
of Salisbury, the late Lord Coleridge, the Rev. Stopford Brooke, Mr.
Aubrey de Vere, the late Lord Houghton, Canon Rawnsley, the late
Principals Shairp and Greenwood and Professor Veitch, Mr. Spence
Watson, Mr. Rix, Mr. Heard, Mr. Cotterill, the late Bishop Wordsworth
of St. Andrews, and the Editor.--ED.
[473] In the prefatory advertisement to the first edition of _The
Prelude_ 1850, it is stated that that poem was designed to be
introductory to _The Recluse_, and that _The Recluse_ if completed,
would have consisted of three parts. The second part is _The
Excursion_. The third part was only planned. The first book of the
first part was left in manuscript by Wordsworth. It was published for
the first time _in extenso_ in 1888.--ED.
[474] This Aldine edition, by Professor Dowden, is one of great merit,
and permanent value. Although it is not immaculate--as no literary work
ever is--as a contribution to Wordsworthian Literature it will hold an
honoured place. Its “critical apparatus” is succinct and admirable.--ED.
[475] Mr. Andrew Lang tells me that he is about to edit a _Selection_
of the Poems, for the Messrs. Longman; which will, no doubt, be as
useful, and popular, as Matthew Arnold’s Selection has been.--ED.
III
ESTIMATES OF WORDSWORTH IN VARIOUS BOOKS[476]
1811. SEWARD, ANNA. Letters written between the Years 1784 and 1807.
Edited by A. Constable, vol. vi. No. 66.[477] 8vo. Edinburgh.
1817. COLERIDGE, S. T. Biographia Literaria; or, Biographical Sketches
of my Literary Life and Opinions. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Rest Fenner.
Second Edition. London: William Pickering. 1847. Bohn’s Standard
Library. 1866.
COLERIDGE, S. T. In _The Friend, passim_. Second Edition. London: Rest
Fenner.
HAZLITT, WILLIAM. The Round Table: a Collection of Essays on
Literature, Men, and Manners. Observations on Mr. Wordsworth’s Poem,
“The Excursion.” 12mo. London: Templeman. Also in Bohn’s Standard
Library. Edited by W. Carew Hazlitt. Pp. 158-176. London. 1871.
1818. HAZLITT, WILLIAM. Lectures on the English Poets. 8vo. London:
Taylor and Hessey. Also in Bohn’s Standard Library. 1870.
1819. HAZLITT, WILLIAM. Political Essays, with Sketches of Public
Characters. My First Acquaintance with Poets. 8vo. London: Templeman.
Also in Winterslow, pp. 255-277. Bohn’s Standard Library. 1872.
1823. SOLIGNY, VICTOIRE DE, COUNT, _pseud._ (_i.e._ Peter George
Patmore, father of the late Coventry Patmore). Letters on England, vol.
ii. pp. 7-19. 8vo. London: Henry Colburn and Co.
1824. LANDOR, W. S. Imaginary Conversations of Literary Men and
Statesmen. Southey and Porson, i. 39. 8vo. London: Taylor and Hessey.
New Edition, i. 11, 68, 182. London: Edward Moxon. 1846. New Edition,
iv. 18. London: Chapman and Hall. 1876.
1825. HAZLITT, WILLIAM. The Spirit of the Age; or, Contemporary
Portraits. 8vo. London: Henry Colburn and Co.; Fourth Edition. George
Bell and Sons. 1886.
1827. HONE, WILLIAM. The Table Book. Wordsworth, ii. 275. 8vo. London:
Hunt and Clarke.
COLERIDGE, S. T. Table Talk. July 21, 1832; July 31, 1832; February 16,
1833.
1833. MONTGOMERY, JAMES. Lectures on Poetry and General Literature,
delivered at the Royal Institution in 1830 and 1831. Wordsworth’s
Theory of Poetic Diction, pp. 134-141. 8vo. London: Longmans.
1836. Conversations at Cambridge. The Poet Wordsworth and Professor
Smythe, pp. 235-252. 8vo. London: John W. Parker.
1837. COTTLE, JOSEPH. Early Recollections; chiefly relating to the late
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, during his long Residence in Bristol. 2 vols.
8vo. London: Longman, Rees and Co.
1838. CHORLEY, H. F. The Authors of England. 4to. London. New Edition,
revised (by G. B.) London. 1861.
HARE, JULIUS C. and AUGUSTUS W. Guesses at Truth, by Two Brothers.
Second Series. 8vo. London: Taylor and Walton. The Dedication of this
edition is to William Wordsworth. New Edition, in one volume. Macmillan
and Co. 1866.
1840. HUNT, LEIGH. The Seer. “Wordsworth and Milton,” pp. 5-53. London:
Edward Moxon.
RUSKIN, JOHN. Modern Painters (1843-1860), _passim_ in all the five
volumes. London: George Allen.
1843. CHAMBERS, ROBERT. Cyclopædia of English Literature. Wordsworth,
ii. 322-333. Fourth Edition, revised by Robert Carruthers, LL.D. 1888.
8vo. Edinburgh: William and Robert Chambers.
1844. HORNE, R. H. A New Spirit of the Age. William Wordsworth and
Leigh Hunt, vol. i. pp. 307-332. 12mo. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
KEBLE, JOHN. Praelectiones Academicae Oxonii habitae, annis
MDCCCXXXII.-MDCCCXLI., tom. ii. pp. 615, 789. 8vo. Oxonii: J. H. Parker.
1845. GILFILLAN, GEORGE. A Gallery of Literary Portraits. 12mo.
Edinburgh: Groombridge.
CRAIK, E. L. Sketches of the History of Literature and Learning in
England. Vol. vi., pp. 114-139. London: Charles Knight.
1847. HOWITT, WILLIAM. Homes and Haunts of the most eminent British
Poets, vol. ii. pp. 259-291. 8vo. London: Richard Bentley. Third
Edition. Routledge and Sons. 1862.
TUCKERMAN, HENRY T. Thoughts on the Poets. 8vo. London: J. Chapman.
1849. GILFILLAN, GEORGE. A Second Gallery of Literary Portraits. 8vo.
Edinburgh: Groombridge.
SHAW, THOMAS B. Outlines of English Literature. Wordsworth, pp.
518-526. 8vo. London: John Murray. Sixteenth Edition, edited by William
Smith, D.C.L. 1887.
TAYLOR, HENRY. Notes from Books. In four Essays. Wordsworth’s Poetical
Works and Sonnets, pp. 1-186. 8vo. London: John Murray. Works: Author’s
Edition, vol. v. London: C. Kegan Paul and Co. 1878.
1849-50. SOUTHEY, ROBERT. Life and Correspondence. Edited by the Rev.
Charles Cuthbert Southey. 6 vols. Comments on Wordsworth in chaps,
ix.-xiii. xv. xix. xxvi. xxxii. and xxxvi. 8vo. London: Longman, Brown,
Green and Longmans.
1851. GILLIES, R. P. Memoirs of a Literary Veteran; including Sketches
and Anecdotes of the most distinguished Literary Characters from 1794
to 1849. Wordsworth, vol. ii. pp. 136-173. 8vo. London: Richard Bentley.
The Poetic Companion, vol. i., pp. 168-173. A Biographical and Critical
Sketch of William Wordsworth.
MOIR, D. M. Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the past
Half-Century, pp. 59-81; 120. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.
Third Edition, 1856.
WORDSWORTH, CHRISTOPHER. Memoirs of William Wordsworth, Poet-Laureate,
D.C.L. 2 vols. 8vo. London: Edward Moxon. 1851.
1852. JANUARY SEARLE (George S. Phillips). Memoirs of William
Wordsworth, compiled from Authentic Sources. 12mo. London: Partridge
and Oakey.
MITFORD, M. R. Recollections of a Literary Life; or, Books, Places, and
People, vol. iii. chap. i. 8vo. London: Richard Bentley.
1853. An Essay on the Poetry of Wordsworth, 72 pp. 8vo. Liverpool.
AUSTIN, W. S., and JOHN RALPH. The Lives of the Poets-Laureate. With
an Introductory Essay on the Title and Office. William Wordsworth, pp.
396-428. 8vo. London: Richard Bentley.
WRIGHT, JOHN. The Genius of Wordsworth harmonised with the Wisdom and
Integrity of his Reviewers. 8vo. London: Longman, Brown, Green and
Longmans.
SPALDING, WILLIAM. The History of English Literature. 8vo. Edinburgh:
Oliver & Boyd.
1854. DE QUINCEY, THOMAS. Autobiographic Sketches. Early Memorials
of Grasmere, vol. ii. pp. 104-141; William Wordsworth, pp. 227-314;
William Wordsworth and Robert Southey, pp. 315-345. 8vo. Edinburgh:
James Hogg. Also Collected Writings. New and Enlarged Edition. By David
Masson. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black. 1889-90.
SPALDING, WILLIAM. Wordsworth, pp. 849-851. Cyclopædia of Biography,
edited by Elihu Rich. 8vo. Glasgow: Richard Griffin and Co.
MOORE, THOMAS. Memoirs, Journal, and Correspondence of. Edited by the
Right Honourable Lord John Russell, vol. iii. pp. 161, 163; vol. iv.
pp. 48, 335; vol. vii pp. 72, 85, 197-8; vol. viii. pp. 69, 73, 291.
1856. CARLYON, CLEMENT. Early Years and Late Reflections, vol. i. 8vo.
London: Whittaker and Co.
HOOD, E. P. William Wordsworth: a Biography. 8vo. London: W. and F. G.
Cash.
MASSON, DAVID. Essays, Biographical and Critical: chiefly on English
Poets. Wordsworth, pp. 346-390. 8vo. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co.
Reprinted from _The North British Review_, August 1850.
ROGERS, SAMUEL. Recollections of the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers. 8vo.
London: Edward Moxon.
WILSON, JOHN. Noctes Ambrosianae, vols. i.-iii. 8vo. Edinburgh: William
Blackwood and Sons. New Edition, 1864.
WILSON, JOHN. Essays, Critical and Imaginative. Wordsworth, vol. i. pp.
387-408. 8vo. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.
1857. DE QUINCEY, THOMAS. Sketches, Critical and Biographic. On
Wordsworth’s Poetry, vol. v. pp. 234-268. 8vo. Edinburgh: James Hogg
and Sons.
REED, HENRY. Lectures on the British Poets. Wordsworth, Lecture XV.
8vo. London.
WILSON, JOHN. Recreations of Christopher North, vol. ii. Sacred Poetry.
Wordsworth, pp. 54-70. 8vo. Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.
1858. BRIMLEY, GEORGE. Essays. Edited by William George Clark, M.A.
Wordsworth’s Poems, pp. 104-187. 8vo. Cambridge: Macmillan and Co.
Second Edition, 1860. Third Edition, 1882. Reprinted from _Fraser’s
Magazine_, 1851.
ROBERTSON, F. W. Lectures and Addresses on Literary and Social Topics.
Wordsworth, pp. 203-256. 8vo. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
THE ENGLISH CYCLOPÆDIA. A New Dictionary of Universal Knowledge.
Conducted by Charles Knight. Wordsworth, vol. vi. pp. 808-812.
1859. MILL, J. S. Dissertations and Discussions. Thoughts on Poetry and
its Varieties, i. 63-94. 8vo. London: John W. Parker and Son. Second
Edition. Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyer. 1867.
1860. CARRUTHERS, R. William Wordsworth. The _Encyclopædia Britannica_,
Eighth Edition, xxi. 929-932. 4to. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black.
1861. CRAIK, GEORGE L. A Compendious History of English Literature,
and of the English Language from the Norman Conquest. Wordsworth, ii.
435-456; 463-467; 473. 8vo. London: Griffin, Bohn and Co.
1862. GORDON, MRS. “Christopher North.” A Memoir of John Wilson,
compiled from Family Papers and other Sources. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh:
Edmonston and Douglas. New Edition, 1879.
PATTERSON, A. S. Poets and Preachers of the Nineteenth Century: Four
Lectures, Biographical and Critical, on Wordsworth, Montgomery, Hall,
and Chalmers. 8vo. Glasgow: A. Hall.
1863. RUSHTON, WILLIAM. The Classical and Romantic Schools of English
Literature, as represented by Spenser, Dryden, Pope, Scott, and
Wordsworth. The Afternoon Lectures on English Literature, delivered in
Dublin, pp. 43-92. 8vo. London: Bell and Daldy.
1864. COLQUHOUN, J. C. Scattered Leaves of Biography. IV.--Life of
William Wordsworth. 8vo. London: Macintosh.
KNIGHT, CHARLES. Passages from a Working Life during half a century:
with a prelude of Early Reminiscences, vol. iii. chap. ii. pp. 27-29.
1865. The Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography. Edited by J. F.
WALLER. Wordsworth, vol. vi. p. 1389. 8vo. London: W. Mackenzie.
1865. DENNIS, JOHN. Evenings in Arcadia. Edited by John Dennis. 12mo.
London.
1868. BUCHANAN, ROBERT. David Gray, and Other Essays, chiefly on
Poetry. Sampson Low.
MACDONALD, GEORGE. England’s Antiphon, pp. 303-7. 8vo. London.
SHAIRP, J. C. Studies in Poetry and Philosophy. Wordsworth: the Man
and the Poet, pp. 1-115. 8vo. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. Third
Edition, 1876. Fourth Edition, 1886.
_Chambers’s Encyclopædia._ A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the
People. Wordsworth, vol. x. pp. 272-274. New Edition, pp. 737-740.
1892. 8vo. London: W. and R. Chambers.
1869. CLOUGH, A. H. Poems and Prose Remains. Lecture on the Poetry of
Wordsworth, vol. i. pp. 309-325. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
G., F. J. The Old College, being the Glasgow University Album for
MDCCCLXIX. Edited by Students. William Wordsworth, pp. 243-259. 8vo.
Glasgow: James Maclehose.
GRAVES, R. P. Recollections of Wordsworth and the Lake Country. The
Afternoon Lectures on Literature and Art, delivered in Dublin, pp.
275-321. 8vo. Dublin: William M’Gee.
MARTINEAU, HARRIET. Biographical Sketches. Mrs. Wordsworth, pp.
402-408. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
ROBINSON, HENRY CRABB. Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence.
Selected and edited by Thomas Sadler. 3 vols. 8vo. London: Macmillan
and Co.
1870. EMERSON, R. W. English Traits, First Visit to England. Bohn’s
Standard Library; also Macmillan and Co. 1883.
1871. HUTTON, R. H. Essays, Theological and Literary. Wordsworth and
his Genius, vol. ii. Literary Essays, pp. 101-146. 8vo. London: Strahan
and Co. Second Edition, 1877.
TAINE, H. A. History of English Literature. Translated by H. Van
Laun. With a preface by the author. Vol. ii. pp. 248; 260-265. 8vo.
Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas.
HALL, S. C. A Book of Memories of Great Men and Women of the Age, from
Personal Acquaintance. London: Virtue and Co. Wordsworth, pp. 287-318.
1872. COOPER, THOMAS, Life of: An Autobiography. Reminiscence of
Wordsworth (first published in _Cooper’s Journal_, May 1850), pp.
287-295.
DE MORGAN, AUGUSTUS. A Budget of Paradoxes. Wordsworth and Byron, p.
435. 8vo. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
NEAVES, CHARLES (Lord Neaves). A Lecture on Cheap and Accessible
Pleasures. With a Comparative Sketch of the Poetry of Burns and
Wordsworth, etc. 8vo. Edinburgh.
YONGE, CHARLES D. Three Centuries of English Literature. Wordsworth,
pp. 251-267. 8vo. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
1873. COLERIDGE, SARA. Memoir and Letters. Edited by her Daughter. 2
vols. 8vo. London: Henry S. King and Co.
DEVEY, JOSEPH. A Comparative Estimate of Modern English Poets.
Wordsworth, pp. 87-103. 8vo. London: Moxon and Son.
LONSDALE, HENRY. The Worthies of Cumberland. William Wordsworth, vol.
iv. pp. 1-40. 8vo. London: George Routledge and Sons.
MORLEY, H. A First Sketch of English Literature. 8vo. London: Cassell,
Petter, and Galpin.
NICHOLS, W. L. The Quantocks and their Associations. A Paper read
before the Members of the Bath Literary Club. 12mo. Bath. Printed for
Private Circulation. Second Edition. London: Sampson Low, Marston and
Co.
1874. BROOKE, STOPFORD A. Theology in the English Poets. Wordsworth,
pp. 93-286. 8vo. London: Henry S. King and Co.
MASSON, DAVID. Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and other Essays.
Wordsworth, pp. 3-74. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
WORDSWORTH, DOROTHY. Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, A.D.
1803. Edited by J. C. Shairp. 8vo. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas.
1875. FLETCHER, MRS. Autobiography. With Letters and other Family
Memorials. 8vo. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas.
1876. FORSTER, JOHN. The Works and Life of Walter Savage Landor. Vol.
i. The Life. 8vo. London: Chapman and Hall.
LAMB, CHARLES. The Life, Letters, and Writings of Charles Lamb. Edited,
with Notes and Illustrations, by Percy Fitzgerald. References to, and
Criticisms of Wordsworth in vols. i. ii. 8vo. London: E. Moxon and Co.
LOWELL, J. RUSSELL. Among my Books. Second Series. Wordsworth, pp.
201-251. 8vo. London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington.
MORLEY, HENRY. Cassell’s Library of English Literature. Vols. iii.,
iv., v. Wordsworth. 8vo. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.
STEDMAN, E. C. Victorian Poets. 8vo. London: Chatto and Windus.
TICKNOR, GEORGE. Life, Letters, and Journals. 2 vols. 8vo. London:
Sampson Low, Marston, Searle and Rivington.
1877. DOYLE, SIR FRANCIS H. Lectures on Poetry delivered at Oxford.
Second Series. Wordsworth Lectures, i.-iii. pp. 1-77. 8vo. London:
Smith, Elder and Co.
SHAIRP, J. C. On Poetic Interpretation of Nature. Wordsworth as an
Interpreter of Nature, pp. 225-270. 8vo. Edinburgh: David Douglas.
ADAMS (W. DAVENPORT). Dictionary of English Literature. Wordsworth, pp.
700-701. 8vo. London: Cassell, Petter, and Galpin.
1878. DOWDEN, E. Studies in Literature, 1789-1877. The Prose Works of
Wordsworth, pp. 122-158. 8vo. London: C. Kegan Paul and Co.
KNIGHT, WILLIAM. The English Lake District as Interpreted in the Poems
of Wordsworth. 12mo. Edinburgh: David Douglas. Second Edition, revised
and enlarged 1891.
ROSSETTI, W. M. Lives of Various Poets. Wordsworth, pp. 203-218. 8vo.
London: E. Moxon and Son.
The Treasury of Modern Biography. Edited by Robert Cochrane.
Wordsworth, pp. 98-116. 8vo. Edinburgh: W. P. Nimmo.
1879. BAGEHOT, WALTER. Literary Studies. Edited by Richard Holt Hutton.
Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning; or, Pure, Ornate, and Grotesque Art
in English Poetry, vol. ii. pp. 338-390. 8vo. London: Longmans, Green
and Co.
KNIGHT, WILLIAM. Studies in Philosophy and Literature. Wordsworth, pp.
283-317. Nature as Interpreted by Wordsworth, pp. 405-426. 8vo. London:
C. Kegan Paul and Co.
STEPHEN, LESLIE. Hours in a Library. Third Series. Wordsworth’s Ethics,
pp. 178-229. 8vo. London: Smith, Elder and Co.
1880. BAYNE, PETER. Two Great Englishwomen: Mrs. Browning and Charlotte
Brontë. With an Essay on Poetry, illustrated from Wordsworth, Burns,
and Byron, pp. xi.-lxxviii. 8vo. London: James Clarke and Co.
CHURCH, R. W. William Wordsworth. The English Poets. Edited by Thomas
Humphry Ward, vol. iv. pp. 1-15. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
MAIN, DAVID M. A Treasury of English Sonnets. Edited from the Original
Sources, with Notes and Illustrations, pp. 365-390. 8vo. Manchester:
Alexander Ireland and Co.
MYERS, F. W. H. Wordsworth (English Men of Letters). 8vo. Macmillan and
Co.
1881. CARLYLE, THOMAS. Reminiscences. Edited by James Anthony Froude.
Vol. ii. pp. 330-341. 8vo. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
DOWDEN, E. The Correspondence of Robert Southey with Caroline Bowles.
Edited, with an Introduction, by Edward Dowden. 8vo. Dublin: Hodges,
Figgis, and Co.
MILNER, GEORGE. The Literature and Scenery of the English Lake
District. Reprinted from the Papers of the Manchester Literary Club,
vol. vii. pp. 1-21. 8vo. Manchester.
SHAIRP, J. C. Aspects of Poetry, being Lectures delivered at Oxford.
The Three Yarrows, pp. 316-344. The White Doe of Rylstone, pp. 345-376.
8vo. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
SHORTHOUSE, J. H. On the Platonism of Wordsworth. A Paper read to the
Wordsworth Society, 19th July 1881. 4to. Birmingham: Cornish Brothers.
SYMINGTON, A. J. William Wordsworth: a Biographical Sketch, with
Selections from his Writings in Poetry and Prose. 2 vols. 8vo. London:
Blackie and Son.
1882. BUCKLAND, ANNA. The Story of English Literature. 8vo. London:
Cassell and Co.
COTTERILL, H. B. An Introduction to the Study of Poetry. Wordsworth,
pp. 208-241. 8vo. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.
OLIPHANT, MRS. The Literary History of England in the end of the
Eighteenth and beginning of the Nineteenth Century. 3 vols. 8vo.
London: Macmillan and Co.
SCHERER, J. A History of English Literature. Translated from the German
by M. V. 8vo. London: Sampson Low and Co.
SEELEY, J. R. Natural Religion. By the Author of _Ecce Homo_, pp.
94-111. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
IRELAND, ALEXANDER. Recollections of George Dawson, etc., pp. 22-25.
1883. CAINE, T. HALL. Cobwebs of Criticism. A Review of the First
Reviewers of the “Lake,” “Satanic,” and “Cockney” Schools. Wordsworth,
pp. 1-29. 8vo. London: Elliot Stock.
DENNIS, JOHN. Heroes of Literature: English Poets. William Wordsworth,
pp. 278-299. 8vo. London: S.P.C.K.
HALL, S. C. Retrospect of a Long Life: from 1815 to 1883. Wordsworth,
vol. ii. pp. 36-42. 8vo. London: Richard Bentley and Son.
HAWTHORNE, N. English Note-Books, vol. ii. 8vo. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench and Co.
The Lyme Parish Church Magazine. Lyme-Regis: Walton.
1884. HOFFMANN, F. A. Poetry, its Origin, Nature, and History.
Wordsworth, chap. xxvi. pp. 359-375. 8vo. London: Thurgate and Sons.
KERR, R. N. Our English Laureates and the Birds. Dundee: John Leng
and Co. Pp. 29-51. (Originally published in the _Newcastle Weekly
Chronicle_.)
NICHOLSON, ALBERT. The Literature of the English Lake District.
Manchester.
SHORTER, C. K. William Wordsworth. The National Cyclopædia: a
Dictionary of Universal Knowledge. New Edition. 8vo. London: W.
Mackenzie.
TRAILL, H. D. Coleridge. English Men of Letters. 8vo. London: Macmillan
and Co.
1885. COURTHOPE, W. J. The Liberal Movement in English Literature.
Essay III. Wordsworth’s Theory of Poetry, pp. 71-108. 8vo. London: John
Murray.
ELIOT, GEORGE. George Eliot’s Life, as related in her Letters and
Journals. By J. W. Cross. Vol. i. p. 61; iii. 388. 8vo. Edinburgh: W.
Blackwood and Sons.
HUTTON, LAWRENCE. Literary Landmarks, pp. 321-7. London: T. Fisher
Unwin.
CARNE, JOHN, Letters of, 1813-1837. Privately printed. Pp. 133-138.
TAYLOR, SIR HENRY. Autobiography 1800-1875. 2 vols. 8vo. London:
Longmans, Green and Co.
1886. DAWSON, GEORGE. Biographical Lectures. Edited by George St.
Clair. The Poetry of Wordsworth, pp. 251-307. 8vo. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench and Co.
LAW, DAVID. Wordsworth’s Country. A series of Five Etchings of the
English Lake District. 24mo. London: Robert Dunthorne.
LEE, EDMUND. Dorothy Wordsworth. The Story of a Sister’s Love. 8vo.
London: James Clarke and Co. New and revised edition 1894.
NICHOLSON, CORNELIUS. Wordsworth and Coleridge: Two Parallel Sketches.
Ventnor: R. Madley. 1886.
NOEL, HON. RODEN B. W. Essays on Poetry and Poets. Wordsworth, pp.
132-149. 8vo. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.
SWINBURNE, A. C. Miscellanies, Wordsworth and Byron, pp. 63-156. 8vo.
London. 1886.
LAUNCELOT CROSS (F. Carr). Thinkers of the World in relation to the
New Church. 1. Childhood as revealed in Wordsworth; 2. Wordsworth on
Infancy and Youth. N.D.
1887. DE VERE, AUBREY. Essays, chiefly on Poetry. The Genius and
Passion of Wordsworth, vol. i. pp. 101-173; The Wisdom and Truth of
Wordsworth’s Poetry, vol. i. pp. 174-264; Recollections of Wordsworth,
vol. ii. pp. 275-295. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
GOODWIN, H., and WILLIAM KNIGHT. Through the Wordsworth Country. 8vo.
London: Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey and Co. Third Edition, 1892.
LOWELL, J. RUSSELL. Democracy and other Addresses, pp. 137-156. 8vo.
London: Macmillan and Co.
Memorials of Coleorton: being Letters from Coleridge, Wordsworth and
his Sister, Southey, and Sir Walter Scott, to Sir George and Lady
Beaumont of Coleorton, Leicestershire, 1803 to 1834. Edited, with
Introduction and Notes, by William Knight. 2 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh:
David Douglas.
SUTHERLAND, J. M. William Wordsworth: the Story of his Life, with
Critical Remarks on his Writings. 8vo. London: Elliot Stock.
1888. ARNOLD, MATTHEW. Essays in Criticism. Second Series. Wordsworth,
pp. 122-162. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
CHURCH, R. W. Dante and other Essays. William Wordsworth, pp. 193-219.
8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
DOWDEN, E. Transcripts and Studies. The Text of Wordsworth’s Poems, pp.
112-152. 8vo. London: Kegan Paul, Trench and Co. Reprinted from _The
Contemporary Review_.
INGLEBY, C. M. Essays. Edited by his Son. 8vo. Trübner and Co.
MINTO, W. William Wordsworth. The _Encyclopædia Britannica_, Ninth
Edition, xxiv. pp. 668-676. 4to. Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black.
SANDFORD, MRS. HENRY. Thomas Poole and his Friends. 2 vols. 8vo.
London: Macmillan and Co.
1889. CLAYDEN, P. W. Rogers and his Contemporaries. 2 vols. 8vo.
London: Smith, Elder and Co.
HOWITT, MARY. Autobiography. Edited by her daughter Margaret Howitt. 2
vols. 8vo. London: William Isbister.
Letters from the Lake Poets, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William
Wordsworth, Robert Southey, to Daniel Stuart. Printed for Private
Circulation. Wordsworth, pp. 329-386. 8vo. London: West, Newman and Co.
PATER, WALTER. Appreciations. With an Essay on Style. 8vo. London:
Macmillan and Co.
WORDSWORTHIANA. A Selection from Papers read to the Wordsworth Society.
Edited by William Knight. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
1890. BOLAND, R. Yarrow, its Poets and Poetry, pp. 77-9. Dalbeattie.
BROOKE, STOPFORD A. Dove Cottage, Wordsworth’s Home from 1800-1808.
December 21, 1799, to May 1808. 12mo. London: Macmillan and Co.
DAVEY, SIR HORACE. Wordsworth. An Address read to the Stockton Literary
and Philosophical Society. 8vo. Stockton-on-Tees. 1890.
DAWSON, W. J. Makers of Modern English. Ch. x. William Wordsworth; ch.
xi. The Connection between Wordsworth’s Life and Poetry; ch. xii. Some
Characteristics of Wordsworth’s Poetry; ch. xiii. Wordsworth’s View of
Nature and Man; ch. xiv. Wordsworth’s Patriotic and Political Poems;
ch. xv. Wordsworth’s Personal Characteristics; ch. xvi. Concluding
Survey.
MALLESON, F. A. Holiday Studies of Wordsworth, by Rivers, Woods, and
Alps. The Wharfe, the Duddon, and the Stelvio Pass. 4to. Cassell and Co.
M’WILLIAMS, R. Handbook of English Literature, pp. 456-466. London:
Longmans, Green and Co.
TUTIN, J. R. Birthday Texts. W. P. Nimmo.
1891. DE QUINCEY, THOMAS. De Quincey Memorials. Being Letters and
Records here first published.… Edited, with Introduction, Notes,
and Narrative, by Alexander H. Japp. 2 vols. 8vo. London: William
Heinemann.
GOSSE, E. Gossip in a Library. _Peter Bell_ and his Tormentors, pp.
253-267. 8vo. London: W. Heinemann. Third Edition, 1893.
GRAHAM, P. A. Nature in Books: some Studies in Biography. 8vo. London:
Methuen and Co.
MORLEY, JOHN. Studies in Literature. Wordsworth, pp. 1-53. 8vo. London:
Macmillan and Co.
SCHERER, EDMOND. Essays on English Literature, translated by George
Saintsbury, with a Critical Introduction. 8vo. London: Sampson Low,
Marston and Co.
TUTIN, J. R. The Wordsworth Dictionary of Persons and Places, with
the Familiar Quotations from his Works (including full Index) and a
chronologically-arranged List of his best Poems. 8vo. Hull: J. R. Tutin.
WORDSWORTH, ELIZABETH. William Wordsworth. 8vo. London: Percival and Co.
1892. CAIRD, EDWARD. Essays on Literature and Philosophy. Wordsworth,
vol. i. pp. 147-189. 8vo. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons.
DAWSON, W. J. Quest and Vision: essays in Life and Literature.
Wordsworth and his Message, pp. 41-72. 8vo. London: Hodder and
Stoughton.
TUTIN, J. R. An Index to the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms of
Wordsworth. Hull.
TUTIN, J. R. Wordsworth in Yorkshire. First published in _Yorkshire
Notes and Queries_. Part xix.
WINTRINGHAM, W. H. The Birds of Wordsworth: Poetically, Mythologically,
and Comparatively examined. 8vo. London: Hutchinson and Co.
1894. CAMPBELL, J. DYKES. Samuel Taylor Coleridge. A Narrative of the
Events of his Life. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
MINTO, W. The Literature of the Georgian Era. Edited, with a
Biographical Introduction, by William Knight, LL.D., pp. 140-177. 8vo.
Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons.
RAWNSLEY, H. D. Literary Associations of the English Lakes. 2 vols.
8vo. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons.
1895. COLERIDGE, S. T. Letters. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. 2
vols. 8vo. London: William Heinemann.
In Lakeland, a Wordsworthic Pilgrimage, Easter 1895.
1896. SAINTSBURY, GEORGE. A History of Nineteenth Century Literature
(1780-1895). Wordsworth, pp. 49-56. 8vo. London: Macmillan and Co.
A REMINISCENCE OF WORDSWORTH DAY. Cockermouth, April 7, 1896. Edited by
the Rev. H. D. Rawnsley, Hon. Canon of Carlisle. Cockermouth: A. Lang.
[476] There are numerous notes and letters on Wordsworth in such
Journals as _The Athenæum_, _The Academy_, _Notes and Queries_, the
examination of which will repay perusal. In _Notes and Queries_ there
are at least twenty-four valuable ones which cannot be recorded
here.--ED.
[477] A criticism of the “dancing daffodils.”--ED.
IV
CRITICAL ESTIMATES IN BOOKS, PAMPHLETS, MAGAZINES, AND REVIEWS
In the following section when the name of an author is placed within
brackets, it is to be understood that the name was not given on the
publication of the Review, but that it is otherwise known.--ED.
1793. “Descriptive Sketches in Verse.” _The Monthly Review_, xii. 216.
“An Evening Walk.” _The Monthly Review_, xii. 218.
1799. “Lyrical Ballads, with a few other Poems.” _The Monthly Review_,
xxix. 202; _The British Critic_, xiv. 364.
1801. “Lyrical Ballads, with other Poems.” In 2 vols. Second Edition.
_The British Critic_, xvii. 125.
1802. “Lyrical Ballads, with other Poems.” Vol. ii. _The Monthly
Review_, xxxviii. 209.
1807. “Poems.” In 2 vols. _The Edinburgh Review_, xi. 214. By Francis
Jeffrey. _Monthly Literary Recreations_, 65. (By Lord Byron.)
1808. “Poems.” In 2 vols. _The Eclectic Review_, vii. 35.
1809. “Poems.” In 2 vols. _The British Critic_, xxxiii. 298.
1810. “Concerning the relations of Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal,
to each other, and to the Common Enemy, at this Crisis, etc.” _The
British Critic_, xxxiv. 305.
1814. “The Excursion; being a portion of The Recluse, a Poem.” _The
Edinburgh Review_, xxiv. 1. (By Francis Jeffrey); _The Quarterly
Review_, xii. 100. (By Charles Lamb.)
1815. “Poems; including Lyrical Ballads, and the miscellaneous
pieces of the Author. With additional Poems, a new Preface, and
a supplementary Essay.” _The Monthly Review_, lxxviii. 225; _The
Quarterly Review_, xiv. 201. (By W. Gifford.)
“The Excursion; being a portion of The Recluse: a Poem.” _The Eclectic
Review_, xxi. 13; _The Monthly Review_, lxxvi. 123; _The British
Critic_, iii. 449.
“The Excursion: being a portion of The Recluse: a Poem.” _The British
Review_, vi. 49.
“The White Doe of Rylstone.” _The Quarterly Review_, xiv. 201. (By W.
Gifford.) _The Edinburgh Review_, xxv. 355. (By Francis Jeffrey.) _The
Monthly Review_, lxxviii. 235.
1816. “The White Doe of Rylstone.” _The Eclectic Review_, xxiii. 33.
“Thanksgiving Ode, with other short Pieces.” _The Eclectic Review_,
xxiv. 1.
“The White Doe of Rylstone.” _The British Review_, vii. 370.
1817. “Thanksgiving Ode, with other short Pieces.” _The Monthly
Review_, lxxxii. 98.
“Observations on Mr. Wordsworth’s Letter relative to a new Edition of
Burns’s Works.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, i. 261.
“Vindication of Mr. Wordsworth’s Letter to Mr. Gray on a new Edition of
Burns.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, ii. 65.
“Letter occasioned by N.’s Vindication of Mr. Wordsworth in last
Number.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, ii. 201.
1818. “Essays on the Lake School of Poetry. I. Wordsworth’s White Doe
of Rylstone.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, iii. 369.
1819. “Peter Bell: a Tale in Verse.” _The Edinburgh Monthly Review_,
ii. 654; _Blackwood’s Magazine_, v. 130; _The Eclectic Review_, xxx.
62; _The Monthly Review_, lxxxix. 419; _The Literary Gazette_, 273.
“The Waggoner: a Poem, to which are added Sonnets.” _The Monthly
Review_, xc. 36; _The Edinburgh Monthly Review_, ii. 654; _Blackwood’s
Magazine_, v. 332; _The Eclectic Review_, xxx. 62.
“Benjamin the Waggoner, a ryghte merrie and conceitede Tale in Verse.”
_The Monthly Review_, xc. 41.
“Peter Bell: a Lyrical Ballad.” _The Monthly Review_, lxxxix. 422; _The
Eclectic Review_, xxix. 473.
“Memoir of William Wordsworth, Esq.” (with a portrait). _The New
Monthly Magazine_, i. 48.
1820. “Lake School of Poetry--Mr. Wordsworth.” _The New Monthly
Magazine_, xiv. 361.
“Wordsworth.” _The London Magazine_, i. 275, 435.
“Wordsworth’s River Duddon, and other Poems.” _The Gentleman’s
Magazine_, xc. 344; _The London Magazine_, i. 618; _The London Review
and Literary Journal_, 523; _Blackwood’s Magazine_, vii. 206; _The
Eclectic Review_, xxxii. 170; _The Monthly Review_, xciii. 132.
“The River Duddon, and other Poems.” _The British Review_, xvi. 37.
“Essay on Poetry, with Observations on the Living Poets.” _The London
Magazine_, ii. 557.
“The Dead Asses: A Lyrical Ballad.” _The Monthly Review_, xci. 322.
“Description of the Scenery of the Lakes.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, xii.
1822. “Memorials of a Tour on the Continent.” _The British Critic_,
xviii. 522; _The Edinburgh Review_, xxxvii. 449. (By F. Jeffrey.)
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, xii. 175; _The British Review_, xx. 459; _The
Literary Gazette_, 192, 210; _The Museum_, i. 339.
“Ecclesiastical Sketches.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, xii. 175; _The
British Critic_, xviii. 522; _The Literary Gazette_, 123.
1829. “An Essay on the Theory and the Writings of Wordsworth.”
_Blackwood’s Magazine_, xxvi. 453, 593, 774, 894.
1831. “Literary Characters--No. III. Mr. Wordsworth.” _Fraser’s
Magazine_, iii. 557. By Pierce Pungent.
“Selections from the Poems of W. Wordsworth, chiefly for the use of
Schools and Young Persons.” _The New Monthly Magazine_, xxxiii. 304;
_The Monthly Review_, ii. 602.
1832. “Gallery of Literary Characters--No. XXIX. William Wordsworth.”
_Frasers Magazine_, vi. 313.
“Poetical Works.” New Edition. _Fraser’s Magazine_, vi. 607.
1833. “What is Poetry? The two kinds of Poetry.” _The Monthly
Repository_, New Series, vii. 60, 714. By Antiquus (John Stuart Mill).
1834. “The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth.” A New Edition. _The
Quarterly Review_, lii. 317. (By Henry Taylor.)
“Selections from the Poems of William Wordsworth.” _The Quarterly
Review_, lii. 317. (By Henry Taylor.)
1835. “Yarrow Revisited, and other Poems.” _The New Monthly Magazine_,
xliv. 12; _Blackwood’s Magazine_, xxxvii. 699; _Fraser’s Magazine_,
xi. 689; _The Quarterly Review_, liv. 181; _The Dublin University
Magazine_, v. 680; _The Monthly Literary Gazette_, 257; _The Athenæum_,
293; _The Monthly Review_, cxxxvii. 605; _The Monthly Repository_, New
Series, ix. 430.
1838. “Letter from Tomkins--Bagman _versus_ Pedlar.” _Blackwood’s
Magazine_, xliv. 509.
“Our Pocket Companions.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, xliv. 584.
“The Sonnets of William Wordsworth.” _The Literary Gazette_, 540.
1839. “Lake Reminiscences, from 1807 to 1830--Nos. I.-III. William
Wordsworth; No. IV. William Wordsworth and Robert Southey.” _Taits
Edinburgh Magazine_, vi. I, 90, 246, 453. (By Thomas de Quincey.)
1841. “Wordsworth.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, xlix. 359.
“The Sonnets of William Wordsworth.” _The Quarterly Review_, lxix. 1.
(By Henry Taylor.)
1842. “Poems, chiefly of Early and Late Years; including The
Borderers.” _The Monthly Review_, ii. 270; _The Eclectic Review_,
lxxvi. 568; _The Christian Remembrancer_, iii. 655; _The Athenæum_, 757.
Criticism in a Review of “The Book of the Poets” in _The Athenæum_. (By
Elizabeth Barrett Browning.)
“Poems of the Fancy,” “Poems of the Imagination.” _The Gentleman’s
Magazine_, xvii. 3.
“Imaginary Conversation. Southey and Porson.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_,
lii. 687. (By Walter Savage Landor.)
1844. “Oswald Herbst’s Letters from England--No. II. Wordsworth and his
Poetry.” _Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine_, xi. 641.
1845. “On Wordsworth’s Poetry.” _Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine_, xii. 545.
(By Thomas de Quincey.)
“Poems, chiefly of Early and Late Years; including The Borderers.” _The
Gentleman’s Magazine_, xxiv. 555.
“William Wordsworth.” _Hogg’s Weekly Instructor_, ii. 243.
1850. “William Wordsworth.” _Chambers’s Papers for the People_, v. I.
“William Wordsworth.” _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, New Series, xxxiii.
668; _The Athenæum_, 447; _Sharpe’s London Magazine_, xi. 349.
“Poetical Works.” _The Eclectic Review_, xcii. 56; _The North British
Review_, xiii. 473. (By David Masson.)
“The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet’s Mind.” _The Eclectic Review_,
xcii. 550; _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, xxxiv. 459; _Fraser’s Magazine_,
xlii. 119; _The Westminster Review_, liv. 271; _The British Quarterly
Review_, xii. 549; _Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine_, xvii. 521; _The Dublin
University Magazine_, xxxvi. 329; _The Literary Gazette_, 513; _The
Athenæum_, 805; _Sharpe’s London Journal_, xii. 185; _The London
Examiner_, 478.
“William Wordsworth.” _Household Words_, i. 210.
“Wordsworth and his Poetry.” _Chambers’s Journal_, xiii. 363. By C. R.
“Poetical Works.” _The Christian Observer_, i. 307.
“Religious Character of Wordsworth’s Poetry.” _The Christian Observer_,
i. 381.
“Death of Wordsworth.” _The London Examiner_, 259, 265.
“The Poetry of Wordsworth.” _The Wesleyan Methodist Magazine_, 27.
1851. “Memoirs of William Wordsworth.” _Fraser’s Magazine_, xliv.
101, 186; _The Dublin University Magazine_, xxxviii. 77; _The Dublin
Review_, xxxi. 313; _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, New Series, xxxvi. 107;
_The Athenæum_, 445.
“Poetical Works.” _The Dublin Review_, xxxi. 313.
“The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet’s Mind.” _The Prospective Review_,
vii. 94.
1852. “Memoirs of William Wordsworth.” By Christopher Wordsworth. _The
Quarterly Review_, xcii. 182.
“Memoirs of William Wordsworth, compiled from Authentic Sources.” By
January Searle. _The Quarterly Review_, xcii. 182.
“Lives of the Illustrious. William Wordsworth.” _The Biographical
Magazine_, I.
1853. “William Wordsworth.” _Sharpe’s London Journal_, xvii. 148.
“The Genius of Wordsworth harmonised with the Wisdom and Integrity of
his Reviewers.” By J. C. Wright. _The Athenæum_, 824.
1855. “William Wordsworth.” _The Leisure Hour_, iv. 439.
1856. “Poems of William Wordsworth, D.C.L.” _The Dublin Review_, xl.
338.
“William Wordsworth.” _Sharpe’s London Journal_, xi. 349.
1857. “William Wordsworth. A Biography.” By Edwin Paxton Hood. _The
National Review_, iv. 1.
“The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth.” A New Edition. _The
Athenæum_, 109.
“The Earlier Poems of William Wordsworth.” Edited by William Johnston.
_The Athenæum_, 109.
“Wordsworth’s Sister.” By E. P. Hood. _The Leisure Hour_.
1859. “Passages from Wordsworth’s Excursion.” Illustrated with Etchings
on Steel. By Agnes Fraser. _The Athenæum_, i, 361.
“William Wordsworth. A Biography.” By Edwin Paxton Hood. _The Christian
Observer_, lix. 156.
“A Talk about Rydal Mount.” _Once a Week_, i. 107. (By Thomas
Blackburne.)
1860. “Collected Works of William Wordsworth.” A New and Revised
Edition. _The British Quarterly Review_, xxxi. 79.
“The Prelude, or Growth of a Poet’s Mind.” _The British Quarterly
Review_, xxxi. 79.
“Richard Baxter paraphrased by Wordsworth.” Varieties in _The Leisure
Hour_.
1863. “The Poems of Hood and of Wordsworth.” _The Christian Observer_,
lxiii. 677.
“William Wordsworth.” _The Leisure Hour_, xii. 628.
1864. “Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning; or, Pure, Ornate, and
Grotesque Art in English Poetry.” _The National Review_, xix. 27. W. B.
(Walter Bagehot.)
“Wordsworth: the Man and the Poet.” _The North British Review_, xli. 1.
(By J. C. Shairp.)
1865. “Two Poets of England. Wordsworth and Landor.” _Temple Bar_, xvi.
106.
“Wordsworth at Rydal Mount in 1849.” In _The Leisure Hour_.
1866. “Memories of the Authors of the Age.” William Wordsworth. _The
Art Journal_, xviii. 245, 273. S. C. Hall and Mrs. S. C. Hall.
1868. “Characteristic Letters”; communicated by the author of Men I
have Known--W. Wordsworth.
1870. “Wordsworth at Work.” _Chambers’s Journal_, xlvii. 247.
“Personal Recollections of the Lake Poets.” In _The Leisure Hour_, 651.
The Rev. Edward Whately.
“Wordsworth’s Study,” in _The Leisure Hour_.
1871. “A Century of Great Poets, from 1750 downwards--No. III. William
Wordsworth.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_, cx. 299.
1872. “Wordsworth impartially weighed.” _Temple Bar_, xxxiv. 310.
1873. “Wordsworth.” _Macmillan’s Magazine_, xxviii. 289. Sir John Duke
Coleridge.
“Wordsworth’s Three Yarrows.” _Good Words_, xiv. 649. J. C. Shairp.
1874. “On Wordsworth.” _The Fortnightly Review_, xxi. 455. Walter H.
Pater.
“William and Dorothy Wordsworth.” _Chambers’s Journal_, li. 513.
William Chambers.
“White Doe of Rylstone.” _Good Words_, xv. 269. J. C. Shairp.
“The Cycle of English Song.” _Temple Bar_, xl. 478.
1875. “The Prose Works of William Wordsworth.” Edited by the Rev. A.
B. Grosart. _The Fortnightly Review_, xxiv. 449. Edward Dowden. _The
Dublin University Magazine_, lxxxvi. 756.
1876. “Hours in a Library.” Wordsworth’s Ethics. _The Cornhill
Magazine_, xxxiv. 206. Leslie Stephen.
“The Prose Works of William Wordsworth.” Wordsworth and Gray. _The
Quarterly Review_, cxli. 104.
“The Prose Works of William Wordsworth.” Edited by the Rev. A. B.
Grosart. _The London Quarterly Review_, xlvii. 102.
1877. “The Wordsworths at Brinsop Court.” _Temple Bar_, xlix. 110.
1878. “The Text of Wordsworth’s Poems.” _The Contemporary Review_,
xxxiii. 734. Edward Dowden.
“Wordsworth.” _Transactions of the Cumberland Association for the
Advancement of Literature and Science_, Part III. William Knight.
1879. “Wordsworth.” _Macmillan’s Magazine_, xl. 193. Matthew Arnold.
“Matthew Arnold’s Selections from Wordsworth.” _The Fortnightly
Review_, xxxii. 686. J. A. Symonds.
1880. “Milton and Wordsworth.” _Temple Bar_, lx. 106.
“Wordsworth.” _Frasers Magazine_, ci. 205. Edward Caird.
“Wordsworth’s Poems.” Selected and edited by Matthew Arnold. _The
Modern Review_, i, 235. William Knight.
“The Genius and Passion of Wordsworth.” _The Month_, xxxviii. 465;
xxxix. 1. Aubrey De Vere.
1881. “Carlyle’s Reminiscences.” Carlyle’s Impressions of Wordsworth.
_The Nineteenth Century_, lx. 1010. Henry Taylor.
“Wordsworth.” _The Churchman_, March.
1882. “Wordsworth and Byron.” _The Quarterly Review_, cliv. 53. Matthew
Arnold.
“My Rare Book.” _The Gentleman’s Magazine_, New Series, xxviii. 531.
Frederick Wedmore.
“Wordsworth’s Two Styles.” _The Modern Review_, iii. 525. R. H. Hutton.
“A French Critic on Wordsworth--M. Schérer.” _The Saturday Review_,
liv. 565.
“Poetical Works.” Edited by William Knight. _The Academy_, xxii. III.
Edward Dowden. _The Spectator_, lv. 1141; _The Modern Review_, iii,
861.
“Transactions of the Wordsworth Society--No. I. Bibliography of the
Poems; No. II. On the Platonism of Wordsworth.” J. H. Shorthouse. _The
Spectator_, lv. 238.
“The Weak Side of Wordsworth.” _The Spectator_, lv. 687.
1883. “Wordsworth and the Duddon.” _Good Words_, xxiv. 573. F. A.
Malleson.
“Address to the Wordsworth Society.” _Macmillan’s Magazine_, xlviii.
154. Matthew Arnold.
“Poetical Works.” Edited by William Knight. _The Spectator_, lvi. 614.
“In Wordsworth’s Country.” _The Yorkshire Illustrated Monthly_, 32. N.
Paton.
“Poets’ Pictures.” _Temple Bar_, lxxx. 232.
“Old Age in Bath, to which are added a few unpublished remains of
Wordsworth.” Henry Julian Hunter.
1884. “Wordsworth and Byron.” _The Nineteenth Century_, xv. 583, 764.
A. C. Swinburne.
“The Wisdom and Truth of Wordsworth’s Poetry.” _The Catholic World_.
Aubrey de Vere.
“Wordsworth and ‘Natural Religion.’” _Good Words_, xxv. 307. J. C.
Shairp.
“Wordsworth’s Relations to Science.” _Macmillan’s Magazine_, l. 202. R.
Spence Watson.
“Sonnets.” Edited by the Archbishop of Dublin. _The Academy_, xxv. 108.
Samuel Waddington.
“The Literature of the English Lake District.” _The Manchester
Quarterly_, No. xii. Albert Nicholson.
“A Stroll up the Brathay.” _Good Words_, xxv. 392. Herbert Rix.
“The Liberal Movement in English Literature--III. Wordsworth’s Theory
of Poetry.” _The National Review_, iv. 512. William John Courthope.
1885. “Wordsworth’s Influence in Scotland.” _The Spectator_, lviii.
1292.
“Dorothy Wordsworth.” _The Christian World Magazine_, 314, 360, 464,
548.
“Archbishop Sandys’ Endowed School, Hawkshead, near Ambleside.
Tercentenary Commemoration.”
1886. “Wordsworth.” _Temple Bar_, lxxvii. 336. Charles F. Johnson.
“Poetical Works.” Edited by William Knight. _The Spectator_, lix. 355.
1887. “Memorials of Coleorton.” Edited by William Knight. _The
Spectator_, lx. 1656.
“Wordsworth, the Poet of Nature.” _The Sunday Magazine_, xvi. 166.
Henry C. Ewart.
“The Mystical Side of Wordsworth.” _The National Review_, ix. 833. John
Hogben.
1888. “Mr. Morley on Wordsworth.” _The Spectator_, lxi. 1807.
“The Recluse.” _The Spectator_, lxi. 1852.
“Selections from Wordsworth.” By William Knight, and other Members of
the Wordsworth Society. _The Spectator_, lxi. 1852.
1889. “Selections from Wordsworth.” By William Knight, and other
Members of the Wordsworth Society. _The Athenæum_, i. 109.
“A Modern Poetic Seer.” _The Christian World._
“The Recluse.” _The Edinburgh Review_, clxix. 415. _The Academy_, xxxv.
17. Edward Dowden. _The Saturday Review_, lxvii. 43; _The Athenæum_, i.
109.
“Complete Poetical Works.” With an Introduction by John Morley. _The
Edinburgh Review_, clxix. 415. _The Academy_, xxxv. 17. Edward Dowden.
_The Athenæum_, i. 109.
“Wordsworthiana.” Edited by William Knight. _The Edinburgh Review_,
clxix. 415; _The Academy_, xxxv. 229. Edward Dowden. _The Spectator_,
lxii. 369.
“Wordsworth’s Great Failure.” _The Nineteenth Century_, xxvi. 435.
William Minto.
“The Life of William Wordsworth.” By William Knight. _The Saturday
Review_, lxvii. 732; _The Spectator_, lxiii. 143; _The Athenæum_, i.
719.
“Wordsworth and the Quantock Hills.” _The National Review_, xiv. 67.
William Greswell.
1890. “Lyrical Ballads.” Edited by Edward Dowden. _The Spectator_,
lxiv. 479.
“The Story of a Sonnet.” _The Athenæum_, i. 641. James Bromley.
“Some Early Poems of Wordsworth.” _The Athenæum_, ii. 320. J. D. C.
(James Dykes Campbell).
“The Lyrical Ballads of 1800.” _The Athenæum_, ii. 699. J. D. C.
“Wordsworth’s Verses in his Guide to the Lake Country.” _The Athenæum._
J. D. C.
1891. “Wordsworth’s ‘Immortal’ Ode.” _The Parent’s Review_, i. 864,
944; ii. 70.
“The Wordsworth Dictionary of Persons and Places,” with the Familiar
Quotations from his Works. (By J. R. Tutin.) _The Athenæum_, ii. 756,
834.
“The College Days of William Wordsworth.” _The Eagle_, xvi., No. 94. G.
C. M. Smith.
“William Wordsworth.” By Elizabeth Wordsworth. _The Athenæum_, ii. 516.
1892. “The Yarrow of Wordsworth and Scott.” _Blackwood’s Magazine_,
cli. 638. John Veitch.
“The last Decade of the last Century.” _The Contemporary Review_, lxii.
422. J.W. Hales.
“The Influence of Burns on Wordsworth.” _The Manchester Quarterly_, xi.
285. George Milner.
“Wordsworth on Old Age.” _Literary Opinion_, vii. 186, Sir Edward
Strachey.
“The Birds of Wordsworth, practically, mythologically, and
comparatively examined.” By William H. Wintringham. _The Athenæum_, i.
594, 634, 666, 697.
“Dove Cottage,” in _The Athenæum_, i. 727.
“The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth.” Edited by Edward Dowden.
_The Athenæum._ No. 3404.
1893. “Some Unpublished Letters of William Wordsworth.” _The Cornhill
Magazine_, New Series, xx. 257.
“Reminiscences of Scott, Campbell, Jeffrey, and Wordsworth.” _The
Bookman_, iv. 47.
“Our Poet’s Corner.” _The Girls’ Own Paper_, xiv. 772.
“Dove Cottage, Grasmere--Wordsworth’s Home.” _The Girls’ Own Paper_,
xiv. 772. Milward Wood.
“Down the Duddon with Wordsworth.” _The Leisure Hour_, xlii. 532.
Herbert Rix.
“Wordsworth’s ‘Grace Darling.’” _The Athenæum_, No. 3440. Edward Dowden.
“Note by Wordsworth.” _The Athenæum_, No. 3443. E. H. C. (Ernest H.
Coleridge).
“Wordsworth and the _Morning Post_.” _The Athenæum_, No. 3445. E. H. C.
1894. “Wordsworth’s ‘Castle of Indolence’ Stanzas.” _The Fortnightly
Review_, lxii. 685. T. Hutchinson.
“A Century of Wordsworth.” _The Sunday at Home_, 641, 646. By E. S.
Capper.
1895. “The Charm of Wordsworth.” _Great Thoughts_, iv. 399.
“Wordsworth and Carlyle: a Literary Parallel.” _Temple Bar_, cv. 261.
“Dorothy Wordsworth, 1771-1855.” _Great Thoughts_, v. 56. Alexander
Small.
1896. “Wordsworth’s Quantock Poems.” _Temple Bar_, April 1896. William
Greswell.
V
PARODIES ON WORDSWORTH
THE BATTERED TAR; OR, THE WAGGONER’S COMPANION. A Poem, with Sonnets,
etc. J. Johnston.
1839. PETER BELL THE THIRD. By Miching Mallecho, Esq. (Percy B.
Shelley).
1876. LITERARY REMAINS. By Catherine Maria Fanshawe. B. M. Pickering.
London.
1888. THE POETS AT TEA. _The Cambridge Fortnightly_ (Feb. 7).
1819. THE DEAD ASSES. A Lyrical Ballad.
1819. PETER BELL. a Lyrical Ballad. By John Hamilton Reynolds. London:
Taylor and Hessey.
1816. THE POETIC MIRROR; OR, THE LIVING BARDS OF BRITAIN, pp. 131-187.
(By James Hogg.)
The Stranger; being a further portion of “The Recluse,” a poem.
The Flying Taylor; further extract from “The Recluse,” a poem.
James Rigg; still further extract from “The Recluse,” a poem. 12mo.
London: Longmans. Second Edition. 1817.
1888. HAMILTON, WALTER. Parodies of the Works of English and American
Authors, collected and annotated by Walter Hamilton. _William
Wordsworth_, pp. 88-106. 8vo. London: Reeves and Turner.
VI
POEMS ADDRESSED TO WORDSWORTH, AND ALLUSIONS TO HIM BY CONTEMPORARY AND
SUBSEQUENT POETS
1. COLERIDGE, S. T. _To William Wordsworth, composed on the night
after his recitation of a poem on the growth of an individual mind._
Published in “Sibylline Leaves.”
2. COLERIDGE, HARTLEY. _To William Wordsworth, on his seventy-fifth
Birthday._
3. WILSON, JOHN. In “The Angler’s Tent,” p. 257 of the edition of 1858.
4. KEATS, JOHN. In his Sonnets [the 2nd addressed to Haydon].
5. SHELLEY, PERCY B. _To Wordsworth._ Another reference occurs in
_Alastor_.
6. MOIR, D. M. _To Wordsworth._ In _Blackwood’s Magazine_, viii. 542;
afterwards included amongst his “Poems,” vol. ii. p. 28. 1852.
7, 8. BROWNING, MRS. _On a Portrait of Wordsworth by B. R. Haydon._
(Sonnets.) 1866. Vol. ii. p. 264. Also in _Lady Geraldine’s Courtship_,
vol. ii. p. 109. 1866.
9. ELLIOTT, EBENEZER. In _The Village Patriarch_. Book iv. 1840.
10. TENNYSON, ALFRED LORD. In the Dedication of his _Poems_ “To the
Queen.” March 1851.
11, 12. ALFORD, HENRY. In _The School of the Heart_, pp. 66, 67; and
_Recollections of Wordsworth’s_ “_Ruth_,” p. 163. 1868.
13. LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL. In _A Fable for Critics_, p. 133. 1873.
14, 15. BYRON, LORD. In _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. Also in
_Don Juan_.
16. HUNT, LEIGH. In _The Feast of the Poets_. This first appeared in
_The Reflector_, which survived from 1810 to 1812.
17. HEMANS, MRS. _To Wordsworth_, in her “Miscellaneous Poems.”
18. Scenes and Hymns of Life. Dedicated to Wordsworth. p. 568. N. D.
19. HALLAM, A. H. _Meditative Fragments._ No. vi. 1863.
20, 21, 22. ARNOLD, MATTHEW. _Memorial Verses._ April 1850. Also in
_Youth and Nature_, and in _Obermann Once More_. p. 203. 1869.
23, 24, 25. DE VERE, SIR AUBREY. _In Rydal with Wordsworth_ (Sonnets).
p. 208. 1842. _Wordsworth._ Composed at Rydal, 1st Sept. 1860. p. 392.
_Wordsworth, on Visiting the Duddon_, p. 393.
26. TOLLEMACHE, The Hon. BEATRIX L. _Wordsworth_, in “Safe Studies,” p.
409. 1884.
27. TOLLEMACHE, The Hon. BEATRIX L. _To Wordsworth_, in “Engleberg, and
other Verses.” 1890.
28. BELL, GEORGE. _Rydal Mount_, in “Descriptive and other
Miscellaneous Pieces in Verse.” Penrith, 1835.
29. HOUGHTON, LORD. Sonnet beginning “The hour may come,” etc. Poetical
Works, vol. i. p. 267. 1876.
30. WORSLEY, P. S. Stanzas to Wordsworth, in _Blackwood’s Magazine_,
xcii. pp. 92-93.
31. AUSTIN, ALFRED. _Wordsworth at Dove Cottage._ 1890.
32, 33. SCOTT, W. B. Poems (three Sonnets), pp. 180-182. 1875. Also in
“A Poet’s Harvest Home,” 1893. _Wordsworth_, p. 123.
34, 35, 36. RAWNSLEY, H. D. In “Sonnets at the English Lakes.” IX.
_Wordsworth’s Seat, Rydal_; LI. _A Tree planted by William Wordsworth
at Wray Castle_; LXII. _Wordsworth’s Tomb._
37. PAYNE, JAMES. _Wordsworth’s Grave_, in “Lakes in Sunshine.” 1870.
38. LANDOR, L. E. _On Wordsworth’s Cottage, near Grasmere Lake_, in her
“Poetical Works,” pp. 551-4. 1873.
39. ALLINGHAM, WILLIAM. _On reading of the Funeral of the Poet
Wordsworth_, p. 258 of “Poems.” 1850.
40. PALGRAVE, FRANCIS TURNER. _William Wordsworth_, in his “Lyrical
Poems.” 1871.
41. ANDERSON, G. F. R. _Wordsworth_, in “The White Book of the Muses,”
p. 67. 1895.
42. DAWSON, JAMES, jun. _Wordsworth and Hartley Coleridge: in Grasmere
Churchyard, Westmoreland._ In _Macmillan’s Magazine_, xiii. 26.
43. WATSON, WILLIAM. _Wordsworth’s Grave._ Originally published in
the _National Review_, x. 40; afterwards included in the volume,
“Wordsworth’s Grave, and other Poems.” 1890.
44. MATSURA (a Japanese poet). _Moonlight on Windermere_, translated by
H. D. Rawnsley in _Murray’s Magazine_, Oct. 1887.
II.--_AMERICA_
BIBLIOGRAPHY of the Various Editions of WORDSWORTH’S POETICAL WORKS,
which have been printed and published in the United States of America,
from 1801 to 1895, arranged in Chronological Order: also a BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF CRITICAL ESSAYS, and BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, of Wordsworth’s Life and
Works in Books, Reviews, and Periodicals; with Notes, by Mrs. HENRY A.
ST. JOHN, Ithaca, New York.
PREFATORY NOTE
My ideal in attempting to prepare a _Bibliography of Wordsworth in
America_ was high. I hoped to see each edition, or at least to identify
the editions hinted at in the various catalogues. I determined to
read every article, in criticism, or review; and to know if the many
references, given by Poole and other authorities, were correct. As
is usually the case, the reality has fallen far short of the ideal.
But, while the results are not what were desired, there have been many
fortunate discoveries.
Two things were learned to begin with. First, that astonishingly little
care had been taken to preserve the history of the early American
Editions, or to preserve, even, the earlier American Periodicals.
Most of our larger libraries are amazingly deficient in these works.
Second, it was found that existing Catalogues or Lists are not only
far from complete, but full of gross blunders. Roorbach (the Addenda,
Supplements, etc.) was found to be a mere rehash of the old trade sales
Catalogues, swarming with blunders. In the matter of dates, imprints,
the particular editions, the size of books, Roorbach is utterly
untrustworthy. Allibone (so far as Wordsworth is concerned) is also
confusing and incomplete. I did not find much in the various Public or
College Library Catalogues.
I wrote to the librarians of some of the older libraries, after I had
made out a preliminary list, to ascertain if they could add thereto any
editions, from their cards or manuscript catalogues. From these sources
I was enabled several times to solve seemingly insolvable problems.
I had assistance from, and in some instances visited, the following
libraries: Cornell University, Boston Public Library, Boston Athenæum,
Harvard College, Philadelphia Public Library, the Library College of
Philadelphia, Mercantile Library College, Philadelphia; the Public
Library, St. Louis; that of Lennox and Astor, the University of
Virginia, the State Library, Richmond, Va., and one or two other
Southern libraries. I have written more than one hundred letters
to publishers, editors, authors, the descendants of early American
Wordsworthians, Professors of Literature, and professed Wordsworthians
in Seminaries and Colleges. I have examined, or employed others to
examine, the following works for editions of Wordsworth: the _New York
Literary World_, _Norton’s Literary Gazette_, _American Publishers’
Circular_, _Publishers’ Weekly_, _Catalogues of Congress Library_, _The
Port Folio_, _American Quarterly Review_, _Knickerbocker Magazine_,
_New York Quarterly Review_, _American Review_, _North American
Review_. And this is but half of my story.
Poole’s “Index,” of course, was a great assistance. But I did not rely
altogether on him, after I had discovered several mistakes in titles
and numbering--mistakes which were confusing in the extreme. I have
consulted all other Indexes and Reference Lists that I could procure,
and have carefully examined the periodicals in which it was possible
that such articles could be found.
My greatest light, however, came from responses to personal appeals,
to those in the North, South, East, and West of the Country, who
enlightened me in particular directions. I needed assistance, not only
to discover the articles, but more particularly to secure the articles
to read, or to procure proper persons to read the few articles that I
could not obtain. When valuable books were sent me, by express, from
distant College Libraries, that I might read for myself, I realised the
bond there is between Wordsworthians.
I cannot begin to speak of the delight that I have had in this work,
delight because of the response I have met with, and in opening
up unknown and rich veins of criticism. I have learned too, that
Wordsworth has many enthusiastic followers in America.
I have included in the Bibliography the accounts of visits paid to
Wordsworth by certain well-known Americans, a half-dozen poems on
Wordsworth, and three or four unpublished Lectures.
I am exceedingly grateful to the many who (to my surprise) have
answered my questions, and have given me of their valuable time. I
am especially indebted to Mr. George P. Philes, of Philadelphia, and
also to Mr. F. Saunders of the Astor Library, New York. Dean Murray of
Princeton rendered me exceedingly gracious service, and but for Mr.
Edwin H. Woodruff of Stanford University, California, I should not have
known how or where to begin my investigations.
In all probability my work is not perfect. I would that it were. I only
know that I have been enabled, by enthusiasm alone, to lay a foundation
for Wordsworth Bibliography in America, that may be an assistance to
future scholars, and will aid the next Wordsworthian who is brave
enough to build enduringly.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
I
AMERICAN EDITIONS OF WORDSWORTH
INCLUDING A FEW WORKS WHICH ARE NOT STRICTLY EDITIONS OF WORDSWORTH
I have endeavoured to include in this list every distinctive American
edition of Wordsworth, published during the poet’s lifetime, and
since his death. There are many others, issued with the imprints of
honourable publishers; which, upon investigation, were found to be
English reprints; to say nothing of those editions made from worn-out
plates, and issued by houses of less reputation for honourableness.
I was puzzled to account for so many editions of Matthew Arnold’s
Selections, some of them bearing the imprint of Harper Brothers, some
of Macmillan, and several of Crowell. The Harpers wrote me that these
various publications were possible in view of the fact that there
was no copyright of the work, and that all of them might properly be
called American Editions. I have not placed those bearing the Macmillan
imprint, of course, among purely American editions. Nor have I included
the several cheap ones of Crowell. The one of Crowell, given in the
list, is copyrighted by the Crowell Company.
The fact that the introduction of Wordsworth’s poetry into America is
so easily authenticated, and that the history of it is so concise,
is my apology for deviating from ordinary bibliographical rule in
including among the regular editions certain numbers of America’s first
Literary Journal, and two or three other volumes.
I have confined myself to a simple chronological arrangement of the
Editions, with place of imprint, name of publisher, number, and size
of volumes. This makes the most convenient list for easy reference,
especially as I have tried to mention technical points of difference.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
1
1801. THE PORT FOLIO. (Edited by Joseph Dennie.) Philadelphia. 4to.
The following poems appeared in “The Port Folio,” vol. i., before the
publication of the First American Edition of “Lyrical Ballads”--
(1) _Simon Lee_, p. 24.[478]
(2) _The Last of the Flock_, p. 48.
(3) _The Thorn_, p. 94.
(4) _The Mad Mother_, p. 232.
(5) _Anecdote for Fathers_, p. 232.
(6) _Ellen Irwin_, p. 391.
(7) _Strange Fits of Passion_, etc., p. 392.
(8) _The Waterfall and the Eglantine_, p. 408.
(9) _Lucy Gray_, p. 408.
(10) _Andrew Jones_, p. 408.
2
1801. INTRODUCTION TO THE ENGLISH READER. By Lindley Murray.
Philadelphia: Johnson and Warner. 12mo.[479]
3
1802. LYRICAL BALLADS, with Other Poems. In two volumes. By W.
Wordsworth.
Quam nihil ad genium, Papiniane, tuum!
From the London second edition. Philadelphia: Printed and sold by James
Humphreys. 2 vols. in one. 12mo.[480]
4
1823. THE AMERICAN FIRST CLASS BOOK. By John Pierpont. Boston: William
B. Fowle. 1 vol. 12mo.[481]
5
1824. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Boston: published by
Cummings, Hilliard and Co. 4 vols. 12mo.[482]
6
1833. SKETCH OF THE GENIUS AND CHARACTER OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. With
Selections from his “Lyrical Ballads.”[483] Philadelphia: Greenbak’s
Periodical Library. Vol. ii. pp. 181-202.
7
1835. YARROW REVISITED, and Other Poems. New York: R. Bartlett and S.
Raynor. 16mo. pp. 17-244.
1835. Same Title. Boston: R. Bartlett and S. Raynor. 16mo; also,
Boston: James Munroe and Co. 16mo.
1835. Same Title. Philadelphia. 12mo.
8
1836. YARROW REVISITED. Second Edition. Boston: William D. Ticknor.
16mo.
9
1836. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. The first complete
American, from the last London, edition. New Haven: Peck and Newton. In
1 vol. Royal 8vo.[484]
10
1836. THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, together with
a Description of the Country of the Lakes, etc. Edited by Henry Reed.
With Portrait. Philadelphia: Kay and Brother. Royal 8vo; also, by James
Kay and Brother.[485]
1839. Same Title. Philadelphia: Kay and Brother. Boston: Munroe and Co.
Pittsburg: Kay and Co.
1844. Same Title. Philadelphia: James Kay jun.[486]
11
1842. WORDSWORTH’S POEMS. In “The New World,” vol. iv. No. 16.
New York: Park Benjamin, Editor. Sat. April 9, _Sonnet Written at
Florence_; April 16, _Address to the Clouds, Suggested by a Picture
of the Bird of Paradise_; _Maternal Grief_ (“New Poems, never before
published”). May 7, _Guilt and Sorrow_ (“From proof sheets received in
advance”).[487]
12
1843. POEMS FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Selected by
Henry Reed.
Go forth, my little Book; pursue thy way;
Go forth, and please the gentle and the good.
Philadelphia: John Locken. 32mo.
(Entered according to the Act of Congress in 1841.)
1846. Same Title. Philadelphia: Uriah Hunt and Son. 32mo.
Same Title. New York: Leavitt and Co.[488]
1853. Same Title. New York: Leavitt and Allen. 24mo.
1856. Same Title.[489] New York: Leavitt and Allen.
13
1847. WORDSWORTH’S COMPLETE POETICAL AND PROSE WORKS.[490] In 5 vols.
(In Press.) Philadelphia: Kay and Troutman. 12mo.
14
1849. POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: with an Introductory Essay on his
Life and Writings. By H. T. Tuckerman. New York: C. S. Francis and Co.
12mo. pp. 21-356; also, Boston: J. H. Francis.[491]
15
1849. THE EXCURSION: a Poem. New York: C. S. Francis and Co. 12mo.
1850. THE EXCURSION, etc. New York: C. S. Francis and Co. 12mo.
1852-55. The above was again republished.
16
1850. THE PRELUDE; or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind. New York: Appleton and
Co. 12mo.
1850. THE PRELUDE, etc. Philadelphia: George S. Appleton and Co. 12mo.
17
1850. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Boston: Phillips,
Sampson and Co. 12mo. Reprinted in 1857 and 1859.
1859. Same Title. Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Co. 16mo.
18
1851. THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edited by
Henry Reed. Royal 8vo. Philadelphia: James Kay jun. and Brother. Also,
Kay and Troutman. Also, Troutman and Hayes. Also, Hayes and Zell. Also,
Porter and Coates.[492]
1852. THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edited by
Henry Reed. 8vo. Philadelphia: Troutman and Hayes.
1860. THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edited by
Henry Reed. Royal 8vo. pp. 727.[493]
19
1854. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, with a Memoir.[494]
Boston: Little, Brown and Co. Also, New York: Evans and Dickenson.
Also, Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grant and Co. 18mo. 7 vols.
20
1855. POETICAL WORKS OF W. WORDSWORTH. Portrait. Boston: Crosby and
Nichols(?) 12mo.
21
1855. THE PRELUDE. New York: Appleton and Co. 12mo. Second Edition.
22
1860. POETICAL WORKS OF WORDSWORTH.[495] 2 vols. New York: 12mo.
23
1863. SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH, with an Essay by H. T. Tuckerman.
Philadelphia. 32mo.[496]
1863. Same Title. Boston.
24
1865. POEMS OF NATURE AND SENTIMENT. By William Wordsworth. Elegantly
illustrated. Philadelphia: E. H. Butler and Co.[497]
25
THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[498] A new edition. Boston:
Crosby and Nichols. 12mo.
1867. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. A new edition. Boston:
Crosby and Ainsworth. New York: Oliver S. Felt. 16mo. pp. 539.[499]
26
1870. THE EXCURSION: a Poem. A new edition. New York: J. Miller. 16mo.
27
1871-75. THE HOWE MEMORIAL PRIMER, in raised letters for the Blind.
WORDSWORTH’S POETICAL WORKS, with a Memoir. Boston. 7 vols. 16mo.
Portrait.
28
1876. WORDSWORTH’S POEMS. Selected and Prepared for Schools. Edited by
H. N. Hudson. Boston: Ginn and Co. 12mo. “Text-book of Prose and Poetry
Series.”
1882. Same Title. In paper. Hudson’s Pamphlet Selections of Poetry.
(No. VI. Wordsworth.)
29
1877. FAVORITE POEMS. Vest-pocket Series. Boston: Osgood. Illustrated.
32mo.
1877. FAVORITE POEMS. Illustrated. Boston, Massachusetts. (Printed at
Cambridge.) 16mo.
30
1877. THE POETICAL WORKS. New edition. Boston: Hurd and Houghton. 8vo.
3 vols.
31
1878. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, with Memoir. 7 vols. in
3. Boston: Houghton, Osgood and Co. Riverside Press. 8vo; also,
1880. Same Title.[500]
32
1879. WORDSWORTH’S POEMS. Chosen and Edited by Matthew Arnold. Franklin
Square Library. New York: Harper and Brother. Paper 4to.
1880. Another Edition.
1891. Another Edition.
33
1881. THE EXCURSION, with a Biographical Sketch. English Classic
Series. New York: Clark and Maynard. 16mo.
1889. Same Title. With Explanatory Notes. New York: Effingham, Maynard
and Co.
34
1881-82. FAVORITE POEMS. By William Wordsworth. In Modern Classics, No.
VII. Illustrated. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. 32mo.
35
1884. ODE, INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. By William Wordsworth.
Illustrated. Boston: D. Lothrop Company. Small 4to. Copyright by D.
Lothrop.
36
1884. POEMS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Selected and Prepared for use in
Schools. (From Hudson’s _Text-Book of Poetry_.) Section I. Boston:
Ginn, Heath and Co. 12mo.
37
1888. PRELUDE; or, Growth of a Poet’s Mind. With Notes by A. J. George.
Boston: D. C. Heath and Co. 12mo.
38
1888. BITS OF BURNISHED GOLD, from William Wordsworth. Compiled by Rose
Porter. New York: A. D. F. Randolph and Co. 12mo.
39
1889. SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. With Notes by A. J. George. Boston:
D. C. Heath and Co. 12mo.
40
1889. MELODIES FROM NATURE. (From Wordsworth.) Illustrated. Boston: D.
Lothrop Company. 4to.
41
1889. SELECT POEMS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[501] Edited, with Notes, by
W. J. Rolfe. With Engravings. New York: Harper Brothers. Square 16mo.
42
1889. POEMS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Selected and Prepared for use in
School. Paper. (From Hudson’s _Text-Book of Poetry_.) Section II. 12mo.
Boston: Ginn and Co.
43
1890. SELECT POEMS FROM WORDSWORTH, with Explanatory Notes. Edited by
James H. Dillard. New York: Effingham, Maynard and Co. 12mo.
44
1890. PASTORALS, LYRICS AND SONNETS FROM THE POETIC WORKS OF WILLIAM
WORDSWORTH. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. 16mo. White
and Gold Series.
45
1891. A SELECTION OF THE SONNETS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.[502] With
numerous Illustrations. By A. Parsons. New York: Harper Brothers. 4to.
46
1891. WORDSWORTH FOR THE YOUNG. Selections. Illustrated. With an
Introduction for parents and teachers by Cynthia Morgan St. John.
Boston: D. Lothrop Company. Small 4to. 153 pp.
47
1892. WORDSWORTH’S PREFACES AND ESSAYS ON POETRY. Edited by A. J.
George. (Heath’s English Classics.) Boston: D. C. Heath and Co. 12mo.
48
1892. POEMS OF WORDSWORTH. Chosen and Edited by Matthew Arnold.
Illustrated by Edmund H. Garrett. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell and Co.
(Copyright 1892 by T. Y. Crowell.)
[478] _Simon Lee_ was probably the first poem of Wordsworth’s published
in a Literary Journal in America, and is the beginning of Wordsworth’s
Bibliography in U.S.A. A note in “The Port Folio” (vol. i. p. 24) is as
follows: “The public may remember reading in some of the newspapers the
interesting little ballads, _We are Seven_, and _Goody Blake and Harry
Gill_. They were extracted from the ‘Lyrical Ballads,’ a collection
remarkable for originality, simplicity, and nature.… The following,
_Simon Lee_, is from the same work.”
It is evident from this that two, at least, of Wordsworth’s poems were
copied into American newspapers as early as 1800, and that Joseph
Dennie, the founder, as well as editor, of “The Port Folio”--the first
purely Literary Journal established in this country--was the first
American champion of Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[479] _The Pet Lamb_ appeared in this Book almost immediately after
its publication in England. It was the first poem of Wordsworth’s
published in a book in America. It was also the first instance of the
introduction of a poem of Wordsworth’s into a School Book.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[480] The first American edition, and the first work by Wordsworth,
printed in America. It looks as if the Poet found appreciative readers
in America sooner than in England; the first edition of “Lyrical
Ballads,” which had fallen dead in his own country in 1798, being
published in Philadelphia in 1802. The American edition was delayed in
the press, in order to include certain pieces which first appeared in
the second (English) edition of 1802. See Humphreys’ Preface.
A copy of “Lyrical Ballads,” 1802, is in the possession of Judge Henry
Reed, with exactly the same title-page as the above, except that it
reads--
“Printed by James Humphreys for Joseph Groff.”
It is believed that the work was printed at the joint expense of
Humphreys and Groff, each bookseller taking a certain number of copies
upon which was placed his individual imprint. Both book-sellers
advertised the volumes almost simultaneously. I know of another copy
of (1802) “Lyrical Ballads,” of which the first volume contains the
imprint of Humphreys, and the second volume that of Groff. The two
volumes are bound together, and are _identical_ in type, paper, etc.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[481] Amongst the contents there are four long extracts from _The
Excursion_, with titles attributed to W.W. _Goody Blake and Harry Gill_
is amongst the extracts from “Lyrical Ballads,” and there is a long
note to the former poem by Joseph Dennie.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[482] The first collected edition of Wordsworth’s Poems printed in
America.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[483] The sketch is by R. H. Home. The poems are _The Last of the
Flock_, _The Dungeon_, _The Mad Mother_, _Anecdote for Fathers_, _We
are Seven_, _Lines Written in Early Spring_, _The Female Vagrant_,
_Goody Blake and Harry Gill_, _The Waterfall and the Eglantine_, _The
Oak and the Broom_, _Lucy Gray_, _Hart-Leap Well_, _Lucy_, _Nutling_,
_Ruth_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[484] Printed and published by Peck and Newton.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[485] First double-column edition of the poems, adopted by Moxon in
1845 edition.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[486] The Boxall portrait was engraved for the above. I could not find
the 1844 imprint, but presume that it is the same as that of 1837 and
1839.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[487] In an editorial of April 16 of “The New World” is the following:
“We are enabled by the purchase of the printed sheets considerably in
advance of their publication in England to present the first and only
American Editions of new poems by William Wordsworth.”
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[488] This is spoken of in Ellis Yarnall’s Reminiscences as having no
date. When John Locken--the first publisher--failed, the plates passed
into the possession of Messrs. Uriah Hunt and Son. They retired from
business, and Messrs. Leavitt and Co. took the plates. It is possible
that there was an edition earlier than 1843.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[489] The last two named are exactly as in 1843, except that they are
printed on larger paper. Why one is put down 32mo and the other 24mo is
a mystery!
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[490] If this edition was published, it seems to have disappeared. It
is advertised in A. V. Blake’s _American Booksellers’ Complete Trade
List_, published at Claremont, N.H., 1847.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[491] Copyright in 1848. It contains about one-fifth of all
Wordsworth’s poems. The Essay, which occupies ten pages, is taken “by
permission” from Tuckerman’s _Thoughts on Poets_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[492] In connection with this edition, I can vouch for the five firms
of Publishers in Philadelphia, but I cannot explain it.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[493] “This edition contains some pieces omitted--inadvertently it is
believed--from the latest London edition.” Additional poems have been
introduced, and the arrangement changed since the 1839 edition.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[494] This edition contains a remarkable “Sketch of Wordsworth’s
Life,” by James Russell Lowell, which was afterwards embodied, with
additions, in _Among my Books_. Mr. Ellis Yarnall believed that this
edition was an English reprint. I doubt this from the fact that it is
“Entered according to the Act of Congress in 1854,” and was “Printed at
Cambridge by H.O. Houghton.”
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[495] This edition is mentioned in some lists, but I am inclined to
doubt if it can be authenticated.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[496] The size is given as 32mo. I have not seen the book.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[497] Edited by Waldron J. Cheney, though not credited to him. C. M.
ST. JOHN.
[498] No date is given to this edition. The firm-name and place of
business according to the Boston Directory would limit the date of
the title page at least to 1863-65. It is in the New Haven Library.
Allibone notes a volume of “Selections,” Boston, 12mo, 1863, which may
be this.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[499] I have placed the two works together, as they are closely
related, if not identical. The edition contains _The Excursion_ and
fifty-seven other poems.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[500] From plates of the 1854 edition, with changes.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[501] This excellent edition--as to selection, size, paper, binding,
and illustrations--is the best handy edition of Wordsworth issued in
America.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[502] Eighty-eight of the sonnets are here illustrated with rare skill
and artistic effect. The illustrations first appeared in wood-cuts in
Harper’s _Monthly Magazine_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
II
REPRINTS, AND BOOKS, BOTH ENGLISH AND AMERICAN
A Bibliography of Wordsworth in America is not complete without some
reference to the many editions of Wordsworth, and of works pertaining
to him, which have--for the most part--appeared simultaneously in
England and America. These works cannot properly be termed American,
but they have been welcomed, and they have also supplied a want, on
this side of the Atlantic. The editions are confined, for the most
part, to the last twenty years. I have endeavoured to select those
which are of most value.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
1
1859. WORDSWORTH’S PASTORAL POEMS. Illustrated. New York: D. Appleton
and Co. 12mo.
1875. Same Title. New York: Putnam. 12mo.
2
1859. POEMS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Selected and Edited by Robert Aris
Willmott. Illustrated with 100 Designs by Birket Foster and others.
London and New York: George Routledge and Co. 4to.
1870. The above republished.
3
1869. THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Globe Edition. Square
12mo. Philadelphia: Lippincott and Co.
4
1874. RECOLLECTIONS OF A TOUR MADE IN SCOTLAND. By Dorothy Wordsworth.
Edited by J. C. Shairp. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. (Printed at the
Edinburgh University Press.) 12mo.
5
1880. WORDSWORTH’S POEMS. Chosen and Edited by Matthew Arnold. Large
Paper Edition. London and New York: Macmillan and Co. 8vo.
1892. Same Title. With Steel Portrait. Printed on India paper. London
and New York: Macmillan and Co. 8vo.
6
1881. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH: a Biography with Selections from Prose and
Poetry. By A. J. Symington. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 2 vols. 16mo.
7
1885. ODE ON IMMORTALITY AND LINES ON TINTERN ABBEY. London and New
York: Cassell and Co. 12mo. (Popular Illustrated Series.)
8
1886. PASTORAL POEMS. London and New York: Cassell and Co. 4to.
9
1887. MEMORIALS OF COLEORTON. Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by
William Knight. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. 12mo.
(Printed at the Edinburgh University Press.)
10
1887. THROUGH THE WORDSWORTH COUNTRY. By William Knight. London and New
York: Scribner and Welford. Engraving. 8vo.
11
1888. THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. With an
Introduction by John Morley. London and New York: Macmillan and Co.
Crown 8vo.
12
1888. THE RECLUSE. London and New York: Macmillan and Co. 16mo.
13
1889. WORDSWORTHIANA. Edited by William Knight. London and New York:
Macmillan and Co. 16mo.
14
1889. POETICAL WORKS, with Memoir. Illustrated. 8 vols. New York: A. C.
Armstrong and Son. 16mo. (Printed at the University Press, Glasgow.)
15
1889. SELECTIONS FROM WORDSWORTH. By William Knight, and other Members
of the Wordsworth Society. With Preface and Notes. New York: Scribner
and Welford. 8vo.
16
1889. WORDSWORTH’S POETICAL WORKS. Edited by William Knight. New York:
Macmillan and Co. 8 vols. 8vo. (First published in Edinburgh 1882-89.)
17
1889. LIFE OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. By William Knight. New York (and
London): Macmillan and Co. 3 vols. 8vo. (First published in Edinburgh,
in 1889.)
18
1891. WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. By Elizabeth Wordsworth. New York: Scribner.
18mo. (Also London: Percival and Co.)
19
1889. EARLY POEMS BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. Edited by J. R. Tutin. London,
etc., and New York: George Routledge and Sons. (Routledge’s Pocket
Library.)
20
1890. DOVE COTTAGE, Wordsworth’s Home from 1800 to 1808. By Stopford A.
Brooke. Small paper. London and New York: Macmillan and Co.
21
1891. WORDSWORTH’S THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE, etc. Edited with
Introduction and Notes by William Knight. (Clarendon Press Series.)
London and New York: Macmillan and Co.
22
1892. WORDSWORTH’S LYRICS AND SONNETS. Selected and Edited by C. K.
Shorter. London: David Stott. New York: Macmillan and Co. 32mo.
23
1892. WORDSWORTH’S POETICAL WORKS. Edited with Memoir by E. Dowden. 7
vols. 16mo. London: George Bell and Sons. New York: 112 Fourth Avenue.
24
GLEANINGS FROM WORDSWORTH. Edited by J. Robertson. Vest-pocket Edition.
New York: White, Stokes and Allen. (Printed at the University Press,
Glasgow.)
25
WE ARE SEVEN. By William Wordsworth.[503] With Drawings by Mary L.
Grow. Small 4to. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.
26
ODE. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. With Biographical Sketch and Notes.
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co., “Riverside Literature Series,” No.
76. March 1895.
[503] This was lithographed and printed by Ernest Nister at Nuremberg.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
III
BOOKS CONTAINING BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, AND CRITICAL ESSAYS
THE WRITERS ARE ARRANGED IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
1
1867. ALGER, W. R. _The Genius of Solitude._ Boston: Roberts Brothers.
16mo. _Wordsworth_, p. 277.
2
1859-71. ALLIBONE, S. A. _Critical Dictionary of English Literature,
and British and American Authors._ Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co. 3
vols. Imperial 8vo. _Wordsworth_, vol. iii. pp. 2843-2849.
3
1884. BURROUGHS, J. “Fresh Fields.” Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
16mo. _In the Wordsworth Country_, p. 161.[504]
4
1878. CALVERT, G. H. _Wordsworth; A Biographic, Aesthetic Study._
Boston: Lee-Sheperd. 16mo.
5
1863. CALVERT, G. H. _Scenes and Thoughts in Europe._ Boston: 16mo.[505]
6
1873. CHANNING, W. ELLERY. Address before the Mercantile Library
Company of Philadelphia, May 11, 1841. Also in his “Complete Works.”
Boston.[506]
7
1895. CHENEY, JOHN VANCE. _Thoughts on Poetry and the Poets._ Chicago.
Chapter X. is on Wordsworth.
8
1879. DESHLER, C. D. _Afternoons with the Poets._ New York: Harper and
Brothers. 12mo. _Wordsworth._
9
1871. FIELDS, J. T. _Yesterdays with Authors._ Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin and Co.; also,
1889. _Wordsworth, A Sketch_, p. 253.
10
1838. FROST, JOHN. _Select Works of the British Poets, with
Biographical Sketches._ Philadelphia: Thomas Wardle. _Wordsworth._
11
1849. GRAHAM, G. F. _English Synonyms._ New York: D. Appleton and Co.
Edited with an Introduction and Illustrative Authorities. By Henry
Reed.[507]
12
1854. GILES, H. T. _Illustrations of Genius._ Boston: Ticknor and
Fields. 16mo. _William Wordsworth_, pp. 239-266.
13
1886. GRISWOLD, H. T. _Home Life of Great Authors._ Chicago. 18mo.
_William Wordsworth_, p. 43.
14
1849. GRISWOLD, R. W. _Sacred Poets of England and America._ New York.
_Wordsworth._
15
1842. GRISWOLD, R. W. _Poets and Poetry of England._ Philadelphia:
Carey and Hunt. A Review and Selections.
16
HODGKINS, LOUISE M. _Guide to Nineteenth Century Authors._ Boston.
_Wordsworth Bibliography._
17
1884. HUDSON, H. N. _Studies in Wordsworth._ Boston: Little, Brown and
Co.[508]
18
1886. JOHNSON, C. F. _Three Americans and Three Englishmen._ New York.
_Wordsworth._
19
1864. LOWELL, J. R. _The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth._ Boston:
Little, Brown and Co. 4 vols. Vol. 1.--_A Sketch of Wordsworth’s Life._
20
1876. LOWELL, J. R. _Among my Books._ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.
_Wordsworth_,[509] pp. 201-251.
21
1887. LOWELL, J. R. _Democracy and other Addresses._ Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin and Co. _Wordsworth_,[510] 22 pp.
22
1885. MASON, E. T. _Personal Traits of British Authors._ New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons. _William Wordsworth_, pp. 7-55.
What follows is due to American Enterprise, but it is, of course, not
strictly American.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
23
1883. MACDONALD, GEORGE. _The Imagination and other Essays_
(“Wordsworth’s Poetry,” pp. 245-263). Boston: D. Lothrop and Co.
24
1881. MYERS, F. W. H. _William Wordsworth._ (“English Men of Letters
Series.”) New York: Harper and Brothers. 12mo.
1884. Same Title. New York: J. W. Lovell. 12mo.
1889. Same Title. New York. Harper and Brothers.
25
1838. OSBORN, LAUGHTON. _The Vision of Rubeta._[511] Boston: Weeks,
Jordan and Co. 8vo.
26
1846. OSSOLI, MARGARET FULLER. _Art, Literature, and the Drama._
Boston. _Wordsworth._[512]
27
1885. PHILLIPS, MAUD GILLETTE. _A Popular Manual of English
Literature._ New York: Harper and Brothers. Vol. ii. pp. 217-264.
28
1851. REED, HENRY. _Memoirs of Wordsworth._ By C. Wordsworth. Edited by
Henry Reed. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields.[513]
29
1857. REED, HENRY. _Lectures on the British Poets._ In two vols.
Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen and Haffelfinger. Vol. ii. pp. 199-231.
Lecture XV.--_Wordsworth._
30
1870. REED, HENRY. _Lectures on the British Poets._ Philadelphia:
Claxton, Reinsen and Haffelfinger. _Essay on the English Sonnet_, vol.
ii. pp. 235-272.[514]
31
1887. SAUNDERS, FREDERICK. _Story of some Famous Books._ New York:
Armstrong and Son. _William Wordsworth_, p. 125.
32
SAUNDERS, FREDERICK. _Evenings with Sacred Poets._ New York: Randolph
and Co. _Wordsworth._[515]
33
1894. SCUDDER, HORACE E. _Childhood in Literature and Art._ Boston:
Houghton, Mifflin and Co. In the chapter entitled “In English
Literature and Art,” Wordsworth is dealt with (chap. vi. pp.
145-157).[516]
34
1895. SCUDDER, VIDAD. _The Life of the Spirit in Modern English Poets._
Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. Crown 8vo.
35
1892. STEDMAN, C. E. _Nature and Elements of Poetry._ Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin and Co.[517]
36
1846. TUCKERMAN, H. T. _Thoughts on the Poets._ New York. _Genius and
Writings of Wordsworth._
37
1882. WELSH, A. H. _Development of English Literature and Language._
Chicago. _Wordsworth_, vol. ii. pp. 330-339.
38
1850. WHIPPLE, E. P. _Essays and Reviews._ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
and Co. _Wordsworth_, vol. i. p. 222.[518]
39
1871. WHIPPLE, E. P. _Literature and Life._ Boston: Houghton, Mifflin
and Co. _Wordsworth_, p. 253.[519]
40
1854. WILLIS, N. P. _Famous Persons and Places._ New York: Charles
Scribner.[520]
[504] A reprint of the article was published in _The Century Magazine_,
1884.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[505] Not of much importance--the author praises Wordsworth and
criticises Jeffrey.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[506] About the same in the “Address” as in the “Complete Works.”
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[507] Contains four hundred quotations from Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[508] Contains 258 pages on Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[509] The same as above with some corrections, and twenty-three new
pages added.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[510] The above was first given as an address to “The Wordsworth
Society,” 1884, and appeared in _Wordsworthiana_ in 1889.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[511] In the Appendix are about twenty pages containing a ferocious
criticism on “Wordsworth, his Poetry and his Misrepresentations.”
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[512] In the Memoirs of M. F. Ossoli (Boston, vol. iii. p. 84) there is
a short reference to Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[513] Introduction and Editorial Notes by H. R., interesting and
valuable.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[514] In the Lecture on the Sonnet, there are interesting allusions to
Wordsworth’s Sonnets.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[515] This book and the previous one have about half a dozen pages each
on Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[516] The substance of this chapter on Wordsworth as a revealer of
Childhood, first appeared in _The Atlantic Monthly_, October 1885.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[517] In this volume there are many references to Wordsworth of
interest--especially at pp. 202, 206, 210 and 263--on _Subjective
Interpretation, The Pathetic Fallacy_, etc.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[518] This essay was also published in _The Complete Poetical Works_.
Philadelphia: James Kay jun. and Brothers, 1837. Also in _The North
American Review_, 1844.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[519] The above appeared first in _The North American Review_. It was
“written when the news came of Wordsworth’s death.” It is not given
elsewhere in this list.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[520] Letter V. contains some characteristic remarks on Wordsworth
by “Christopher North,” who gave Willis a note of introduction to
Wordsworth and Southey. Willis did _not_ write about Wordsworth in this
book. As it is inserted in some of the lists, I include it, with this
explanation.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
IV
REVIEW AND MAGAZINE ARTICLES ON WORDSWORTH PUBLISHED IN AMERICA
FROM 1801 TO 1840
In examining American Reviews and Magazines, for articles on
Wordsworth, I find--after much laborious search--only some
insignificant notices of his poems, of no critical or literary merit.
I have carefully read each article which appears in this list, and I
add brief explanatory notes, indicative of the general tenor of the
articles. It was disheartening to find that many of the references to
Wordsworth, in Poole’s elaborate _Index to Periodical Literature_,
were inaccurate and misleading; and that nearly all the articles on
Wordsworth published in _Harper’s Monthly Magazine_ for 1850 were
“conveyed” from contemporary English journals.
1
1801. _The Port Folio._ Vol. i.
Memoranda regarding the first publication of “Lyrical Ballads” in
America.
1801. December, p. 407. The Original Prospectus of “Lyrical
Ballads.”[521] (James Humphreys publisher.)
1801. P. 408.[522]
1802. Vol. ii. p. 62.[523]
1803. Vol. iii. p. 288.[524]
1803. P. 320. Note on the poem beginning,
“A whirl-blast from behind the hill.”
1804. Vol. iv. p. 87. Announcement that the editor wishes to obtain a
copy of _Descriptive Sketches_ (1798) from some publisher or reader.
1804. P. 96.[525]
2
1802. _The Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser._ (Published by
Samuel Relf.) Friday, Jan. 15, “Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.” (The
publisher’s advertisement of the First American Edition.)
3
1819. DANA, R. H.[526] _North American Review._ Vol. xxiii. p. 276. In
review of Hazlitt’s _English Poets_.
4
1824. _North American Review._ Vol. xviii. p. 356.[527]
5
1824. _United States Literary Gazette._ Vol. i. p. 245.[528]
6
1825. _The Atlantic Magazine_, vol. ii. pp. 334-348.
7
1827. _Christian Monthly Spectator._ Vol. ix. p. 244. (A short article
on Wordsworth.)
8
1832. PRESCOTT, W. H. _North American Review._ Vol. xxxv. pp. 171,
173-176. (In a “Review of English Literature of Nineteenth Century,” is
an important reference to Wordsworth.)
9
1836. EDWARDS, B. B. _American Biblical Repository._ Vol. vii. pp.
187-204.[529]
10
1836. _American Quarterly Review._ Vol. xix. p. 66.[530]
11
1836. _American Quarterly Review._ Vol. xix. pp. 420-442.[531]
12
1836. FELTON, C. C. _The Christian Examiner._ Vol. xix. p. 375.[532]
13
1836. PORTER, NOAH. _Christian Quarterly Spectator._[533] Vol. viii.
pp. 127-151.
14
_Christian Monthly Spectator._ Vol xviii. p. 1.[534]
15
1837. _“Waldie’s” Octavo Library._ (Edited by John J. Smith.)[535]
16
1837. _“Waldie’s” Octavo Library._ March 21.[536]
17
1837. _Southern Literary Messenger._ Vol. iii. p. 705. “By a
Virginian.”[537]
18
1837. WHIPPLE, E. P. _The Complete Poetical Works of William
Wordsworth_[538] (1837).
19
1839. _New York Review._ Vol. iv. pp. 1-71.[539]
20
1839. _American Biblical Repository._[540] Vol. i. pp. 206-239. (Second
edition.)
21
1839. _Boston Quarterly Review._ Vol. ii. pp. 137-169. (A review of
“Wordsworth’s Poetical Works,” London, 1832.)
22
1839. _American Methodist Review._[541] Vol. xxi. p. 449.
[521] An enthusiastic announcement.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[522] An appreciatory and critical Introductory Note to _The Waterfall
and the Eglantine_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[523] Editorial reporting the increasing popularity of “Lyrical
Ballads,” and further commendation of the poems.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[524] Note on _The Fountain_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[525] An editorial announcement that “Lyrical Ballads” had reached
a third edition, and containing one of the most ardent tributes to
Wordsworth in the language.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[526] Not long, but of much interest.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[527] An unsigned and excellent review of the 1824 (Boston) edition
of the poems. The writer remarks that not a volume of Wordsworth’s
poems has been published in America since 1802. Attributed to F.W.P.
Greenwood.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[528] Anonymous review of the 1824 (Boston) edition of the poems. One
of the very best.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[529] Sectarian in spirit, but on the whole fair to Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[530] Anonymous. A well-written article of about twenty-four pages,
reviewing _Yarrow Revisited_. It was one of the earliest reviews in an
American journal that claimed for Wordsworth a high order of genius. It
was probably written by Robert Walsh, the editor of the _Review_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[531] An article on Wordsworth’s sonnets on Capital Punishment, in an
article on “The English Sonnet.” Judge Henry Reed found this to have
been written by his father, Professor Henry Reed.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[532] An appreciative criticism of eight pages.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[533] Entitled “Wordsworth and his Poetry.” A review of the 1824
edition and of _Yarrow Revisited_, Boston, 1835. An estimate of
Wordsworth’s claims as a poet, and as a man. A more comprehensive,
stronger, more inviting criticism (in appealing to those to whom the
poetry is unknown) has not been written. It ranks, in my opinion, among
the best criticisms on Wordsworth written in America.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[534] H. Tuckerman wrote an article on Wordsworth for his magazine.
This may be the article.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[535] The number for 7th March contains a notice of Wordsworth, in a
review of Reed’s _Complete Poetical Works of Wordsworth_ (1837).
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[536] Another mention of Reed’s edition, and of the discovery that “a
fellow-townsman,” Dr. T. C. James, anticipated the fact of Wordsworth’s
popularity. A quotation from “Memoirs of Historical Society of
Pennsylvania” to prove Dr. James’ prophecy.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[537] Writer unknown.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[538] To class this review with others of an early date, I have placed
it among Periodical Reviews. It appeared in _The North American
Review_, 1844; and again, in 1850, in _Essays and Reviews_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[539] A review of Reed’s 1837 edition of “Wordsworth’s Poetical Works.”
Professor Henry Reed’s son--Judge Henry Reed of Philadelphia--informs
me that it was written by his father.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[540] This article is entitled “Modern English Poetry--Byron, Shelley,
and Wordsworth.”
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[541] By an unknown author.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
V
CRITICISMS AND REVIEWS IN PERIODICALS FROM 1840 TO 1870
Arranged as far as possible according to merit. It is difficult
to distinguish between the first twelve or fifteen. After them I
have placed the articles in the _Literary World_. Most of them have
not been noted in other lists, and are especially interesting, as
being additional tributes of Wordsworth’s intimate friend, Henry
Reed. I am indebted to Judge Henry Reed of Philadelphia, for more
carefully examining his father’s papers, and to the _Literary World_
for ascertaining, as far as possible, all that his father wrote on
Wordsworth. The criticisms that immediately follow are not without
interest. The last half dozen are given, for the most part, because
they appear in _Poole’s Index_, or in other lists. I have omitted two
or three which are of no value whatever.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
1
1844. WHIPPLE, E. P. _North American Review._[542] Vol. lix. pp.
352-384.
2
1857. HAVEN, GILBERT. _Methodist Quarterly Review._ Vol. xxxix. p.
362.[543]
3
1851. PASSMORE, J. C. _The Church Review._ Vol. iv. pp. 169-188.[544]
4
1866. ALGER, W. R. _Monthly Religious Magazine._ Vol. xxxvi. p. 294.
5
1850. MUZZEY, A. B. _The Christian Examiner._ Vol. xlix. p. 100. (The
title of this article is “Wordsworth, the Christian Poet.”)
6
1851. GOODWIN, H. M. _The New Englander._ Vol. xlvii. p. 309. (Title,
“Wordsworth as a Spiritual Teacher.”)
7
1851. _North American Review._ Vol. lxxiii. p. 473.[545]
8
1851. MOUNTFORD, W. _The Christian Examiner._ Vol. li. p. 275.[546]
9
1851. PORTER, NOAH. _The New Englander Magazine._ Vol. ix. p. 583.[547]
10
1851. WIGHT, ORLANDO WILLIAMS. _American Whig Review._ Vol. xiv. pp.
68-81.[548]
11
1851. WIGHT, ORLANDO WILLIAMS. _American Whig Review._ Vol. xiii. pp.
448-458.[549]
12
1854. _Presbyterian Quarterly Review._ Vol. ii. pp. 643-663.[550]
Article 1.
13
1854. _Presbyterian Quarterly Review._ Vol. iii. pp. 69-88.[551]
Article 2.
14
1841. TUCKERMAN, H. _Southern Literary Messenger._ Vol. vii. p. 105.
15
1850. _Literary World._ Vol. vi. p. 485. “William Wordsworth.”[552]
16
1850. REED, HENRY. _Literary World._ Vol. vi. pp. 581, 582. On
Wordsworth.
17
1850. REED, HENRY. _Literary World._ Vol. vii. pp. 205, 206. A second
short article.
18
1850. _Literary World._ “The Prelude.” Vol. vii. p. 167.[553]
19
1850. _Literary World._ “Visit to Wordsworth’s Grave.” Vol. vii. p.
225.[554]
20
1850. SPENCER, J. A. _Literary World._ “Visit to Wordsworth.” November
23.[555]
21
1851. _Literary World._ Vols. viii. ix. (May 24, June 14, July 12,
August 2.)[556] Reviews of Christopher Wordsworth’s _Memoirs_ of his
uncle.
22
1853. REED, HENRY. _Literary World._ Vol. xii. June 25.[557]
23
1850. _Southern Quarterly Review._ Vol. xviii. p. 1. Review of the
_Poetical Works of Wordsworth_. London: Moxon, 1845.
24
1856. _United States Democratic Review._ Vol. vi. pp. 281-295. (New
Series.) Article 1. “Of Wordsworth’s life, beginning at Bristol.”
25
1856. _United States Democratic Review._ Vol. vi. p. 363. (New Series.)
Article 2.
26
1850. _Graham Magazine._ Vol. i. pp. 105-116. Supposed to be written
by Charles J. Peterson. (Signed P.) Review of the life and poetry
of Wordsworth, written by one who confessed to an admiration for
Wordsworth’s genius bordering on veneration.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
27
1878. _American Journal of Education._ Wordsworth and Cambridge. Vol.
xxviii. p. 426.[558]
28
1843. _United States Democratic Review._ Vol. xii. p. 158.[559]
29
1836-63. _Christian Review._ Vol. xvi. p. 434. “Wordsworth as a
Religious Poet.”
30
1844. CUYLER, T. L. _Godey’s Lady’s Book._ Vol. xxviii. (January). “On
the English Lakes and Wordsworth.”
31
1850. _International Magazine._ Vol. i. p. 271. “A Review of _The
Prelude_, from _The Examiner_.”
32
1855. _Brownson’s Quarterly Review._ Vol. xii. p. 525. “Wordsworth’s
Poetical Works.”
33
1850. _Graham Magazine._ Vol. i. pp. 322, 323.[560]
34
1842. _United States Democratic Review._ Vol. x. pp. 272-288. (New
Series.)[561]
35
1865. _North American Review._ Vol. c. p. 508. Boston: Little, Brown
and Co.
36
1850. _Southern Literary Messenger._ Vol. xvi. p. 474.[562]
37
1851. _Harper’s Monthly Magazine._ Vol. iii. p. 502.[563]
38
1845. BOWEN, F. _North American Review._ Vol. lxi. p. 217.[564]
39
1863. ALGER, W. R. _North American Review._ Vol. xcvi. p. 141.[565]
40
1850. _Southern Literary Messenger._ Vol. xvi. p. 637.[566]
41
1863. WARD, J. H. _North American Review._ Vol. xcvii. p. 387.
42
1853. _The National Magazine._ Vol. iii. No. 7, “An Estimate of
Wordsworth.”
43
1853. _The Christian Observer._ Vol. 1. pp. 307-381.[567]
44
1858. “The Genius of Wordsworth,” in the “Editor’s Table” of _Russell’s
Magazine_. Charleston, S.E. Vol. iii. pp. 271-274.
[542] A review of the 1837 edition of Wordsworth’s poems. Perhaps no
abler or more comprehensive review of Wordsworth’s life and writings
has been written than this, by America’s foremost critic.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[543] One of the best of the early American criticisms.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[544] A review of the 1851 edition. Contains an earnest plea for the
study of Wordsworth’s poetry in America. One of the noblest criticisms
written.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[545] On the “Life and Poetry of Wordsworth.” A review of _The
Prelude_. Unsigned; but the name is given elsewhere, as T. Chase.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[546] A review of the _Memoirs of Wordsworth_, by his nephew, the
Bishop of Lincoln.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[547] A review of Professor Reed’s edition of the _Memoirs of
Wordsworth_, Boston, 1851.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[548] A review of the _Memoirs_, signed O. W.W.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[549] A review of _The Prelude_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[550] Anonymous. A short review of _The Prelude_, and, at greater
length, of _The Life_ (edited by Reed). An estimate of his work and
influence.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[551] Traces the literary life of the poet. Claims for Wordsworth the
precedence to Coleridge in the utterance of a spiritual Philosophy.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[552] A notice of Wordsworth’s death, unsigned; but Mr. Wilberforce
Eames--of the Lenox Library--informs me, that their library now owns
Mr. Evert A. Duyckinck’s copy of the _Literary World_, and that
gentleman’s own initials are appended in pencil to this article. Mr.
Duyckinck was editor of the _Literary World_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[553] Judge Reed, Professor Henry Reed’s son, does not attribute this
article to his father. There is an impression that Professor Reed
published an article on _The Prelude_. His lecture on that poem was
never published.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[554] Signed by R. F. Correspondence, _London Literary Gazette_, August
31.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[555] Possibly the same as in that scarce number of the _Southern
Literary Messenger_. Vol. xvi. p. 474.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[556] These articles, in the opinion of Judge Henry Reed, are not by
his father, Professor Henry Reed.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[557] Notice to those who wish to subscribe to the Memorial to
Wordsworth, signed.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[558] An article on the University of Cambridge, and an account of
Wordsworth’s residence at St. John’s College, 1787-1791.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[559] Six pages on Wordsworth’s _Sonnet to Liberty_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[560] A brief review of _The Prelude_ and _Excursion_, and a comparison
between the two poems.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[561] On Wordsworth’s sonnets in favour of Capital Punishment.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[562] On the house at Rydal.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[563] An unsigned, four paged article on Wordsworth, Byron Scott, and
Shelley.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[564] In a “Review of Longfellow’s _Poets and Poetry of Europe_,” a
page on Wordsworth’s influence.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[565] In “The Origin and Uses of Poetry,” a few lines on Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[566] A notice, with extracts from _The Prelude_.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[567] “The Religion of Wordsworth’s Poetry.”
C. M. ST. JOHN.
VI
CRITICISMS AND REVIEWS IN PERIODICALS FROM 1870 TO 1895
These are not chronologically arranged by Mrs. St. John, but see her
note to Section V.--ED.
1
1882. DEWITT, DR. JOHN. _Presbyterian Review._ Vol. iii. p. 241.[568]
2
1884. BURROUGHS, JOHN. _The Century Magazine._ Vol. v. p. 418. This is
entitled “Wordsworth’s Country.”
3
1880. CRANCH, C. P. _The Atlantic Monthly._ Vol. xlv. p. 241. Entitled
“Wordsworth.” A review of the 1880 Poetical Works (Boston). The writer
notes what he considers the chief excellency as well as defects of
Wordsworth’s poetry.
4
1888. MURRAY, J. O. _The Homiletic Review._ Vol. xvi. pp. 295-304.
Title, “The Study of Wordsworth’s Poetry.”
5
1890. PATTISON, T. H. _The Baptist Review._ Vol. xii. p. 265. “The
Religious Influence of Wordsworth.”
6
1889. HUTTON, LAWRENCE. _Harper’s Monthly Magazine._ Vol. lxxviii.[569]
(in Literary Notes).
7
1880-1. CONWAY, MONCURE D. _Harper’s Monthly Magazine._ “The English
Lakes and their Genii.” Vol. lxii. pp. 7, 161, 339.
8
1883. PEDDER, H. C. _The Manhattan._ Vol. ii. pp. 418-433.[570]
9
1876. YARNALL, ELLIS. _Lippincott’s Magazine._ Vol. xviii. pp. 543-554,
669-683. “Walks and Visits in Wordsworth’s Country.” Written in the
summer of 1855 and 1857.
10
1871. FIELDS, J. T. _The Atlantic Monthly._ Vol. xxviii. p. 750. On
Wordsworth, in an article entitled “Our Whispering Gallery.” The same
article is cut down in _Yesterdays with Authors_.[571]
11
1892. PARSONS, EUGENE. _The Examiner._ Vol. lxx. p. 1. On “Tennyson and
Wordsworth.”
12
1888. WILLIAMS, T. C. _Andover Review._ Vol. ix. p. 30.
13
1889. NOBLE, FRED PERRY. _The Homiletic Review._ Vol. xviii. p. 306.
“The Value of Wordsworth to the Preacher.”
14
1873. HIMES, JOHN A. _Lutheran Quarterly Review._ Vol. iii. p. 252.
“The Religious Faith of Wordsworth and Tennyson as shown in their
Poems.”
15
1881. JOHNSON, E. E. _American Church Review._ Vol. xxxiii. p. 139.
“Influence of Wordsworth’s Poetry.”
16
1886. COAN, T. M. _The New Princeton Review._ Vol. i. pp. 297-319.
“Wordsworth’s Passion.”
17
1889. VEDDER, H. C. _The New York Examiner_, August 28. “The Decline of
Wordsworth.”[572]
18
1877. COAN, T. M. _The Galaxy._ Vol. xxiii. pp. 322-336. “Wordsworth’s
Corrections.”[573]
19
1881. BOWEN, F. F. _The Dial._ Vol. i. p. 21. “A Review of Myers’
Wordsworth.”
20
1881. GERHART, R. L. _Reformed Quarterly Review._ Vol. xxviii. p. 344.
“Wordsworth and his Art.”
21
1887. WOODBERRY, G. E. _The Nation._ Vol. xlv. p. 487. “Wordsworth and
the Beaumonts.”
22
1881. BROWNELL, W. C. _The Nation._ Vol. xxxii. p. 153. “Myers’
Account of Wordsworth.”
23
1872. CROFFUT, W. A. _Lakeside Monthly._ Vol. viii. pp. 418-425.
“Wordsworth.”
24
1895. THORPE, F. W. _The Philadelphia Call._ “The Home of Wordsworth.”
Autobiographic and critical.
25
1879. _Appleton’s Journal._ Vol. xxii. p. 223. “How to Popularise
Wordsworth.”
26
1874. DE-VERE, A. _The Catholic World._ Vol. xix. p. 795.
“Recollections of Wordsworth.”
27
1875. DE-VERE, A. _The Catholic World._ Vol. xxii. p. 329.
28
1891. PAGE, H. A. _The Century Magazine._ No. 1. pp. 453-864.
“Wordsworth and De Quincey. With hitherto unpublished letters.”[574]
29
1853. _The National Magazine._ Vol. iii. pp. 36-40.
30
1853. _Brownson’s Quarterly Review._ Vol. xii. 525.
31
1896. THEODORE W. HUNT in _Bibliotheca Sacra_. No. 66. “William
Wordsworth.”
32
1896. J. W. BRAY. _The Literary Democracy of Wordsworth_ in “Poet
Love.” Vol. iii. No. 6.
[568] On “The Homiletic Value of Wordsworth’s Poetry.” One of the
ablest papers ever written on Wordsworth. It contains the best reply to
Matthew Arnold’s estimate of his poetry.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[569] This is a review of Rolf’s _Wordsworth’s Selected Poems_.
It contains one of the most appreciative tributes to Wordsworth’s
influence which has appeared in America.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[570] On “Wordsworth and the Modern Age.” Illustrated by W. St.
J. Harper, and other artists. It deals with the especial need of
Wordsworth’s “calming influence in the exacting competition for
success,” and gives a comparison between Virgil and Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[571] Of interest to Americans.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[572] It aims to give some explanation of the lack of interest in
Wordsworth’s poetry in later days.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[573] An attempt, the writer says, to point out the corrections,
leaving their interpretation to the reader.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
[574] Written by an Englishman, but published first in an American
magazine.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
VII
VISITS TO WORDSWORTH BY EMINENT AMERICANS
The following books record visits made by eminent Americans to
Wordsworth.
C. M. ST. JOHN.
1
1863. HAWTHORNE, N. _Our Old Home, and English Note-Books._ Vol. ii.
pp. 24-56, etc.; also,
1883. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. “A Visit to Wordsworth.”
2
1856. EMERSON, R. W. _English Traits._ Boston: James Munroe and Co. pp.
24-31; also,
1881. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Co. Visit to Wordsworth, in chapter
entitled “First Visit to England.”
3
1876. TICKNOR, GEORGE. _Life, Letters, and Journals._ Boston: James R.
Osgood and Co. 2 vols. Vol. i. pp. 287, 288, etc. Vol. ii. p. 167, etc.
4
1836. DEWEY, ORVILLE. _The Old World and the New._ Boston: 2 vols. pp.
89-96.
5
1884. BRYANT, W. C. Prose Works. In a chapter on “Poets and Poetry of
the English Language” (New York: D. Appleton and Co.) a few pages deal
with Wordsworth.
VIII
A FEW POEMS ON WORDSWORTH
1
1846. WALLACE, W. _Poem on Wordsworth._ New York: 12mo.
2
1850. FIELD, JAMES T. _Graham Magazine_ (October). “Wordsworth.”
3
1850. ALEXANDER, W. _Graham Magazine_ (November), p. 221. “Wordsworth.
(A Sonnet.)”
4
1850. H. M. R. _Harpers Magazine._ “Sonnet on the Death of Wordsworth.”
Vol. i. p. 218.
5
1850. E. A. W. _Literary World._ “Sonnet on Wordsworth.” Vol. vii. p.
255.
6
1874. WHITTIER, J. G. Whittier’s Works. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and
Co. “Poem on Wordsworth. Written on a blank leaf of _Wordsworth’s
Memoirs_, 1851.” Vol. iv. p. 66.
7
1890. SCOLLARD, CLINTON (?) _Northern Christian Advocate._ “The Poet’s
Seat. A Sonnet on Wordsworth. Written at Ambleside, 1890.”
8
1893. “To Wordsworth, after reading his XXX Ecclesiastical Sonnets” in
_The Echo and the Poet_, by William Cushing Bamburgh. N. Y. 1893.
IX
UNPUBLISHED LECTURES ON WORDSWORTH
ESSAYS OF SPECIAL INTEREST
1
1892. CORSON, HIRAM. “The Divine Immanence in Nature, and the
relationship of the human spirit thereto, as presented in Wordsworth’s
Poetry.”
2
WINCHESTER, C. T. “The Lake District and Wordsworth.”
3
PRENTISS, GEORGE L. “Hurstmonceaux Rectory and Rydal Mount.” (Personal
Recollections.)
4
HOYT, A. S. “Wordsworth, the Man and the Poet.” (Imperfectly reported
in _The Houghton Record_.)
III.--_FRANCE_
WORDSWORTH IN FRANCE
By ÉMILE LEGOUIS, Professeur à la Faculté de Lettres, Université de
Lyon, France
I
BIBLIOGRAPHY
There is no separate or whole book on Wordsworth that I know of.
ARTICLES IN MAGAZINES, OR CHAPTERS IN BOOKS
_Voyage historique et littéraire en Angleterre et en Écosse_, par
Amédée Pichot (_passim_). 3 vols. in 8. Paris, 1829.[575] An English
translation was published in London in 1825.
_Revue Britannique._
Mai 1827. Wordsworth, Crabbe, and Campbell, pp. 61-79, a criticism
translated from the _New Monthly Magazine_.
Février 1835. Poésie domestique de la grande Bretagne, translated from
the _New Monthly Magazine_.
Janvier 1836, p. 190. Compte-rendu de “Yarrow Revisited and other
Poems,” translated from the _Repository of Knowledge_.
_Revue des Deux Mondes._ 1er Août 1835. William Wordsworth, par A.
Fontaney.[576]
_Revue Contemporaine._ 15 Décembre 1853. Poètes contemporains de
l’Angleterre: William Wordsworth et John Wilson, par L. Étienne.
_Littérature anglaise_ de H. Taine.[577] 1864. Vol. iv. pp. 311-324.
_Études sur la Littérature contemporaine_, par Éd. Schérer.[578]
_Revue critique d’histoire et de littérature._ 16 Janvier 1882. Article
de James Darmesteter sur la Biographie de Wordsworth, par Myers.[579]
_Essais de Littérature anglaise_, par James Darmesteter. Paris,
1883.[580]
_Histoire de la Littérature anglaise_, par M. Léon Boucher. Paris,
1890. pp. 355-363.
_La Renaissance de la Poésie anglaise_, par Gabriel Sarrazin. 1887.
_Études et Portraits_, par Paul Bourget. Vol. ii. Études
anglaises.[581] 1888.
_Étude sur la Vie et les Œuvres de Robert Burns_, par Auguste
Angellier. Paris, 1892. (_Passim_, et surtout vol. ii. pp. 362-393,
Étude sur le sentiment de la nature dans Wordsworth et autres poètes
anglais contemporains.)
_Le général Michel Beaupuy_, par Georges Bussière et Émile Legouis.
Paris, 1891.
[575] Vol. ii. pp. 363-394.--ED.
[576] This was signed Y, which was Fontaney’s pseudonym.--E.L.
[577] Wordsworth et la poésie moderne de l’Angleterre.--_Histoire de la
Littérature anglaise_, par H. Taine.--ED.
[578] Vol. vi. pp. 127, 128, and vol. vii. pp. 1-59.--ED.
[579] pp. 227-236.--ED.
[580] pp. 227-236.--ED.
[581] Vol. ii. pp. 83; 126-134.--ED.
II
TRANSLATIONS
Pas de traduction complète, ni de volume spécial de traductions de
Wordsworth.
Une traduction par Fontaney annoncée en 1837 comme devant paraître dans
le _Bibliothèque anglo-française_, n’a pas paru.
En dehors des poèmes ou parties de poèmes traduit par les critiques
énumérés plus haut, il n’y a guère de traduction en prose de quelque
importance.
TRADUCTIONS EN VERS
MADAME AMABLE TASTU. _We are Seven._
SAINTE-BEUVE. _Joseph Delorme._ 1829.
“Le plus long jour de l’année,” p. 88.
Sonnet, “Personal Talk,” p. 123.
“Sonnet sur le Sonnet,” p. 124.
_Consolations._ 1830.
Sonnet, “It is a beauteous evening,” p. 234.
Sonnet, “Not Love, nor War,” p. 239.
Sonnet, “Quand le poète en pleurs,” p. 236.
_Pensées d’Août._ Trois sonnets imités de Wordsworth.
I. “Reposez-vous et remerciez.”
II. “La Cabane du Highlander.”
III. “Le Château de Bothwell.”
Sainte-Beuve cite en outre dans ses _Nouveaux Lundis_ des 21 et 22
Avril 1862, trois sonnets de Wordsworth traduits en vers, par l’Abbé
Roussel. Ces traductions assez pauvres de poésie sont celles des
sonnets suivants--
“Nuns fret not.…”
“Dark and more dark.…”
“These words were uttered as in pensive mood.”
JEAN AICARD a traduit _We are Seven_ dans _La Chanson de l’Enfant_.
PAUL BOURGET (_Études et Portraits_, vol. ii. _op. cit._) a traduit
l’un des sonnets au Duddon.
“What aspect bore the Man …?”
III
INFLUENCE
Wordsworth’s influence on French literature was altogether very slight,
nor did it make itself felt till about 1830; when, after a very limited
period, it silently died away.
Wordsworth was but little known by his contemporary Châteaubriand, who
merely names him among other poets in his _Essai sur la Littérature
anglaise_. Byron, Walter Scott, and in a lesser degree Thomas
Moore, were the only writers of Great Britain whose works told on
our literature at that time. Villemain, in his criticism of Byron,
contemptuously dismisses all the so-called lake-poets to fix on his
hero. He calls them: “Des métaphysiciens, raisonneurs sans invention,
mélancoliques sans passion, qui, dans l’éternelle rêverie d’une vie
étroite et peu agitée, n’avaient produit que des singularités sans
puissance sur l’imagination des autres hommes. Tel était Woodsworth
(_sic_) et le subtil mais non touchant Coléridge.”
To Byron also, and to him alone (Ossian being excepted) among the
poets of England, was Lamartine indebted. I am not sure that he names
Wordsworth once; but still the striking analogy between the ideas and
imaginative style of both cannot fail to be noticed by the reader.
Without insisting on a parallel that might be drawn between many pages
of _The Excursion_ and of _Jocelyn_, I will only point out two short
pieces of Lamartine that bear strong resemblance to two poems of
Wordsworth, so much so that they almost read like free imitations--
Lamartine Wordsworth’s
“A Augusta,” _Recueillements |
Poètiques_, xx. | _Nightingale and Stock-dove._
|
“Le Fontaine du Foyard,” |
_Nouvelles Confidences_. | _The Fountain._
Victor Hugo, so far as I know, only names Wordsworth once, in _L’Âne_--
…Young le pleureur des nuits,
Wordsworth l’esprit des lacs …
M. Sully Prudhomme when he wrote _A l’Hirondelle_ (stanzas, la vie
intérieure) appears to have borne in mind _To a Skylark_, “Ethereal
minstrel,” etc.
M. Coppée has often been called a French Wordsworth, owing to his
poetical collection called _Les Humbles_, wherein he shows the same
partiality as the English Poet does for humble themes and characters,
together with a bold attempt to naturalise trivial or ludicrous
details in serious poetry; but there is no proof, as far as I know, of
Wordsworth’s influence having been strong upon him.
If we except two or three disciples of Wordsworth, neither he, nor
the lake-poets taken as a whole, seem to have been much thought of, or
even read, by our contemporary verse-writers. The word _Lakist_ has
generally been used as a synonym for “weak and doleful mysticism.”
Ex.:--
(_a_) _Revue Encyclopédique._ 1831. Article de Pierre Leroux, sur la
“Poésie de notre Époque.” “L’Angleterre a entendu autour de ses lacs
bourdonner comme des ombres plaintives un essaim de poètes abîmés dans
une mystique contemplation.”
(_b_) _Journal d’un Poète_, par Alfred de Vigny. (Ed. Michel Lévy.
1867. p. 80.) “Barbier vient de publier _Il Pianto_. Les délices de
Capone ont amolli son caractère de poésie et Brizeux a déteint sur
lui ses douces couleurs virgiliennes et laquistes (_sic_) dérivant de
Sainte-Beuve.”
(_c_) THÉOPHILE GAUTIER (_Portraits Contemporains_, p. 174) almost
seems to derive the word _Lakiste_ from Lamartine’s poem called _Le
Lac_. He has just mentioned the poem and goes on: “Il ne faut pas
croire que Lamartine, parce qu’il y a toujours chez lui une vibration
et une résonnance de harpe éolienne, ne soit qu’un mélodieux _lakiste_
et ne sache que soupirer mollement la mélancolie et l’amour. S’il a le
soupir, il a la parole et le cri …” (_Journal Officiel_, 8 Mars 1869.)
I now come to the man who, first and foremost among our poets and
critics, paid due homage to Wordsworth, _i.e._ Sainte-Beuve. I have
already enumerated his several translations in verse from Wordsworth.
Strange to say, the voluminous critic has no single article with
Wordsworth for its main subject; but, whoever will go through his many
volumes will find many judicious and admiring references to the poet.
Moreover, as a poet, Sainte-Beuve has endeavoured to naturalise in
France the poetic style that has been associated with the name of
Wordsworth. He expressly claims Wordsworth as one of his masters in his
_Consolations_ xviii. “A Antony Deschamps.” Among his bosom-poets he
reckons--
…Wordsworth peu connu, qui des lacs solitaires
Sait tòus les bleus reflets, les bruits et les mystères,
Et qui, depuis trente ans vivant au même lieu,
En contemplation devant le même Dieu,
A travers les soupirs de la mousse et de l’onde,
Distingue, au soir, des chants venus d’un meilleur monde.
The original attempt of Sainte-Beuve (for he was original in his very
choice of Wordsworth as a model at a time when Byron engrossed all
the admiration of the French poets) has been ably characterised by
Théophile Gautier in his “Portraits Contemporains” (pp. 208, 209), an
article reprinted from _La Gazette de Paris_, 19 Novembre 1871:--
“(Sainte-Beuve) avait été en poésie un inventeur. Il avait
donné une note nouvelle et toute moderne, et de tout le cénacle
c’était à coup sûr le plus réellement romantique. Dans cette
humble poésie qui rappelle par la sincérité du sentiment et
la minutie du détail observé sur nature, les vers de Crabbe,
de Wordsworth, et de Cowper, Sainte-Beuve s’est frayé de
petits sentiers à mi-côte, bordés d’humbles fleurettes, où nul
en France n’a passé avant lui. Sa facture un peu laborieuse
et compliquée vient de la difficulté de réduire à la forme
métrique des idées et des images non exprimées encore ou
dédaignées jusque-là, mais que de morceaux merveilleusement
venus où l’effort n’est plus sensible!”
Sainte-Beuve’s admiration of Wordsworth is a well-known fact. Less
generally known is the influence of this admiration on several poets
of that time (_circa_ 1830-40), who, either through Sainte-Beuve’s
imitations, or with a direct knowledge of Wordsworth’s poems, to the
reading of which they had thus been stimulated, offer great marks of
resemblance with Wordsworth. I have quoted a judgment of De Vigny that
considers Brizeux and Barbier as having turned _laquistes_ through
Sainte-Beuve. I know no other immediate proof of this influence.
Perhaps Barbier and Brizeux have consigned it somewhere. Anyhow Brizeux
with his glorification of his youthful years and school-time, with
his intense love of his native Brittany, his fond attachment to local
customs and habits, his lamentations on the death of the poetical poet
as embodied in his own province (_Élégie de la Bretagne_), is to all
extent and purposes the most thoroughly Wordsworthian of all our poets.
There may be more of Wordsworth’s _philosophy_ in Lamartine, but there
is more of his _poetry_ proper in Brizeux.
The influence of Wordsworth on Maurice de Guérin and Hippolyte de la
Morvonnais, is more easily ascertained than the preceding. Here, again,
Sainte-Beuve appears to have been the intermediate agent.[582]
In 1832-33 Maurice de Guérin, fresh from the reading of the
_Consolations_, and De la Morvonnais, who came to be a direct admirer
of the Lake Poets, and chiefly of Wordsworth, set to write short
poems which they aspired to make as little different from prose as
possible, rejecting all traditional ornaments, and making little of
the rhythmical improvements of the _Romantiques_ proper. Some of those
pieces were inserted in a local paper as downright prose (no stop
intervening at the end of the lines), whereas the said paper would
not have made room for verse.[583] This looks like trifling, but the
earnestness of this attempted revolution is shown in the interesting
poems of Maurice de Guérin. Another outcome of this was an intended
publication on Wordsworth, of which it is impossible to say whether it
was to be a criticism, or a translation, of the English Poet. It is
thus mentioned in a letter of Guérin to De la Morvonnais of June 30,
1836: “Nous avons adressé des circulaires à un grand nombre d’éditeurs
pour l’impression Wordsworth. Nous attendons la réponse d’un moment à
l’autre.” The answer must have been unfavourable, as nothing more was
heard of the intended publication.
The early death of Guérin left it for De la Morvonnais alone to spread
the influence of Wordsworth’s poetry in France. Of him we read in
Sainte-Beuve’s _Étude sur Maurice de Guérin_:--
“La Morvonnais, vers ce temps même (1834), en était fort
préoccupé (des lakistes et de leur poésie), au point d’aller
visiter Wordsworth à sa résidence de Rydal Mount, près des lacs
du Westmoreland, et de rester en correspondance avec ce grand
et pacifique esprit, avec ce patriarche de la Muse intime.
Guérin, sans tant y songer, ressemblait mieux aux Lakistes en
ne visant nullement à les imiter.”
Of the supposed correspondence between Wordsworth and De la Morvonnais
no trace remains. M. Hippolyte de la Blanchardière, De la Morvonnais’
grandson, has informed me that in the collection of his grandfather’s
letters there is no letter of Wordsworth to be found. That at least
a Study of Wordsworth existed at the time is proved by the following
preface to his poem _La Thébaïde des Grèves_, written by his friend A.
Duquesnel (ed. by Didier, Quai des Augustins. 1864. p. xxvii.)
“Nous avons trouvé dans les _Reliquiae_ du poète de
l’Arguenon[584] de précieuses études sur les lakistes. Il
s’était passionné pour ces hommes dans les dix dernières années
de sa vie (1843-53).[585] Wordsworth lui semblait plus grand
que Byron, qu’il trouvait trop emphatique, trop solennel,
pas assez près de la nature. L’auteur de _l’Excursion_ a
exercé une pénétrante influence sur l’esprit et le cœur de la
Morvonnais, nous trouvons dans ses cahiers des traductions
en vers de Wordsworth, de Coléridge, de Crabbe, qui, lui, ne
faisait pas partie de ce groupe. Nous les publierons peut-être
un jour; elles ont d’autant plus d’intérêt que l’on ne connaît
guère les lakistes en France, que par de rares extraits. Il
s’était livré, comme on le verra, à une étude approfondie de la
littérature anglaise. Son admiration pour Walter Scott était
inexprimable.”
The study and translations above-mentioned have also been lost, many
manuscripts of De la Morvonnais having been destroyed.
It remains for me to point out some allusions to, or imitations of,
Wordsworth in the existing verse of De la Morvonnais.
In the _Thébaïde des Grèves_ (1838), “Le Petit Patour” is a close
imitation of _We are Seven_, the conclusion being--
Cet enfant en sait plus que moi sur l’existence;
Savoir vivre est savoir souffrir avec constance.
“Le Vagabond,” a story of a vagrant by whom the poet is taught
resignation, is an imitation of _Resolution and Independence_.
In “A Sainte-Beuve” are found these two lines--
J’ai posé sous mon bras mon penseur solitaire,
Mon Wordsworth tant aimé de l’amant du mystère.
In “Dispersion, à Mistress Hemans,” etc., we read this--
Nous primes un poète, une femme angélique
Dont peu savent chez nous la voix mélancolique,
Disciple de Wordsworth, le sublime penseur,
Des lakistes chéris je la nomme la sœur.
In “Dernières Paroles” we find this praise of Wordsworth--
Or, ce soir-là, je lus un homme de génie;
Celui dont la mystique et profonde harmonie
Sonne pour les élus des poétiques dons,
Et soulève notre âme en ses grands abandons …
…Oh! ne pourrai-je voir
Ces lacs du Westmoreland, mon désir, mon espoir?
…
Cet homme est honoré des puissances secrètes;
Lui mort, à ses beaux lacs, romantiques retraites,
Des pèlerins viendront, penseurs religieux.
Le monde méconnut l’homme mélodieux.
I pass over many sonnets, and divers other poems, in which the
influence of Wordsworth is unmistakable, and come to a last quotation
which is useful to elucidate an allusion in Wordsworth’s _The Poet’s
Dream: Sequel to the Norman Boy_. In this poem, written in 1842,
Wordsworth says--
But oh! that Country-man of thine, whose eye, loved Child, can see
A pledge of endless bliss in acts of early piety,
In verse, which to thy ear might come, would treat this simple theme,
Nor leave untold our happy flight in that adventurous dream.
As Wordsworth read very little French poetry in his old age, I think he
here alludes to a poem of his admirer De la Morvonnais, who very likely
sent him that _Thébaïde des Grèves_ (1838), in which Wordsworth was so
highly praised. The passage alluded to is taken from “Solitude,” and
reads thus--
Enfant, Il (Dieu) te promet le domaine de l’ange
Si tu gardes l’amour et la foi des aïeux,
Et sa mère, aujourd’hui loin de l’humaine fange,
Que tu n’as pas connue et qui t’attend aux cieux.
As a whole, De la Morvonnais, though he imitates Wordsworth, is very
unlike him. Of course I do not mean to compare the two, but even
in like subjects he differs from Wordsworth, owing to a sort of
constitutional nervousness and brooding melancholy.[586]
[582] Voir Maurice de Guérin, _Journal, Lettres et Poèmes_, publiés par
J. S. Trébutien avec Préface de Sainte-Beuve (1860).--E.L.
[583] In the above work--_Séjour de M. de Guérin en Bretagne;
Impressions et Souvenirs de M. François du Breil de Marzan_, pp.
434-441.--E.L.
[584] H. de la Morvonnais.--E.L.
[585] A mistake: his admiration of Wordsworth began before 1832.--E.L.
[586] In _Voyage historique et littéraire en Angleterre et en Écosse_,
par Amédée Puchot, Lettre XXIV. there are numerous references to
Wordsworth. It begins with a quotation from _Tintern Abbey_. In
Lettre LXV. there is additional critical reference to Wordsworth and
Coleridge. In the _Album poétique des jeunes personnes_, par Mme.
Tastu, there is a “Sonnet imité de Wordsworth,” by St. Beuve, pp. 101,
102.
C’est un beau soir, un soir paisible et solennel,
A la fin du saint jour la nature en prière
Le tait, comme Marie à genoux sur la pierre, etc.--ED.
See also the _Nouveaux Lundis_ of St. Beuve, 21 and 22 Avril 1862,
where there are “trois sonnets traduits en vers par l’Abbé Roussel”
from Wordsworth.
ERRATA AND ADDENDA LIST
REFERRING TO VOLUMES I. TO VIII.
1. _Inistar omnium._--I wish to explain the accidental omission of Mr.
T. Hutchinson’s name amongst those who helped me in Volumes I. and II.
(see the prefatory note to this volume), and also that of Mr. Hill. It
was due to my returning, “for press,” an uncorrected copy of my Preface.
2. Vol. ii. p. 106, _Ruth_, l. 54--The following extract from Bartram’s
_Travels_, etc., illustrates Wordsworth’s debt to him:--
Proceeding on our return to town in the cool of the evening
… we enjoyed a most enchanting view; … companies of young
innocent Cherokee virgins, some busy gathering the rich
fragrant fruit, others having already filled their baskets, lay
reclined under the shade of floriferous and fragrant native
bowers … disclosing their beauties to the fluttering breeze
… whilst other parties, more gay and libertine, were yet
collecting strawberries, or wantonly chasing their companions,
tantalising them, staining their lips and cheeks with the ripe
fruit.
3. In vol. ii. p. 348, the date of publication should be Sept. 17,
1802, not 1803.
4. In _The Prelude_ (vol. iii. p. 202, book v. l. 26) the quotation
which I could not trace is from Shakespeare, Sonnet No. 64--
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
5. Vol. v. p. 113 (_The Excursion_, book iii. l. 187).--Mr. William
E. Walcott--Laurence, Mass. U.S.A.--sends me the following variant
readings, which he has found in a copy of the edition of 1814--
… crystal tube
Be lodged therein …
P. 151, book iv. l. 187--
Nor sleep, nor …
6. Vol. vii. p. 276.--This sonnet first appeared in the _New Monthly
Magazine_, part ii. p. 26, under the title, _To B. R. Haydon. Composed
on seeing his Picture of Napoleon, musing at St. Helena_; and it is
dated “Saturday, June 11th, 1831.”
7. Vol. vii. p. 336.--This poem was published in the _Saturday
Magazine_, May 18, 1844, in which the fifth line is--
Woe to the purblind men who fill.
8. It may be worth mentioning (1) that the quotation (not noted,
unfortunately, where it occurs)--
Some natural tears she drops, but wipes them soon,
is from _Paradise Lost_, book xii. l. 645. See also _An Elegy delivered
at the Hot Wells_, Bristol, July 1789. (2) That the phrase “numerous
verse” is from _Paradise Lost_, book v. l. 150; and (3) that “lenient
hand of Time” is from Bowles’ sonnet--
O Time, who know’st a lenient hand to lay
Softest on sorrow’s wound.
Amongst those which I have failed to trace are the following:
_Ecclesiastical Sonnets_, II. xxxiv.--
… murtherer’s chain partake,
Corded, and burning at the social stake.
xlv.--
… in the painful art of dying
_The Russian Fugitive_, Part II. l. 51--
… if house it be or bower.
_Elegiac Musings_, l. 41--
Let praise be mute where I am laid.
_Stanzas suggested in a Steamboat off Saint Bees’ Heads_, l. 37--
Cruel of heart were they, bloody of hand.
INDEX TO THE POEMS
VOL. PAGE
Aar, The Fall of the vi 308
Abbeys, Old vii 100
Address from the Spirit of Cockermouth Castle vii 347
Address to a Child iv 50
Address to Kilchurn Castle ii 400
Address to my Infant Daughter, Dora iii 14
Address to the Scholars of the Village School of ---- ii 84
Admonition iv 34
Æneid, Translation of Part of the First Book of the viii 276
“Aerial Rock--whose solitary brow” vi 187
Affliction of Margaret--, The iii 7
Afflictions of England vii 72
After-Thought (Duddon) vi 263
After-Thought (Tour on the Continent) vi 315
Airey-Force Valley viii 146
Aix-la-Chapelle vi 295
“Alas! what boots the long laborious quest” iv 216
Alban Hills, From the viii 65
Albano, At viii 64
Alfred vii 24
Alfred, His Descendants vii 25
Alice Fell; or, Poverty ii 272
Aloys Reding vi 310
Ambleside viii 156
America, Aspects of Christianity in (Three Sonnets) vii 84
American Episcopacy vii 85
American Tradition vi 246
Ancient History, On a celebrated Event in (Two Sonnets) iv 242
Andrew Jones viii 221
Anecdote for Fathers i 234
Animal Tranquillity and Decay i 307
Anticipation (October 1803) ii 436
Anticipation of leaving School, Composed in i 1
Apennines, Among the Ruins of a Convent in the viii 82
Apology (Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 1st part) vii 18
Apology (Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 2nd part) vii 55
Apology (Sonnets upon the Punishment of Death) viii 112
Apology (Yarrow Revisited) vii 309
Applethwaite, At iii 23
Aquapendente, Musings near viii 42
Armenian Lady’s Love, The vii 232
Artegal and Elidure vi 45
Authors, A plea for, viii 99
Author’s Portrait, To the vii 318
Autumn (September) vi 64
Autumn (Two Poems) vi 201
Avarice, The last Stage of ii 60
Avon, The (Annan) vii 303
Bala-Sala, At vii 365
Balbi iv 237
Ballot, Protest against the viii 304
Bangor, Monastery of Old vii 13
Baptism vii 89
Barbara ii 178
Beaumont, Sir George, Epistle to iv 256
Beaumont, Sir George, Upon perusing the foregoing Epistle to iv 267
Beaumont, Sir George, Picture of Peele Castle, painted by iii 54
Beaumont, Sir George, Beautiful Picture, painted by iv 271
Beaumont, Sir George, Elegiac Stanzas addressed to vii 132
Beaumont, To Lady iv 57
Beggar, The Old Cumberland i 299
Beggars (Two Poems) ii 276
“‘Beloved Vale!’ I said, ‘when I shall con’” iv 35
Benefits, Other (Two Sonnets) vii 40
Bible, Translation of the vii 58
Binnorie, The Solitude of ii 204
Bird of Paradise, Coloured Drawing of the viii 29
Bird of Paradise, Suggested by a Picture of viii 140
Biscayan Rite (Two Sonnets) iv 241
Bishops, Acquittal of the vii 79
Bishops and Priests vii 86
Black Comb, Inscription on a Stone on the side of iv 281
Black Comb, View from the top of iv 279
“Blest Statesman He, whose Mind’s unselfish will” viii 101
Bologna, At (Three Sonnets) viii 85
Bolton Priory, The Founding of iv 204
Books and Newspapers, Illustrated viii 184
Borderers, The i 112
Bothwell Castle vii 299
Boulogne, On being stranded near the Harbour of vi 378
Bran, Effusion on the Banks of the vi 28
Breadalbane, Ruined Mansion of the Earl of vii 295
Brientz, Scene on the Lake of vi 315
Brigham, Nun’s Well vii 347
Britons, Struggle of the vii 11
Brothers, The ii 184
Brothers Water, Bridge at the foot of ii 293
Brougham Castle, Song at the Feast of iv 82
Brownie’s Cell vi 16
Brownie, The vii 297
Brugès (Two Poems) vi 288
Brugès, Incident at vii 198
Buonaparté ii 323
Buonaparté ii 331
Buonaparté iv 228
Burial in the South of Scotland, A Place of vii 285
Burns, At the Grave of ii 379
Burns, Thoughts suggested near the Residence of ii 383
Burns, To the Sons of ii 386
Butterfly, To a ii 383
Butterfly, To a ii 297
Calais, August 1802 ii 331
Calais, August 15, 1802 ii 334
Calais, Composed by the Seaside, near ii 330
Calais, Composed near ii 332
Calais, Composed on the Beach, near ii 335
Calais, Fish-women at vi 286
Calvert, Raisley iv 44
Camaldoli, At the Convent of (Three Sonnets) viii 72
Canute vii 27
Canute and Alfred vi 130
Castle, Composed at ---- ii 410
“Castle of Indolence,” Written in my Pocket Copy of
Thomson’s ii 305
Casual Incitement vii 14
Catechising vii 91
Cathedrals, etc. vii 105
Catholic Cantons, Composed in one of the (Two Poems) vi 312
Celandine, The Small iii 21
Celandine, To the Small (Two Poems) ii 300
Cenotaph (Mrs. Fermor) vii 135
Chamouny, Processions in the Vale of vi 363
Character, A ii 208
Charles the First, Troubles of vii 71
Charles the Second vii 75
Chatsworth vii 272
Chaucer, Selections from (Three Poems) ii 238
Chiabrera, Epitaphs translated from iv 229
Chichely, Archbishop, to Henry V. vii 47
Child, Address to a iv 50
Child, Characteristics of a, three years old iv 252
Child, To a (Written in her Album) viii 7
Childless Father, The ii 181
Christianity in America, Aspects of (Three Sonnets) vii 84
Churches, New vii 102
Church to be erected (Two Sonnets) vii 103
Churchyard, New vii 104
Cintra, Convention of (Two Sonnets) iv 210
Cistertian Monastery vii 37
Clarkson, Thomas, To iv 62
Clergy, Corruptions of the Higher vii 49
Clergy, Emigrant French vii 101
Clerical Integrity vii 78
Clermont, The Council of vii 30
Clifford, Lord iv 82
Clouds, To the viii 142
Clyde, In the Frith of, Ailsa Crag vii 369
Clyde, On the Frith of vii 370
Cockermouth Castle, Address from the Spirit of vii 347
Cockermouth, In sight of vii 346
Coleorton, Elegiac Musings in the grounds of vii 269
Coleorton, A Flower Garden at vii 125
Coleorton, Inscription for an Urn in the grounds of iv 78
Coleorton, Inscription for a Seat in the groves of iv 80
Coleorton, Inscription in a garden of iv 76
Coleorton, Inscription in the grounds of iv 74
Coleridge, Hartley, To ii 351
Collins, Remembrance of i 33
Cologne, In the Cathedral at vi 297
Commination Service vii 96
Complaint, A iv 17
“Complete Angler,” Written on a blank leaf in the vi 190
Conclusion (Duddon) vi 262
Conclusion (Ecclesiastical Sonnets) vii 108
Conclusion (Miscellaneous Sonnets) vii 177
Conclusion (Prelude) iii 367
Conclusion (Sonnets upon the Punishment of Death) viii 111
Confirmation (Two Sonnets) vii 92
Congratulation vii 102
Conjectures vii 5
Contrast, The. The Parrot and the Wren vii 141
Convent in the Apennines viii 82
Convention of Cintra, Composed while writing a Tract
occasioned by the (Two Sonnets) iv 210
Conversion vii 17
Convict, The viii 217
Cora Linn, Composed at vi 26
Cordelia M----, To vii 400
Cottage Girls, The Three vi 351
Cottager to her Infant, The iii 74
Council of Clermont, The vii 30
Countess’ Pillar vii 307
Covenanters, Persecution of the Scottish vii 79
Cranmer vii 62
Crosthwaite Church viii 157
Crusaders vii 41
Crusades vii 31
Cuckoo and the Nightingale, The ii 250
Cuckoo at Laverna, The viii 67
Cuckoo Clock, The viii 151
Cuckoo, To the ii 289
Cuckoo, To the vii 169
Cumberland Beggar, The Old i 299
Cumberland Beggar, The Old, MS. Variants viii 220
Cumberland, Coast of (In the Channel) vii 358
Cumberland, On a high part of the coast of vii 337
Daffodils, The iii 4
Daisy, To the (Two Poems) ii 353
Daisy, To the ii 360
Daisy, To the iii 51
Daniel, Picture of (Hamilton Palace) vii 303
Danish Boy, The ii 96
Danish Conquests vii 27
Danube, The Source of the vi 303
Dati, Roberto iv 234
Dedication (Miscellaneous Sonnets) vii 159
Dedication (Tour on the Continent) vi 285
Dedication (White Doe of Rylstone) iv 102
Dedication (White Doe of Rylstone) vi 42
Departure from the Vale of Grasmere ii 377
“Deplorable his lot who tills the ground” vii 38
Derwent, To the River vi 193
Derwent, To the River vii 345
Descriptive Sketches i 35
Descriptive Sketches i 309
Desultory Stanzas vi 382
Detraction which followed the Publication of a certain
Poem, On the vi 212
Devil’s Bridge, To the Torrent at the vii 129
Devotional Incitements vii 314
Dion vi 116
Dissensions vii 10
Distractions vii 68
Dog, Incident characteristic of a favourite iii 48
Dog, Tribute to the Memory of the same iii 49
Donnerdale, The Plain of vi 251
Dora, To (A little onward) vi 132
Dora, To my Niece viii 297
Douglas Bay, Isle of Man, On entering vii 360
Dover, Composed in the Valley near ii 341
Dover, Near ii 343
Dover, The Valley of (Two Sonnets) vi 380
Druidical Excommunication vii 7
Druids, Trepidation of the vii 6
Duddon, The River vi 225
Dungeon-Ghyll Force ii 138
Dunollie Castle (Eagles) vii 292
Dunolly Castle, On Revisiting vii 371
Dunolly Eagle, The vii 372
Duty, Ode to iii 37
Dyer, To the Poet John iv 273
Eagle and the Dove, The viii 309
Eagles (Dunollie Castle) vii 292
Eagle, The Dunolly vii 372
Easter Sunday, Composed on vi 194
Ecclesiastical Sonnets vii 2
Echo, The Mountain iv 25
Echo upon the Gemmi vi 360
Eclipse of the Sun, The vi 345
Eden, The River (Cumberland) vii 385
Edward VI. vii 59
Edward VI. signing the Warrant vii 60
Egremont Castle, The Horn of iv 12
Egyptian Maid, The vii 252
Ejaculation vii 107
Elegiac Musings (Coleorton Hall) vii 269
Elegiac Stanzas (Goddard) vi 371
Elegiac Stanzas (Mrs. Fermor) vii 132
Elegiac Stanzas (Peele Castle) iii 54
Elegiac Verses (John Wordsworth) iii 58
Elizabeth vii 65
Ellen Irwin ii 124
Emigrant French Clergy vii 101
Emigrant Mother, The ii 284
Eminent Reformers (Two Sonnets) vii 66
Emma’s Dell ii 153
Engelberg vi 316
Enghien, Duke d’ vi 114
“England! the time is come when thou should’st wean” ii 432
England, Afflictions of vii 72
Enterprise, To vi 218
Episcopacy, American vii 85
Epistle to Sir George Beaumont iv 256
Epistle to Sir George Beaumont, Upon perusing the foregoing iv 267
Epitaph, A Poet’s ii 75
Epitaph in the Chapel-yard of Langdale viii 120
Epitaphs translated from Chiabrera iv 229
“Ere with cold beads of midnight dew” vii 145
“Even as a dragon’s eye that feels the stress” vi 69
Evening of extraordinary splendour, Composed upon an vi 176
Evening Star over Grasmere Water, To the viii 263
Evening Walk, An i 4
Event in Ancient History, On a celebrated (Two Sonnets) iv 242
Excursion, The v 1
Expostulation and Reply i 272
Fact, A, and an Imagination vi 130
Faery Chasm, The vi 241
Fancy iv 36
Fancy and Tradition vii 306
Fancy, Hints for the vi 242
Farewell, A ii 324
Farewell Lines vii 155
Farewell (Tour, 1833) vii 341
Farmer of Tilsbury Vale, The ii 147
Far-Terrace, The vii 154
Father, The Childless ii 181
Fathers, Anecdote for i 234
Fermor, Mrs. (Cenotaph) vii 135
Fermor, Mrs. (Elegiac Stanzas) vii 132
Fidelity iii 44
Filial Piety vii 231
Fir Grove (John Wordsworth) iii 66
Fishes in a Vase, Gold and Silver vii 214
Fish-women vi 286
Flamininus, T. Quintius (Two Sonnets) iv 242
Fleming, To the Lady (Rydal Chapel), (Two Poems) vii 109
Floating Island (D. W.) viii 125
Florence (Four Sonnets) viii 78
Flower Garden, A (Coleorton) vii 125
Flowers vi 235
Flowers (Cave of Staffa) vii 378
Flowers in the Island of Madeira viii 177
“Fly, some kind Harbinger, to Grasmere-dale!” ii 419
Foresight, or Children gathering Flowers ii 298
Forms of Prayer at Sea vii 97
Forsaken Indian Woman, Complaint of a i 275
Forsaken, The iii 10
Fort Fuentes vi 328
Fountain, The ii 91
Fox, Mr., Lines composed on the expected death of iv 47
France, Sky-prospect from the Plain of vi 377
Francesco Pozzobonnelli iv 236
French Army in Russia (Two Poems) vi 107
French Clergy, Emigrant vii 101
French Revolution ii 34
French Revolution, In allusion to Histories of the
(Three Sonnets) viii 130
French Royalist, Feelings of a vi 114
Friend, To a (Banks of the Derwent) vii 348
Funeral Service vi 97
Furness Abbey, At viii 168
Furness Abbey, At viii 176
Gemmi, Echo upon the vi 360
General Fast, Upon the late (1832) vii 323
George the Third (November, 1813) iv 282
George the Third, On the death of vi 209
Germans on the Heights of Hockheim, The vi 216
Germany, Written in ii 73
Gillies, Margaret, To (Two Poems) viii 114
Gillies, Margaret viii 306
Gillies, Robert Pearce vi 33
Gipsies iv 65
Glad Tidings vii 15
Gleaner, The vii 202
Glen-Almain, or, The Narrow Glen ii 393
Glencroe, At the Head of vii 295
Glowworm, The viii 231
Goddard, Elegiac Stanzas vi 371
Gold and Silver Fishes in a Vase (Two Poems) vii 214
Goody Blake and Harry Gill i 253
Gordale vi 185
Grace Darling viii 310
Grasmere, Departure from the Vale of (August 1803) ii 377
Grasmere, Home at viii 235
Grasmere, Inscription on the Island at ii 213
Grasmere, Return to ii 419
Grasmere Lake, Composed by the side of iv 73
Grave-stone, A (Worcester Cathedral) vii 201
“Great men have been among us; hands that penned” ii 346
Green, George and Sarah viii 266
Green Linnet, The ii 367
Greenock vii 383
Greta, To the River vii 344
“Grief, thou hast lost an ever ready friend” vi 195
Grotto, Written in a viii 234
Guernica, Oak of iv 245
Guilt and Sorrow i 77
Gunpowder Plot vii 69
Gustavus IV iv 227
Gwerndwffnant, Holiday at viii 284
H. C., Six years old, To ii 351
Hambleton Hills, After a journey across the ii 349
Happy Warrior, Character of the iv 7
Hart-Leap Well ii 128
Hart’s-Horn Tree vii 305
Haunted Tree, The vi 199
Hawkshead, Written as a School Exercise at viii 211
Hawkshead School, In anticipation of leaving i 1
Hawkshead School, Address to the Scholars of ii 84
Haydon, To B. R. vi 61
Haydon, To B. R. (Picture of Napoleon Buonaparte) vii 276
Heidelberg, Castle of (Hymn for Boatmen) vi 301
Helvellyn, To ----, on her first ascent of vi 135
Henry Eighth, Portrait of vii 166
Her eyes are wild i 258
Hermitage (St. Herbert’s Island) ii 210
Hermitage, Near the Spring of the vi 175
Hermit’s Cell, Inscriptions in and near vi 170
Highland Boy, The Blind ii 420
Highland Broach, The vii 310
Highland Girl, To a ii 389
Highland Hut vii 296
Hint from the Mountains vi 156
Hints for the Fancy vi 242
Historian, Plea for the viii 61
Hoffer iv 213
Hogg, James, Extempore Effusion upon the death of viii 24
Holiday at Gwerndwffnant viii 284
Home at Grasmere viii 235
Horn of Egremont Castle, The iv 12
Howard, Mrs., Monument of (Wetheral), (Two Sonnets) vii 386
Humanity vii 222
Hutchinson, Sarah, To vii 162
Hymn for Boatmen (Heidelberg) vi 301
Hymn, The Labourer’s Noon-day vii 408
I.F., To viii 307
Idiot Boy, The i 283
Illustrated Books and Newspapers viii 184
Illustration (The Jung-Frau) vii 70
Imagination vi 67
Immortality, Ode, Intimations of viii 189
Indian Woman, Complaint of a Forsaken i 275
Infant Daughter, Address to my iii 14
Infant M---- M----, To the vii 170
Infant, The Cottager to her iii 74
Influence Abused vii 26
Influence of Natural Objects ii 66
Influences, Other vii 19
Inglewood Forest, Suggested by a View in vii 304
Inscription for a Monument in Crosthwaite Church (Southey) viii 157
Inscription for a Stone (Rydal Mount) vii 269
Inscriptions (Coleorton) iv 74
Inscriptions (Hermit’s Cell) vi 170
Installation Ode viii 320
Interdict, An vii 32
Introduction (Ecclesiastical Sonnets) vii 4
Introduction (Prelude) iii 132
Invasion, Lines on the expected ii 437
Inversneyde ii 389
Invocation to the Earth vi 95
Iona (Two Sonnets) vii 379
Iona, The Black Stones of vii 381
Isle of Man (Two Sonnets) vii 362
Isle of Man, At Bala-Sala vii 365
Isle of Man, At Sea off the vii 359
Isle of Man, By the Sea-shore vii 361
Isle of Man (Douglas Bay) vii 360
Italian Itinerant, The vi 338
Italy, After leaving (Two Sonnets) viii 84
“It is no Spirit who from heaven hath flown” ii 375
“I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret” vi 197
Jedborough, The Matron of ii 414
Jewish Family, A vii 195
Joanna, To ii 157
Joanna H., Lines addressed to viii 282
Joan of Kent, Warrant for Execution of vii 60
Jones, Rev. Robert vi 257
Journey Renewed vi 257
June, 1820 vi 214
Jung-Frau, The, and the Fall of the Rhine vii 70
Kendal, Upon hearing of the death of the Vicar of vi 40
Kendal and Windermere Railway, On the projected viii 166
Kent, To the Men of (October, 1803) ii 434
Kilchurn Castle, Address to ii 400
Killicranky, In the Pass of ii 435
King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, Inside of (Three Sonnets) vii 106
Kirkstone, The Pass of vi 158
Kirtle, The Braes of ii 124
Kitten and Falling Leaves, The iii 16
Laborer’s Noon-day Hymn, The vii 408
Lady, To a, upon Drawings she had made of Flowers in
Madeira viii 177
Lady E. B., and the Hon. Miss P., To the vii 128
Lamb, Charles, Written after the death of viii 17
Lancaster Castle, Suggested by the view of viii 103
Langdale, Epitaph in the Chapel-yard of viii 120
Laodamia vi 1
Last of the Flock, The i 279
Last Supper, by Leonardo da Vinci, The vi 343
Latimer and Ridley vii 61
Latitudinarianism vii 76
Laud vii 71
Leonardo da Vinci, The Last Supper vi 343
Lesbia viii 32
Liberty (Gold and Silver Fishes) vii 216
Liberty (Tyrolese Sonnets) iv 214
Liberty, Obligations of Civil to Religious vii 81
Liege, Between Namur and vi 293
Lines, composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey ii 51
Lines composed on the expected death of Mr. Fox iv 47
Lines, Farewell vii 155
Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree i 108
Lines on the expected Invasion, 1803 ii 437
Lines suggested by a Portrait from the Pencil of F. Stone
(Two Poems) viii 1
Lines written as a School Exercise at Hawkshead viii 211
Lines written in Early Spring i 268
Lines written in the Album of the Countess of Lonsdale viii 8
Lines written upon a Stone, upon one of the Islands at Rydal ii 63
Lines written upon hearing of the death of the late Vicar
of Kendal vi 40
Lines written while sailing in a Boat at Evening i 32
Liturgy, The vii 88
Loch Etive, Composed in the Glen of vii 291
Lombardy, In viii 83
London, Written in (1802), (Two Sonnets) ii 344
Longest Day, The vi 153
Long Meg and her Daughters vii 390
Lonsdale, The Countess of (Album) viii 8
Lonsdale, To the Earl of v 20
Lonsdale, To the Earl of vii 392
Louisa ii 362
Love, The Birth of viii 215
Love lies bleeding (Two Poems) viii 148
Loving and Liking vii 320
Lowther vii 391
Lowther, To the Lady Mary vi 211
Lucca Giordano viii 183
Lucy Gray; or, Solitude ii 99
Lucy (Three Poems) ii 78
Lucy (Three years she grew) ii 81
Lycoris, Ode to (Two Poems) vi 145
M. H., To ii 167
Madeira, Flowers in the Island of viii 177
Malham Cove vi 184
Manse, On the sight of a (Scotland) vii 286
March, Written in ii 293
Margaret ----, The Affliction of iii 7
Mariner, By a Retired vii 364
“Mark the concentred hazels that enclose” vi 71
Marriage Ceremony vii 94
Marriage of a Friend, Composed on the Eve of the iv 276
Marshall, To Cordelia vii 400
Mary Queen of Scots, Captivity of vi 191
Mary Queen of Scots, Lament of vi 162
Mary Queen of Scots (Workington) vii 349
Maternal Grief iv 248
Matron of Jedborough, The ii 414
Matthew ii 87
May Morning, Composed on (1838) viii 97
May Morning, Ode composed on vii 146
May, To vii 148
Meditation vii 401
Memory vii 117
“Men of the Western World!” viii 112
Mental Affliction viii 36
Merry England vii 343
Michael ii 215
Michael Angelo, From the Italian of (Three Sonnets) iii 380
Michael Angelo, Translation from viii 265
“Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour” ii 346
Missions and Travels vii 23
Monasteries, Dissolution of the (Three Sonnets) vii 52
Monasteries, Saxon vii 22
Monastery, Cistertian vii 37
Monastery of Old Bangor vii 13
Monastic Power, Abuse of vii 50
Monastic Voluptuousness vii 51
Monkhouse, Mary vii 170
Monks and Schoolmen vii 39
Monument of Mrs. Howard (Two Sonnets) vii 386
Monument (Long Meg and her Daughters) vii 390
Moon, The (The Shepherd, looking eastward) vi 68
Moon, The (With how sad steps, O Moon) iv 38
Moon (The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love) viii 127
Moon, The (Sea-side) viii 13
Moon, The (Rydal) viii 15
Moon, The (Who but is pleased to watch) viii 184
Moon, The (How beautiful the Queen of Night) viii 188
Moon, The (Once I could hail) vii 152
Morning Exercise, A vii 178
Mosgiel Farm (Burns) vii 383
Mother, The Mad i 258
Mother’s Return, The iv 63
Mountains, Hint from the vi 156
Mull, In the Sound of vii 293
Music, Power of iv 20
Mutability vii 100
Naming of Places, Poems on the ii 153
Namur and Liege, Between vi 293
Natural Objects, Influence of ii 66
“Near Anio’s stream, I spied a gentle Dove” viii 65
Needlecase in the form of a Harp, On seeing a vii 157
Negro Woman ii 342
Newspaper, Composed after reading a vii 290
Nightingale, The vi 214
Nightingale, The Cuckoo and the ii 250
Night Piece, A i 227
Night-thought, A viii 88
Nith, On the Banks of ii 383
Norman Boy, The viii 132
Norman Conquest, The vii 28
North Wales, Composed among the Ruins of a Castle in vii 131
Nortons, The Fate of the iv 100
November, 1806 iv 49
November, 1813 iv 282
November 1 (1815) vi 63
Nunnery vii 388
Nun’s Well, Brigham vii 347
Nutting ii 70
Oak and the Broom, The ii 174
Oak of Guernica iv 245
Octogenarian, To an viii 185
Ode, Installation viii 320
Ode, Vernal vi 138
Ode (Who rises on the Banks of Seine) vi 104
Ode (1814) (When the soft hand) vi 96
Ode (1815) (Imagination--ne’er before content) vi 88
Ode, The Morning of the Day of Thanksgiving vi 74
Ode to Duty iii 37
Ode to Lycoris (Two Poems) vi 145
Ode composed on May Morning vii 146
Ode, Intimations of Immortality viii 189
Oker Hill in Darley Dale, A Tradition of vii 230
“O Nightingale! thou surely art” iv 67
“On Nature’s invitation do I come” ii 118
Open Prospect vi 243
Ossian, Written in a blank leaf of Macpherson’s vii 373
Our Lady of the Snow vi 318
Oxford, May 30, 1820 (Two Sonnets) vi 213
Painter, To a (Two Sonnets) viii 114
Palafox iv 222
Palafox iv 228
Palafox iv 240
Papal Abuses vii 33
Papal Dominion vii 34
Papal Power vii 36
Papal Unity vii 42
Parrot and the Wren, The vii 141
Parsonage in Oxfordshire, A vi 217
Pastoral Character vii 87
Patriotic Sympathies vii 74
Paulinus vii 15
Peele Castle, Suggested by a Picture of iii 54
Pelion and Ossa ii 238
Pennsylvanians, To the viii 179
Persecution vii 8
Personal Talk iv 30
Persuasion vii 16
Peter Bell ii 1
Peter Bell, On the detraction which followed vi 212
Pet-Lamb, The ii 142
Philoctetes vii 167
Picture, Upon the sight of a beautiful iv 271
Piety, Decay of vii 163
Piety, Filial vii 231
Pilgrim Fathers (Two Sonnets) vii 84
Pilgrim’s Dream, The vi 167
Pillar of Trajan, The vii 137
Places of Worship vii 87
Plea for Authors, A viii 99
Plea for the Historian viii 61
Poet and the Caged Turtledove, The vii 265
Poet’s Dream, The viii 135
Poet’s Epitaph, A ii 75
Poet to his Grandchild, A viii 305
Point at issue, The vii 58
Point Rash Judgment ii 163
Poor Robin viii 116
Poor Susan, The Reverie of i 226
Popery, Revival of vii 61
Portrait, Lines suggested by a (Two Poems) viii 1
Portrait of I.F., On a viii 306
Portrait of the Duke of Wellington, On a viii 118
Portrait, To the Author’s vii 318
Postscript (John Dyer) vi 264
Power of Music iv 20
Power of Sound, On the vii 203
Prayer at Sea, Forms of vii 97
Prayer, The Force of iv 204
Prelude, Prefixed to “Poems of Early and Late Years” viii 123
Prelude, The iii 121
Presentiments vii 266
Primrose of the Rock, The vii 274
Prioress’ Tale, The ii 240
Processions (Chamouny) vi 363
Prophecy, A. February, 1807 iv 59
Punishment of Death, Sonnets upon the viii 103
Queen, To the viii 319
Quillinan, To Rothay vii 171
Railway, On the projected Kendal and Windermere viii 166
Railways, etc. vii 389
Rainbow, The ii 291
Ranz des Vaches, On hearing the vi 326
Recovery vii 9
Redbreast chasing the Butterfly, The ii 295
Redbreast, The vii 410
Redbreast, To a viii 38
Reflections vii 57
Reformation, General view of the Troubles of the vii 64
Reformers, Eminent (Two Sonnets) vii 66
Reformers in Exile, English vii 64
Regrets vii 99
Regrets, Imaginative vii 56
Repentance iii 11
Reproof vii 21
Resolution and Independence ii 312
Rest and be thankful vii 295
Resting-place, The (Two Sonnets) vi 254
Retirement vii 165
Return vi 248
Return, The Mother’s iv 63
Reverie of Poor Susan i 226
Rhine, Author’s Voyage down the viii 273
Rhine, Upon the Banks of the vi 299
Richard I vii 31
Richmond Hill (Thomson) vi 214
Ridley, Latimer and vii 61
Robinson, To Henry Crabb (Tour in Italy, 1837) viii 41
Rob Roy’s Grave ii 403
Rock, Inscribed upon a vi 173
Rocks, Two heath-clad viii 170
Rocky Stream, Composed on the Banks of a vi 208
Rocky Stream, On the Banks of a viii 188
Rogers, Samuel, To vii 280
Roman Antiquities viii 33
Roman Antiquities (Old Penrith) vii 308
Roman Refinements, Temptations from vii 10
Romance of the Water Lily vii 252
Rome (Two Sonnets) viii 62
Rome, At (Three Sonnets) viii 59
Rome, The Pine of Monte Mario at viii 58
Roslin Chapel, Composed in vii 287
Rotha Q----, To vii 171
Ruins of a Castle in North Wales vii 131
Rural Architecture ii 206
Rural Ceremony vii 98
Rural Illusions vii 319
Russian Fugitive, The vii 239
Ruth ii 104
Rydal, At, on May Morning (1838) viii 94
Rydal Chapel vii 109
Rydal, Written upon a Stone at ii 63
Rydal, In the woods of vii 176
Rydal Mere, By the side of vii 403
Rydal Mount, Inscription for a Stone in the Grounds of vii 269
S. H., To vii 162
Sacheverel vii 82
Sacrament vii 93
Sailor’s Mother, The ii 270
Saint Bees’ Head, In a Steam-boat off vii 351
Saint Catherine of Ledbury viii 34
Saint Gothard (Ranz des Vaches on the Pass of) vi 326
Saint Herbert’s Island, Derwent-water (Hermitage) ii 210
Saints vii 54
Salinero, Ambrosio iv 233
Salisbury Plain, Incidents upon i 77
San Salvador, The Church of vi 332
Saxon Clergy, Primitive vii 19
Saxon Conquest vii 12
Saxon Monasteries vii 22
Saxons vii 29
“Say, what is Honour?--’Tis the finest sense” iv 225
Schill iv 226
Scholars of the Village School of ----, Address to the ii 84
School, Composed in anticipation of leaving i 1
School Exercise at Hawkshead, Written As a viii 211
Schwytz vi 324
Scottish Covenanters, Persecution of the vii 79
Scott, Sir Walter, Departure of vii 284
Sea-shore, Composed by the vii 340
Sea-side, Composed by the ii 330
Sea-side, By the vii 338
Seasons, Thoughts on the vii 229
Seathwaite Chapel vi 249
Seclusion (Two Sonnets) vii 20
Sellon, To Miss viii 325
September 1, 1802 ii 342
September, 1815 vi 64
September, 1819 vi 201
Seven Sisters, The ii 204
Sexton, To a ii 95
Sheep-washing vi 253
Shepherd-Boys, The Idle ii 138
“She was a Phantom of delight” iii 1
Simon Lee i 262
Simplon Pass, Column lying in the vi 356
Simplon Pass, Stanza’s composed in the vi 357
Simplon Pass, The ii 69
Sister, To my i 270
Skiddaw ii 238
Sky-lark, To a iii 42
Sky-lark, To a vii 143
Sky-prospect--From the Plain of France vi 377
Sleep, To (Three Sonnets) iv 42
Snow-drop, To a vi 191
Sobieski, John vi 110
Solitary Reaper, The ii 397
Solitude (The Duddon) vi 245
Somnambulist, The vii 393
Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle iv 82
Song for the Spinning Wheel iv 275
Song for the Wandering Jew ii 182
Sonnet, The vii 163
Sonnet, June, 1820 (Fame tells of groves) vi 214
Sonnet, September 1, 1802 (We had a female Passenger) ii 342
Sonnet, September, 1802 (Inland, within a hollow vale) ii 343
Sonnet, September, 1815 (While not a leaf seems faded) vi 64
Sonnet, October, 1803 (One might believe) ii 430
Sonnet, October, 1803 (These times strike monied worldlings) ii 432
Sonnet, October, 1803 (When, looking on the present face
of things) ii 433
Sonnet, November, 1806 (Another year!) iv 49
Sonnet, November, 1813 (Now that all hearts are glad) iv 282
Sonnet, November 1, 1815 (How clear, how keen) vi 63
Sonnet, November, 1836 (Even so for me a Vision) viii 37
Sound of Mull, In the vii 293
Sound, The Power of vii 203
Southey, Edith May vii 157
Southey, (Inscription for monument) viii 157
Spade of a Friend, To the iv 2
Spaniards (Three Sonnets) iv 246
Spanish Guerillas, The French and the iv 248
Spanish Guerillas iv 253
Sparrow’s Nest, The ii 236
Spinning Wheel, Song for the iv 275
Sponsors vii 90
Spring, Lines written in Early i 268
Staffa, Cave of (Four Sonnets) vii 376
Star and the Glow-worm, The vi 167
Star-gazers iv 22
Staubbach, On approaching the vi 306
Steamboats, Viaducts, and Railways vii 389
Stepping-stones, The (Two Sonnets) vi 239
Stepping Westward ii 396
Stone, F., Lines suggested by a Portrait from the Pencil
of (Two Poems) viii 1
Storm, Composed during a vi 187
Stray Pleasures iv 18
Stream, Composed on the Banks of a Rocky vi 208
Stream, On the Banks of a Rocky viii 188
Stream, Tributary vi 250
Streams (The Duddon) vi 255
Streams, The unremitting voice of nightly viii 187
Swan, The vi 198
Sweden, The King of ii 338
Sweden, The King of iv 227
Switzerland, Subjugation of iv 60
Tables Turned, The i 274
Tell, Effusion in presence of the Tower of vi 321
Temptations from Roman Refinements vii 10
Thanksgiving after Childbirth vii 95
Thanksgiving Ode vi 74
“The leaves that rustled on this oak-crowned hill” vii 406
“There is a bondage worse, far worse, to bear” ii 431
“There is a little unpretending Rill” iv 53
There was a Boy ii 57
“The Stars are mansions built by Nature’s hand” vi 210
“This Lawn, a carpet all alive” vii 228
Thomson’s “Castle of Indolence,” Stanzas written in ii 305
Thorn, The i 239
Thrasymene, Near the Lake of (Two Sonnets) viii 66
Thrush, The (Two Sonnets) viii 93
Thun, Memorial near the Lake of vi 310
Tillbrook, Rev. Samuel vi 65
Tilsbury Vale, The Farmer of ii 147
Tintern Abbey, Lines, composed a few miles above ii 51
To ---- in her seventieth year vii 172
To ---- Upon the birth of her First-born Child vii 328
To ---- (Mrs. Wordsworth), (Two Poems) vii 121
To ---- (Look at the fate of summer flowers) vii 124
To ---- (Miscellaneous Sonnets--Dedication) vii 159
To ---- (Miscellaneous Sonnets--Conclusion) vii 177
To ---- (Wait, prithee, wait!) viii 32
To ---- on her First Ascent of Helvellyn vi 135
To ---- (The Haunted Tree) vi 199
Torrent at Devil’s Bridge vii 129
Tour among the Alps (1791-2), (Descriptive Sketches) i 35
Tour among the Alps (1791-2), (Descriptive Sketches) i 309
Tour in Italy (1837), Memorials of a viii 39
Tour in Scotland (1803), Memorials of a ii 377
Tour in Scotland (1814), Memorials of a vi 15
Tour in Scotland (1831) vii 278
Tour in the Summer of 1833 vii 341
Tour on the Continent (1820), Memorials of a vi 285
Toussaint L’Ouverture, To ii 339
Tradition vi 253
Tradition, American vi 246
Tradition, Fancy and vii 306
Tradition of Oker Hill vii 230
Trajan, The Pillar of vii 137
Translation of the Bible vii 58
Transubstantiation vii 44
Triad, The vii 181
Tributary Stream vi 250
Troilus and Cresida ii 264
Trosachs, The vii 288
Turtledove, The Poet and the Caged vii 265
Twilight vi 67
Two April Mornings, The ii 89
Two Thieves, The ii 60
Tyndrum, Suggested at vii 294
Tynwald Hill vii 366
Tyrolese, Feelings of the iv 215
Tyrolese, On the final submission of the iv 217
Tyrolese Sonnets iv 213
Ulpha, Kirk of vi 260
Uncertainty vii 7
Utilitarians, To the viii 299
Valedictory Sonnet (Miscellaneous Sonnets) viii 102
Vallombrosa, At viii 75
Vaudois, The (Two Sonnets) vii 44
Vaudracour and Julia iii 24
Venetian Republic, On the Extinction of ii 336
Venice, Scene in vii 34
Venus, To the Planet (January 1838) viii 92
Venus, To the Planet (Loch Lomond) vii 299
Vernal Ode vi 138
Vienna, Siege of, raised by John Sobieski vi 110
Virgin, The vii 54
Visitation of the Sick vii 96
Waggoner, The iii 76
Waldenses vii 46
Wallace’s Tower vi 26
Walton, Isaac vi 190
Walton’s Book of Lives vii 77
Wandering Jew, Song for the ii 182
Wansfell viii 153
Warning, The vii 330
Wars of York and Lancaster vii 48
Waterfall and the Eglantine, The ii 170
Water-fowl iv 277
Waterloo, After visiting the Field of vi 292
Waterloo, Occasioned by the Battle of (Three Sonnets) vi 111
We are Seven i 228
Wellington, On a Portrait of the Duke of viii 118
Westall, Mr. W., Views of the Caves, etc., in Yorkshire, by
(Three Poems) vi 183
Westminster Bridge, Composed upon ii 328
Westmoreland Girl, The viii 172
“Whence that low voice?--A whisper from the heart” vi 252
“Where lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom’s creed” viii 182
“While Anna’s peers and early playmates tread” vii 169
Whirl-blast, The i 238
Whistlers, The Seven iv 68
White Doe of Rylstone iv 100
“Who fancied what a pretty sight?” ii 374
“Why, Minstrel, these untuneful murmurings” vii 161
Wicliffe vii 49
Widow on Windermere Side, The viii 89
Wild Duck’s Nest, The vi 189
Wild-Fowl viii 234
William the Third vii 80
Winter (French Army), (Two Poems) vi 107
Wishing-gate, The vii 189
Wishing-gate Destroyed, The vii 192
Worcester Cathedral, A Grave-Stone in vii 201
Wordsworth, Catherine vi 72
Wordsworth, Dora vi 132
Wordsworth, John, Elegiac Verses in memory of iii 58
Wordsworth, John (Fir Grove) iii 66
Wordsworth, To the Rev. Christopher viii 162
Wordsworth, To the Rev. Dr. (Duddon) vi 227
Wordsworth, Thomas viii 39
Wren’s Nest, A vii 325
Yarrow Unvisited ii 411
Yarrow Visited vi 35
Yarrow Revisited vii 278
Yew-trees ii 369
Yew-tree Seat i 108
York and Lancaster, Wars of vii 48
Young England viii 180
Young Lady, To a ii 365
Youth, Written in very early i 3
Zaragoza iv 224
INDEX TO FIRST LINES
VOL. PAGE
A barking sound the Shepherd hears, iii 44
A Book came forth of late, called PETER BELL; vi 212
A bright-haired company of youthful slaves, vii 14
Abruptly paused the strife;--the field throughout vi 216
A dark plume fetch me from yon blasted yew, vi 248
Adieu, Rydalian Laurels! that have grown vii 342
Advance--come forth from thy Tyrolean ground, iv 214
Aerial Rock--whose solitary brow vi 188
A famous man is Robin Hood, ii 403
Affections lose their object; Time brings forth, viii 185
A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by, iv 43
A genial hearth, a hospitable board, vii 87
A German Haggis from receipt viii 272
Age! twine thy brows with fresh spring flowers, ii 414
Ah! if I were a lady gay viii 262
Ah, think how one compelled for life to abide, viii 110
A humming Bee--a little tinkling rill-- v 106
Ah, when the Body, round which in love we clung, vii 19
Ah! where is Palafox? Nor tongue nor pen iv 240
Ah why deceive ourselves! by no mere fit, viii 86
Aid, glorious Martyrs, from your fields of light, vii 64
Alas! what boots the long laborious quest iv 216
“_A little onward lend thy guiding hand_” vi 133
All praise the Likeness by thy skill portrayed, viii 114
Along the mazes of this song I go, viii 233
A love-lorn Maid, at some far-distant time, vi 253
Ambition--following down this far-famed slope vi 356
Amid a fertile region green with wood vii 301
Amid the smoke of cities did you pass ii 157
Amid this dance of objects sadness steals vi 299
Among a grave fraternity of Monks, viii 6
Among all lovely things my Love had been, viii 232
Among the dwellers in the silent fields, viii 310
Among the dwellings framed by birds vii 325
Among the mountains were we nursed, loved Stream! vi 193
Among the mountains were we nursed, loved Stream! vii 345
A month, sweet Little-ones, is past iv 63
An age hath been when Earth was proud vi 146
A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags, ii 164
And has the Sun his flaming chariot driven, viii 211
And is it among rude untutored Dales, iv 222
And is this--Yarrow?--_This_ the Stream vi 36
And, not in vain embodied to the sight, vii 40
“And shall,” the Pontiff asks, “profaneness flow” vii 30
And what is Penance with her knotted thong; vii 50
And what melodious sounds at times prevail! vii 40
An Orpheus! an Orpheus! yes, Faith may grow bold, iv 20
Another year!--another deadly blow! iv 49
A pen--to register; a key-- vii 117
A Pilgrim, when the summer day vi 167
A plague on your languages, German and Norse! ii 73
A pleasant music floats along the Mere, vii 27
_A Poet!_--He hath put his heart to school, viii 128
A point of life between my Parents’ dust, vii 346
Arms and the Man I sing, the first who bore viii 281
Army of Clouds! ye wingèd Host in troops, viii 142
A Rock there is whose homely front vii 274
A Roman Master stands on Grecian ground, iv 242
Around a wild and woody hill vi 310
Arran! a single-crested Teneriffe, vii 370
Art thou a Statist in the van ii 75
Art thou the bird whom Man loves best, ii 295
As faith thus sanctified the warrior’s crest vii 42
A simple Child, i 231
As indignation mastered grief, my tongue, viii 85
As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow, viii 87
A slumber did my spirit seal; ii 83
As often as I murmur here vii 265
As star that shines dependent upon star vii 87
“As the cold aspect of a sunless way” vi 191
A Stream, to mingle with your favourite Dee, vii 129
A sudden conflict rises from the swell vii 82
As, when a storm hath ceased, the birds regain vii 9
As with the Stream our voyage we pursue, vii 33
At early dawn, or rather when the air vi 185
A Traveller on the skirt of Sarum’s Plain i 79
A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain, vii 284
At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears, i 226
A twofold harmony is here viii 282
Avaunt all specious pliancy of mind iv 247
Avaunt this œconomic rage! viii 299
A voice, from long-expecting thousands sent vii 79
A volant Tribe of Bards on earth are found, vii 119
Avon--a precious, an immortal name! vii 303
A weight of awe, not easy to be borne, vii 390
A whirl-blast from behind the hill i 238
A wingèd Goddess--clothed in vesture wrought vi 292
A Youth too certain of his power to wade vii 362
Bard of the Fleece, whose skilful genius made iv 273
Beaumont! it was thy wish that I should rear iii 23
Before I see another day, i 276
Before the world had past her time of youth, viii 107
“Begone, thou fond presumptuous Elf,” ii 170
Beguiled into forgetfulness of care, viii 2
Behold an emblem of our human mind, viii 188
Behold a pupil of the monkish gown, vii 24
Behold her, single in the field, ii 397
Behold, within the leafy shade, ii 237
“Beloved Vale!” I said, “when I shall con” iv 35
Beneath the concave of an April sky, vi 138
Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed ii 367
Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound, iv 80
Be this the chosen site; the virgin sod, vii 103
Between two sister moorland rills ii 96
Bishops and Priests, blessed are ye, if deep vii 86
Black Demons hovering o’er his mitred head, vii 34
Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak, ii 121
Blest is this Isle--our native Land; vii 109
Blest Statesman He, whose Mind’s unselfish will, viii 101
Bold words affirmed, in days when faith was strong vii 359
Brave Schill! by death delivered, take thy flight iv 226
Bright Flower! whose home is everywhere, ii 360
Bright was the summer’s noon when quickening steps iii 186
Broken in fortune, but in mind entire vii 365
Brook and road ii 69
Brook, that hast been my solace days and weeks, viii 265
Brook! whose society the Poet seeks, iv 52
Brugès I saw attired with golden light vi 288
But Cytherea, studious to invent, viii 277
But here no cannon thunders to the gale; vi 262
But liberty, and triumphs on the Main, vii 102
But, to outweigh all harm, the sacred Book, vii 58
But, to remote Northumbria’s royal Hall, vii 15
But what if One, through grove or flowery mead, vii 21
But whence came they who for the Saviour Lord vii 44
By a blest Husband guided, Mary came, viii 35
By antique Fancy trimmed--though lowly, bred vi 324
By Art’s bold privilege Warrior and War-Horse stand, viii 118
By chain yet stronger must the Soul be tied: vii 93
By playful smiles, (alas, too oft, viii 120
By such examples moved to unbought pains, vii 22
By their floating mill, iv 18
By vain affections unenthralled, vii 135
Call not the royal Swede unfortunate, iv 227
Calm as an under-current, strong to draw, vii 80
Calm is all nature as a resting wheel i 4
Calm is the fragrant air, and loth to lose vii 317
Calvert! it must not be unheard by them iv 44
“Change me, some God, into that breathing rose!” vi 237
Chatsworth! thy stately mansion, and the pride vii 273
Child of loud-throated War! the mountain Stream ii 401
Child of the clouds! remote from every taint vi 231
Clarkson! it was an obstinate hill to climb: iv 62
Closing the sacred Book which long has fed vii 98
Clouds, lingering yet, extend in solid bars iv 73
Coldly we spake. The Saxons, overpowered vii 29
Come, gentle Sleep, Death’s image tho’ thou art, viii 264
Come ye--who, if (which Heaven avert!) the Land ii 437
Companion! by whose buoyant Spirit cheered, viii 41
Complacent Fictions were they, yet the same, viii 61
Confiding hopes of youthful hearts, viii 297
Critics, right honourable Bard, decree viii 272
Dark and more dark the shades of evening fell; ii 349
Darkness surrounds us: seeking, we are lost vii 7
Days passed--and Monte Calvo would not clear, viii 64
Days undefiled by luxury or sloth, viii 179
Dear be the Church, that, watching o’er the needs vii 89
Dear Child of Nature, let them rail! ii 366
Dear Fellow-travellers! think not that the Muse, vi 285
Dear native regions, I foretell, i 2
Dear Reliques! from a pit of vilest mould vi 114
Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed, vii 350
Deep is the lamentation! Not alone vii 56
Degenerate Douglas! oh, the unworthy Lord! ii 410
Deign, Sovereign Mistress, to accept a lay, viii 319
Departed Child! I could forget thee once iv 249
Departing summer hath assumed vi 202
Deplorable his lot who tills the ground, vii 38
Desire we past illusions to recal? vvii 360
Desponding Father! mark this altered bough viii 31
Despond who will--_I_ heard a voice exclaim, vii 368
Destined to war from very infancy iv 234
Did pangs of grief for lenient time too keen, vii 363
Discourse was deemed Man’s noblest attribute, viii 184
Dishonoured Rock and Ruin! that, by law, vii 292
Dogmatic Teachers, of the snow-white fur! vi 208
Doomed as we are our native dust vi 312
Doubling and doubling with laborious walk, vii 295
Down a swift Stream, thus far, a bold design vii 83
Dread hour! when, upheaved by war’s sulphurous blast, vi 329
Driven in by Autumn’s sharpening air vii 410
Earth has not any thing to show more fair: ii 328
Eden! till now thy beauty had I viewed vii 385
Emperors and Kings, how oft have temples rung vi 113
England! the time is come when thou should’st wean ii 433
Enlightened Teacher, gladly from thy hand viii 162
Enough! for see, with dim association vii 44
Enough of climbing toil!--Ambition treads vi 149
Enough of garlands, of the Arcadian crook, vii 294
Enough of rose-bud lips, and eyes vii 239
Ere the Brothers through the gateway iv 12
Erewhile to celebrate this glorious morn vi 195
Ere with cold beads of midnight dew vii 145
Ere yet our course was graced with social trees vi 235
Eternal Lord! eased of a cumbrous load, viii 81
Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! vii 143
Even as a dragon’s eye that feels the stress vi 69
Even as a river,--partly (it might seem) iii 293
Even so for me a Vision sanctified viii 37
Even such the contrast that, where’er we move, vii 71
Even while I speak, the sacred roofs of France vii 101
Excuse is needless when with love sincere vii 162
Failing impartial measure to dispense viii 99
Fair Ellen Irwin, when she sate ii 124
Fair is the Swan, whose majesty, prevailing vi 116
Fair Lady! can I sing of flowers viii 177
Fair Land! Thee all men greet with joy; bow few, viii 84
Fair Prime of life! were it enough to gild vii 165
Fair Star of evening, Splendour of the west, ii 330
Fallen, and diffused into a shapeless heap, vi 256
Fame tells of groves--from England far away-- vi 214
Fancy, who leads the pastimes of the glad, vii 178
“Farewell, deep Valley, with thy one rude House,” v 196
Farewell, thou little Nook of mountain-ground, ii 324
Far from my dearest Friend, ’tis mine to rove i 6
Far from our home by Grasmere’s quiet Lake, iv 259
Father! to God himself we cannot give vii 90
Fear hath a hundred eyes that all agree vii 69
Feel for the wrongs to universal ken viii 129
Festivals have I seen that were not names: ii 334
Fit retribution, by the moral code viii 108
Five years have past; five summers, with the length ii 51
Flattered with promise of escape vii 229
Fly, some kind Harbinger, to Grasmere-dale! ii 419
Fond words have oft been spoken to thee, Sleep! iv 43
For action born, existing to be tried, viii 67
Forbear to deem the Chronicler unwise, viii 61
For ever hallowed be this morning fair, vii 15
For gentlest uses, oft-times Nature takes vi 316
Forgive, illustrious Country! these deep sighs, viii 65
Forth from a jutting ridge, around whose base viii 170
For thirst of power that Heaven disowns, viii 320
Forth rushed from Envy sprung and Self-conceit, viii 304
For what contend the wise?--for nothing less vii 58
Four fiery steeds impatient of the rein viii 32
From Bolton’s old monastic tower iv 106
From early youth I ploughed the restless Main, vii 364
From false assumption rose, and fondly hail’d vii 36
From Little down to Least, in due degree, vii 91
From low to high doth dissolution climb, vii 100
From Nature doth emotion come, and moods iii 355
From Rite and Ordinance abused they fled vii 85
From Stirling castle we had seen ii 411
From that time forth, Authority in France iii 330
From the Baptismal hour, thro’ weal and woe, vii 97
From the dark chambers of dejection freed, vi 34
From the fierce aspect of this River, throwing vi 308
From the Pier’s head, musing, and with increase vi 381
From this deep chasm, where quivering sunbeams play vi 245
Frowns are on every Muse’s face, vii 157
Furl we the sails, and pass with tardy oars vii 41
Genius of Raphael! if thy wings vii 195
Giordano, verily thy Pencil’s skill viii 183
Glad sight wherever new with old viii 154
Glide gently, thus for ever glide, i 33
Glory to God! and to the Power who came vii 107
Go back to antique ages, if thine eyes vii 174
Go, faithful Portrait! and where long hath knelt vii 318
Grant, that by this unsparing hurricane vii 57
Grateful is Sleep, my life, in stone bound fast, viii 264
Great men have been among us; hands that penned ii 346
Greta, what fearful listening! when huge stones vii 344
Grief, thou hast lost an ever-ready friend vi 196
Grieve for the Man who hither came bereft, viii 72
Had this effulgence disappeared vi 177
Hail, orient Conqueror of gloomy Night! vi 78
Hail to the crown by Freedom shaped--to gird v 235
Hail to the fields--with Dwellings sprinkled o’er vi 243
Hail, Twilight, sovereign of one peaceful hour! vi 67
Hail, Virgin Queen! o’er many an envious bar vii 65
Hail, Zaragoza! If with unwet eye iv 224
Happy the feeling from the bosom thrown vii 159
Hard task! exclaim the undisciplined, to lean viii 86
Hark! ’tis the Thrush, undaunted, undeprest, viii 93
Harmonious Powers with Nature work viii 125
Harp! could’st thou venture, on thy boldest string vii 72
Hast thou seen, with flash incessant, vi 174
Hast thou then survived-- iii 14
Haydon! let worthier judges praise the skill vii 277
Here closed the Tenant of that lonely vale v 145
_Here Man more purely lives, less oft doth fall_, vii 37
Here, on our native soil, we breathe once more ii 341
Here on their knees men swore; the stones were black, vii 381
Here pause: the poet claims at least this praise, iv 255
Here stood an Oak, that long had borne affixed vii 305
Here, where, of havoc tired and rash undoing, viii 168
Her eyes are wild, her head is bare, i 258
Her only pilot the soft breeze, the boat vii 160
“High bliss is only for a higher state,” vii 156
High deeds, O Germans, are to come from you! iv 59
High in the breathless Hall the Minstrel sate, iv 83
High is our calling, Friend!--Creative Art vi 61
High on a broad unfertile tract of forest-skirted Down, viii 133
High on her speculative tower vi 345
His simple truths did Andrew glean ii 174
Holy and heavenly Spirits as they are, vii 67
Homeward we turn. Isle of Columba’s Cell, vii 382
Hope rules a land for ever green: vii 190
Hope smiled when your nativity was cast, vii 378
Hopes, what are they?--Beads of morning vi 170
How art thou named? In search of what strange land, vii 129
How beautiful the Queen of Night, on high viii 188
How beautiful, when up a lofty height viii 90
How beautiful your presence, how benign, vii 19
How blest the Maid whose heart--yet free vi 351
How clear, how keen, how marvellously bright vi 63
“How disappeared he?” Ask the newt and toad; vii 297
How fast the Marian death-list is unrolled! vii 61
How profitless the relics that we cull, vii 308
How richly glows the water’s breast i 32
How rich that forehead’s calm expanse! vii 123
How sad a welcome! To each voyager vii 380
How shall I paint thee?--Be this naked stone, vi 232
How soon--alas! did Man, created pure-- vii 35
How sweet it is, when mother Fancy rocks iv 36
Humanity, delighting to behold vi 107
Hunger, and sultry heat, and nipping blast iv 248
I am not One who much or oft delight iv 31
I come, ye little noisy Crew, ii 84
I dropped my pen; and listened to the Wind iv 211
I find it written of Simonides, viii 258
If from the public way you turn your steps ii 215
If Life were slumber on a bed of down, vii 351
If money’s slack, viii 271
If Nature, for a favourite child, ii 88
If there be prophets on whose spirits rest vii 5
If these brief Records, by the Muses’ art vii 177
If the whole weight of what we think and feel, vii 165
If this great world of joy and pain vii 336
If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven, vii 175
If thou in the dear love of some one Friend ii 210
If to Tradition faith be due vii 311
If with old love of you, dear Hills! I share viii 95
I grieved for Buonaparté, with a vain ii 323
I hate that Andrew Jones; he’ll breed viii 221
I have a boy of five years old; i 234
I heard (alas! ’twas only in a dream) vi 198
I heard a thousand blended notes, i 269
I know an aged Man constrained to dwell viii 186
I listen--but no faculty of mine, vi 326
Imagination--ne’er before content, vi 88
I marvel how Nature could ever find space ii 208
I met Louisa in the shade, ii 362
Immured in Bothwell’s Towers, at times the Brave vii 299
In Brugès town is many a street vii 198
In days of yore how fortunately fared v 67
In desultory walk through orchard grounds, viii 123
In distant countries have I been, i 279
In due observance of an ancient rite, iv 241
Inland, within a hollow vale, I stood; ii 343
Inmate of a mountain-dwelling, vi 135
In my mind’s eye a Temple, like a cloud vii 173
In one of those excursions (may they ne’er iii 367
Intent on gathering wool from hedge and brake viii 122
In these fair vales hath many a Tree vii 269
In the sweet shire of Cardigan, i 262
In this still place, remote from men, ii 393
In trellised shed with clustering roses gay, iv 102
Intrepid sons of Albion! not by you vi 111
In youth from rock to rock I went, ii 353
I rose while yet the cattle, heat-opprest, vi 257
I saw a Mother’s eye intensely bent vii 92
I saw an aged Beggar in my walk; i 300
I saw far off the dark top of a Pine, viii 58
I saw the figure of a lovely Maid vii 74
Is _Death_, when evil against good has fought, viii 106
I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold, ii 379
Is it a reed that’s shaken by the wind, ii 331
Is then no nook of English ground secure, viii 166
Is then the final page before me spread, vi 382
Is there a power that can sustain and cheer iv 228
Is this, ye Gods, the Capitolian Hill, viii 59
_I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide_, vi 263
It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, ii 335
It is no Spirit who from heaven hath flown, ii 376
It is not to be thought of that the Flood ii 347
It is the first mild day of March: i 271
I travelled among unknown men, ii 80
It seems a day ii 70
It was a beautiful and silent day iii 311
It was a dreary morning when the wheels iii 168
It was a _moral_ end for which they fought; iv 217
It was an April morning: fresh and clear ii 154
I’ve watched you now a full half-hour, ii 297
I wandered lonely as a cloud iii 4
I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile! iii 54
I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret vi 197
I, who accompanied with faithful pace vii 4
I, whose pretty Voice you hear, viii 295
I will relate a tale for those who love viii 224
Jesu! bless our slender Boat, vi 301
Jones! I as from Calais southward you and I ii 332
Just as those final words were penned, the sun broke out
in power, viii 135
Keep for the Young the Impassioned smile vi 218
Lady! a Pen (perhaps with thy regard, viii 8
Lady! I rifled a Parnassian cave vi 211
Lady! the songs of Spring were in the grove iv 58
Lament! for Diocletian’s fiery sword vii 8
Lance, shield, and sword relinquished--at his side vii 20
Last night, without a voice, that Vision spake vii 74
Let other bards of angels sing, vii 121
Let thy wheel-barrow alone ii 95
Let us quit the leafy arbour, vi 153
Lie here, without a record of thy worth, iii 50
Life with yon Lambs, like day, is just begun, viii 97
Like a shipwreck’d Sailor tost vii 328
List, the winds of March are blowing; vii 331
List--’twas the Cuckoo.--O with what delight, viii 68
List, ye who pass by Lyulph’s Tower vii 394
Lo! in the burning west, the craggy nape vi 377
Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they vi 191
Long-favoured England! be not thou misled, viii 131
Long has the dew been dried on tree and lawn, viii 63
Long time have human ignorance and guilt iii 345
Lonsdale! it were unworthy of a Guest, vii 392
Look at the fate of summer flowers, vii 124
Look now on that Adventurer who hath paid iv 228
Lord of the vale! astounding Flood; vi 26
Loud is the Vale! the Voice is up iv 47
Loving she is, and tractable, though wild; iv 252
Lo! where she stands fixed in a saint-like trance, viii 132
Lo! where the Moon along the sky, viii 88
Lowther! in thy majestic Pile are seen vii 392
Lulled by the sound of pastoral bells, vi 372
Lyre! though such power do in thy magic live, viii 147
“Man’s life is like a Sparrow, mighty King!” vii 16
Mark how the feathered tenants of the flood, iv 278
Mark the concentred hazels that enclose vi 71
Meek Virgin Mother, more benign vi 318
Men of the Western World! in Fate’s dark book, viii 112
Men, who have ceased to reverence, soon defy vii 68
Mercy and Love have met thee on thy road, vii 7
Methinks that I could trip o’er heaviest soil, vii 66
Methinks that to some vacant hermitage vii 21
Methinks ’twere no unprecedented feat vi 255
Methought I saw the footsteps of a throne iv 46
’Mid crowded obelisks and urns ii 387
Mid-noon is past;--upon the sultry mead vi 254
Milton! thou should’st be living at this hour: ii 346
Mine ear has wrung, my spirit sunk subdued, vii 104
“_Miserrimus!_” and neither name nor date, vii 201
Monastic Domes! following my downward way, vii 100
Most sweet it is with unuplifted eyes vii 401
Mother! whose virgin bosom was uncrost, vii 54
Motions and Means, on land and sea at war, vii 389
My frame hath often trembled with delight vi 250
My heart leaps up when I behold ii 292
My Lord and Lady Darlington viii 298
My Son! behold the tide already spent, viii 273
Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands i 109
Near Anio’s stream, I spied a gentle Dove, viii 65
Never enlivened with the liveliest ray, viii 150
Next morning Troilus began to clear ii 264
No fiction was it of the antique age: vi 241
No more: the end is sudden and abrupt, vii 309
No mortal object did these eyes behold iii 381
No record tells of lance opposed to lance, vi 258
Nor scorn the aid which Fancy oft doth lend vii 18
Nor shall the eternal roll of praise reject vii 78
Nor wants the cause the panic-striking aid vii 12
Not a breath of air, viii 146
Not envying Latian shades--if yet they throw vi 230
Not hurled precipitous from steep to steep; vi 261
Not in the lucid intervals of life vii 402
Not in the mines beyond the western main, vii 400
Not, like his great Compeers, indignantly vi 303
Not Love, not War, nor the tumultuous swell vii 118
Not ’mid the World’s vain objects that enslave iv 210
Not sedentary all: there are who roam vii 23
Not seldom, clad in radiant vest, vi 175
Not so that Pair whose youthful spirits dance vi 240
Not the whole warbling grove in concert heard vii 169
Not to the clouds, not to the cliff, he flew; vii 372
Not to the object specially designed, viii 106
Not utterly unworthy to endure vii 55
Not without heavy grief of heart did He iv 236
No whimsey of the purse is here, viii 259
Now that all hearts are glad, all faces bright, iv 282
Now that the farewell tear is dried, vi 338
Now we are tired of boisterous joy, ii 420
Now when the primrose makes a splendid show, viii 116
Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room; iv 28
Oak of Guernica! Tree of holier power iv 245
O blithe New-comer! I have heard, ii 289
O dearer far than light and life are dear, vii 122
O’er the wide earth, on mountain and on plain, iv 223
O’erweening Statesmen have full long relied iv 247
O Flower of all that springs from gentle blood, iv 235
Of mortal parents is the Hero born iv 214
O for a dirge! But why complain? vii 132
O, for a kindling touch from that pure flame, vi 110
O for the help of Angels to complete vi 297
O Friend! I know not which way I must look ii 345
Oft have I caught, upon a fitful breeze, vii 373
Oft have I seen, ere Time had ploughed my cheek, vii 163
Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray: ii 99
Oft is the medal faithful to its trust iv 77
Oft, through thy fair domains, illustrious Peer! v 20
O gentle Sleep! do they belong to thee, iv 42
O happy time of youthful lovers (thus iii 24
Oh Bounty without measure, while the Grace viii 308
Oh Life! without thy chequered scene vi 315
Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy! iii 35
Oh what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech, viii 36
Oh! what’s the matter? what’s the matter? i 254
“O Lord, our Lord! how wondrously,” (quoth she) ii 240
O Moon! if e’er I joyed when thy soft light viii 235
O mountain Stream! the Shepherd and his Cot vi 245
Once did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; ii 336
Once I could hail (howe’er serene the sky) vii 152
Once in a lonely hamlet I sojourned ii 285
Once more the Church is seized with sudden fear, vii 49
Once on the top of Tynwald’s formal mound vii 366
Once to the verge of yon steep barrier came viii 236
One might believe that natural miseries ii 431
One morning (raw it was and wet-- ii 270
One who was suffering tumult in his soul vi 187
On his morning rounds the Master iii 48
O Nightingale! thou surely art iv 67
On, loitering Muse--the swift Stream chides us--on! vi 242
“On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life,” v 23
On Nature’s invitation do I come, ii 118
O now that the genius of Bewick were mine, ii 60
On to Iona!--What can she afford vii 379
Open your gates, ye everlasting Piles! vii 105
O there is blessing in this gentle breeze, iii 132
O thou who movest onward with a mind iv 231
O thou! whose fancies from afar are brought; ii 351
Our bodily life, some plead, that life the shrine, viii 109
Our walk was far among the ancient trees: ii 167
Outstretching flame-ward his upbraided hand vii 62
Pansies, lilies, kingcups, daisies, ii 301
Part fenced by man, part by a rugged steep vii 286
Pastor and Patriot!--at whose bidding rise vii 349
Patriots informed with Apostolic light vii 85
Pause, courteous Spirit!--Balbi supplicates iv 237
Pause, Traveller! whosoe’er thou be vi 173
Peaceful our valley, fair and green; viii 259
Pelion and Ossa flourish side by side, ii 238
“People! your chains are severing link by link;” vii 290
Perhaps some needful service of the State iv 230
Pleasures newly found are sweet ii 303
Portentous change when History can appear, viii 130
Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay iv 272
Praised be the Rivers, from their mountain springs vii 45
Prejudged by foes determined not to spare, vii 71
Presentiments! they judge not right vii 266
Prompt transformation works the novel Lore; vii 17
Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old, viii 167
Pure element of waters! wheresoe’er vi 184
Queen of the Stars!--so gentle, so benign, viii 15
Ranging the heights of Scawfell or Black-Comb, vii 358
Rapt above earth by power of one fair face, viii 81
Realms quake by turns: proud Arbitress of grace, vii 32
Record we too, with just and faithful pen, vii 39
Redoubted King, of courage leonine, vii 31
Reluctant call it was; the rite delayed; vii 323
“Rest, rest, perturbèd Earth!” vi 95
Return, Content! for fondly I pursued, vi 255
Rid of a vexing and a heavy load, viii 265
Rise!--they _have_ risen: of brave Aneurin ask vii 11
Rotha, my Spiritual Child! this head was grey vii 171
Rude is this Edifice, and Thou hast seen ii 213
Sacred Religion! “mother of form and fear,” vi 249
Sad thoughts, avaunt!--partake we their blithe cheer vi 253
Said red-ribboned Evans: viii 302
Said Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud, viii 304
Say, what is Honour?--’Tis the finest sense iv 225
Say, ye far-travelled clouds, far-seeing hills-- vii 287
Scattering, like birds escaped the fowler’s net, vii 64
Scorn not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowned, vii 163
Screams round the Arch-druid’s brow the seamew--white vii 6
Seek who will delight in fable, viii 172
See the Condemned alone within his cell, viii 110
See what gay wild flowers deck this earth-built Cot, vii 296
See, where his difficult way that Old Man wins, viii 83
Serene, and fitted to embrace, vi 117
Serving no haughty Muse, my hands have here, viii 102
Seven Daughters had Lord Archibald, ii 204
Shade of Caractacus, if spirits love, viii 309
Shall he who gives his days to low pursuits viii 257
Shame on this faithless heart! that could allow vi 214
She dwelt among the untrodden ways ii 79
She had a tall man’s height or more; ii 278
She was a Phantom of delight iii 2
She wept.--Life’s purple tide began to flow viii 209
Shout, for a mighty Victory is won! ii 436
Show me the noblest Youth of present time, vii 181
Shun not this rite, neglected, yea abhorred, vii 96
Since risen from ocean, ocean to defy, vii 369
Six changeful years have vanished since I first iii 247
Six months to six years added he remained, viii 39
Six thousand veterans practised in war’s game, ii 435
Small service is true service while it lasts, viii 8
Smile of the Moon!--for so I name vi 163
So fair, so sweet, withal so sensitive, viii 164
Soft as a cloud is yon blue Ridge--the Mere vii 405
Sole listener, Duddon! to the breeze that played vi 234
Son of my buried Son, while thus thy hand, viii 305
Soon did the Almighty Giver of all rest iv 267
Spade! with which Wilkinson hath tilled his lands, iv 3
Stay, bold Adventurer; rest awhile thy limbs iv 281
Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay, viii 38
Stay near me--do not take thy flight! ii 283
Stern Daughter of the Voice of God! iii 38
Strange fits of passion have I known: ii 78
Stranger! this hillock of mis-shapen stones ii 63
Stretched on the dying Mother’s lap, lies dead vii 387
Such age how beautiful! O Lady bright, vii 172
Such fruitless questions may not long beguile vi 246
Surprised by joy--impatient as the Wind vi 72
Sweet Flower, belike one day to have iii 51
Sweet Highland Girl, a very shower ii 390
“Sweet is the holiness of Youth”--so felt vii 59
Sweet was the walk along the narrow lane, viii 215
Swiftly turn the murmuring wheel! iv 275
Sylph was it? or a Bird more bright vii 319
Take, cradled Nursling of the mountain, take vi 233
Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense, vii 106
Tell me, ye Zephyrs! that unfold, vii 125
Tenderly do we feel by Nature’s law, viii 104
Thanks for the lessons of this Spot--fit school vii 377
That happy gleam of vernal eyes, vii 202
That heresies should strike (if truth be scanned vii 10
That is work of waste and ruin-- ii 298
That way look, my Infant, lo! iii 16
The Baptist might have been ordained to cry, viii 80
The Bard--whose soul is meek as dawning day, vi 112
The captive Bird was gone;--to cliff or moor vii 371
The cattle crowding round this beverage clear vii 348
The Cock is crowing, ii 293
The confidence of Youth our only Art, viii 273
The Crescent-moon, the Star of Love, viii 127
The Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair, vi 130
The days are cold, the nights are long, iii 74
The dew was falling fast, the stars began to blink; ii 143
The doubt to which a wavering hope had clung viii 289
The embowering rose, the acacia, and the pine, iv 74
The encircling ground, in native turf arrayed, vii 104
The fairest, brightest, hues of ether fade; vi 66
The feudal Keep, the bastions of Cohorn, vii 360
The fields which with covetous spirit we sold, iii 12
The floods are roused, and will not soon be weary; vii 388
The forest huge of ancient Caledon vii 304
The formal World relaxes her cold chain, viii 112
The gallant Youth, who may have gained, vii 281
The gentlest Poet, with free thoughts endowed, viii 141
The gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains ii 378
The glory of evening was spread through the west; viii 217
The God of Love--_ah, benedicite!_ ii 250
The imperial Consort of the Fairy-king vi 189
The imperial Stature, the colossal stride, vii 166
The Kirk of Ulpha to the pilgrim’s eye vi 260
The Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor ii 129
The Lake is thine, viii 263
The Land we from our fathers had in trust, iv 215
The leaves that rustled on this oak-crowned hill, vii 407
The leaves were fading when to Esthwaite’s banks iii 222
The linnet’s warble, sinking towards a close, vii 403
The little hedgerow birds, i 307
The lovely Nun (submissive, but more meek vii 52
The Lovers took within this ancient grove vii 306
The martial courage of a day is vain, iv 217
The massy Ways, carried across these heights vii 154
The Minstrels played their Christmas tune vi 227
The most alluring clouds that mount the sky, viii 128
The old inventive Poets, had they seen, vi 251
_The oppression of the tumult--wrath and scorn--_ vii 13
The order’d troops viii 234
The peace which others seek they find; iii 11
The pensive Sceptic of the lonely vale v 327
The pibroch’s note, discountenanced or mute; vii 290
The post-boy drove with fierce career, ii 273
The power of Armies is a visible thing, iv 254
The prayers I make will then be sweet indeed iii 382
The rains at length have ceas’d, the winds are still’d, viii 233
There are no colours in the fairest sky vii 77
There is a bondage worse, far worse, to bear ii 431
There is a change--and I am poor; iv 17
There is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, iii 21
There is a little unpretending Rill iv 53
There is an Eminence,--of these our hills ii 162
_There is a pleasure in poetic pains_ vii 166
There is a shapeless crowd of unhewn stones viii 223
There is a Thorn--it looks so old, i 242
There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, ii 370
There never breathed a man who, when his life iv 232
“There!” said a Stripling, pointing with meet pride vii 384
There’s George Fisher, Charles Fleming, and Reginald Shore, ii 207
There’s more in words than I can teach: vii 321
There’s not a nook within this solemn Pass, vii 289
There’s something in a flying horse, ii 3
There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs ii 57
There was a roaring in the wind all night; ii 314
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, viii 190
The Roman Consul doomed his sons to die, viii 105
The Sabbath bells renew the inviting peal; vii 96
The saintly Youth has ceased to rule, discrowned vii 61
The Scottish Broom on Bird-nest brae viii 270
These times strike monied worldlings with dismay: ii 432
These Tourists, heaven preserve us! needs must live ii 184
These vales were saddened with no common gloom viii 275
The Sheep-boy whistled loud, and lo! iii 58
The Shepherd, looking eastward, softly said, vi 68
The sky is overcast i 227
The snow-tracks of my friends I see, viii 219
The soaring lark is blest as proud vii 214
The Spirit of Antiquity--enshrined vi 290
The stars are mansions built by Nature’s hand, vi 210
The star which comes at close of day to shine, viii 307
The struggling Rill insensibly is grown vi 239
The sun has long been set, ii 327
The sun is couched, the sea-fowl gone to rest; vii 338
The Sun, that seemed so mildly to retire, vii 337
The sylvan slopes with corn-clad fields vi 201
The tears of man in various measure gush vii 60
The Troop will be impatient; let us hie i 114
The turbaned Race are poured in thickening swarms vii 31
The unremitting voice of nightly streams, viii 187
The valley rings with mirth and joy; ii 138
The vestal priestess of a sisterhood who knows viii 325
The Vested Priest before the Altar stands; vii 94
The Virgin Mountain, wearing like a Queen vii 70
The Voice of song from distant lands shall call ii 338
The wind is now thy organist;--a clank vii 288
The woman-hearted Confessor prepares vii 28
The world forsaken, all its busy cares, viii 73
The world is too much with us; late and soon, iv 39
The worship of this Sabbath morn, viii 326
They called Thee MERRY ENGLAND, in old time; vii 343
They call it Love lies bleeding! rather say, viii 150
They dreamt not of a perishable home vii 107
The Young-ones gathered in from hill and dale, vii 92
They seek, are sought; to daily battle led, iv 253
They--who have seen the noble Roman’s scorn, viii 62
This Height a ministering Angel might select: iv 271
“This Land of Rainbows spanning glens whose walls,” vii 299
This Lawn, a carpet all alive vii 228
This Spot--at once unfolding sight so fair, viii 103
Those breathing Tokens of your kind regard, vii 217
Those had given earliest notice, as the lark vii 46
Those old credulities, to nature dear, viii 60
Those silver clouds collected round the sun vi 199
Those words were uttered as in pensive mood iv 37
Though I beheld at first with blank surprise viii 115
Though joy attend Thee orient at the birth vii 299
Though many suns have risen and set vii 148
Though narrow be that old Man’s cares, and near, iv 69
Tho’ searching damps and many an envious flaw vi 343
Though the bold wings of Poesy affect viii 154
Though the torrents from their fountains ii 182
Though to give timely warning and deter viii 109
“Thou look’st upon me, and dost fondly think,” vii 347
Thou sacred Pile! whose turrets rise vi 333
Threats come which no submission may assuage, vii 52
Three years she grew in sun and shower, ii 81
Throned in the Sun’s descending Car viii 300
Through Cumbrian wilds, in many a mountain cove, viii 272
Through shattered galleries, ’mid roofless halls, vii 131
Thus all things lead to Charity, secured vii 102
Thus far, O Friend! have we, though leaving much iii 153
Thus is the storm abated by the craft vii 48
Thy functions are ethereal, vii 204
’Tis eight o’clock,--a clear March night, i 283
’Tis gone--with old belief and dream vii 192
’Tis He whose yester-evening’s high disdain viii 94
’Tis not for the unfeeling, the falsely refined, ii 147
’Tis said, fantastic ocean doth enfold vi 286
’Tis said, that some have died for love: ii 178
’Tis said that to the brow of yon fair hill vii 230
’Tis spent--this burning day of June! iii 76
To a good Man of most dear memory viii 18
To appease the Gods; or public thanks to yield; vi 363
To barren heath, bleak moor, and quaking fen, vi 16
“To every Form of being is assigned,” v 353
To kneeling Worshippers no earthly floor vii 97
Too frail to keep the lofty vow ii 383
To public notice, with reluctance strong, vi 40
Toussaint, the most unhappy man of men! ii 339
Tradition, be thou mute! Oblivion, throw vii 293
Tranquillity! the sovereign aim wert thou vii 387
Troubled long with warring notions vi 175
True is it that Ambrosio Salinero iv 233
’Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high: v 26
Two Voices are there; one is of the sea, iv 61
Under the shadow of a stately Pile, viii 78
Ungrateful Country, if thou e’er forget vii 81
Unless to Peter’s Chair the viewless wind vii 34
Unquiet Childhood here by special grace vii 170
Untouched through all severity of cold; vii 231
“Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away!” ii 181
Up to the throne of God is borne vii 408
Up! up! my Friend, and quit your books; i 274
Up with me! up with me into the clouds! iii 42
Urged by Ambition, who with subtlest skill vii 26
Uttered by whom, or how inspired--designed vi 306
Vallombrosa! I longed in thy shadiest wood vi 357
“Vallombrosa--I longed in thy shadiest wood” viii 76
Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent, ii 434
“Wait, prithee, wait!” this answer Lesbia threw viii 32
Wanderer! that stoop’st so low, and com’st so near viii 13
Wansfell! this Household has a favoured lot, viii 153
Ward of the Law!--dread Shadow of a King! vi 209
Was it to disenchant, and to undo, vi 295
Was the aim frustrated by force or guile, vi 184
Watch, and be firm! for, soul-subduing vice, vii 10
“Weak is the will of Man, his judgment blind;” vi 67
We can endure that He should waste our lands, iv 246
Weep not, belovèd Friends! nor let the air iv 230
We gaze--nor grieve to think that we must die, viii 306
We had a female Passenger who came ii 342
_We_ have not passed into a doleful City, vii 383
Well have yon Railway Labourers to THIS ground viii 176
Well may’st thou halt--and gaze with brightening eye! iv 34
Well sang the Bard who called the grave, in strains vii 295
Well worthy to be magnified are they vii 84
Were there, below, a spot of holy ground i 37
Were there, below, a spot of holy ground, i 310
We saw, but surely, in the motley crowd, vii 376
We talked with open heart, and tongue ii 91
We walked along, while bright and red ii 89
What aim had they, the Pair of Monks, in size viii 74
What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled, vi 237
What awful pérspective! while from our sight vii 106
“What beast in wilderness or cultured field” vii 47
What beast of chase hath broken from the cover? vi 360
What crowd is this? what have we here! we must not
pass it by iv 22
What heavenly smiles! O Lady mine viii 177
What He--who, mid the kindred throng vi 29
What if our numbers barely could defy viii 87
“What is good for a bootless bene?” iv 205
“What know we of the Blest above” vi 315
What lovelier home could gentle Fancy choose? vi 294
What mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret, vii 340
What need of clamorous bells, or ribands gay, iv 276
What sounds are those, Helvellyn, that are heard iii 270
What strong allurement draws, what spirit guides, viii 92
What though the Accused, upon his own appeal vii 223
What though the Italian pencil wrought not here, vi 321
What way does the Wind come? What way does he go? iv 50
“_What, you are stepping westward?_”--“_Yea._” ii 396
When Alpine Vales threw forth a suppliant cry, vii 79
Whence that low voice?--A whisper from the heart, vi 252
When Contemplation, like the night-calm felt iii 201
When, far and wide, swift as the beams of morn iv 244
When first descending from the moorlands, viii 27
When haughty expectations prostrate lie, vi 192
When here with Carthage Rome to conflict came, viii 66
When human touch (as monkish books attest), viii 34
When I have borne in memory what has tamed ii 348
When in the antique age of bow and spear vii 115
When, looking on the present face of things, ii 433
When Love was born of heavenly line, viii 216
When Philoctetes in the Lemnian isle vii 167
When Ruth was left half desolate, ii 104
When Severn’s sweeping flood had overthrown, viii 314
When the soft hand of sleep had closed the latch vi 97
When thy great soul was freed from mortal chains, vii 25
When, to the attractions of the busy world, iii 66
When years of wedded life were as a day vi 43
Where are they now, those wanton Boys? ii 281
Where art thou, my beloved Son, iii 7
Where be the noisy followers of the game vi 380
Where be the temples which, in Britain’s Isle, vi 45
Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends, vi 217
Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go? iv 41
Where lies the truth? has Man, in wisdom’s creed, viii 182
Where long and deeply hath been fixed the root vii 43
Where towers are crushed, and unforbidden weeds vii 137
Where will they stop, those breathing Powers, vii 314
While Anna’s peers and early playmates tread, vii 169
While beams of orient light shoot wide and high, viii 156
While flowing rivers yield a blameless sport, vi 190
While from the purpling east departs vii 146
While Merlin paced the Cornish sands, vii 252
While not a leaf seems faded; while the fields, vi 65
While poring Antiquarians search the ground, viii 33
While the Poor gather round, till the end of time vii 307
While thus from theme to theme the Historian passed, v 283
“Who but hails the sight with pleasure” vi 156
Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high, viii 184
Who comes--with rapture greeted, and caress’d vii 75
Who fancied what a pretty sight ii 374
Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he iv 8
Who ponders National events shall find, viii 131
Who rashly strove thy Image to portray, viii 29
Who rises on the banks of Seine, vi 104
Who swerves from innocence, who makes divorce vi 260
Who weeps for strangers? Many wept, viii 267
Why art thou silent! Is thy love a plant, viii 12
Why cast ye back upon the Gallic shore, vi 378
“Why, Minstrel, these untuneful murmurings--” vii 161
Why should the Enthusiast, journeying through this Isle, vii 343
Why should we weep or mourn, Angelic boy, viii 181
Why sleeps the future, as a snake enrolled, vii 108
Why stand we gazing on the sparkling Brine, vii 361
“Why, William, on that old grey stone,” i 272
Wild Redbreast! hadst thou at Jemima’s lip vii 176
Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! ii 66
With copious eulogy in prose or rhyme vii 270
With each recurrence of this glorious morn vi 194
With how sad steps, O Moon, thou climb’st the sky, iv 38
Within her gilded cage confined, vii 142
Within our happy Castle there dwelt One ii 306
Within the mind strong fancies work, vi 158
With little here to do or see ii 358
“With sacrifice before the rising morn” vi 2
With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh, iv 40
Witness thou, viii 234
Woe to the Crown that doth the Cowl obey! vii 27
“Woe to you, Prelates! rioting in ease” vii 49
Woman! the Power who left his throne on high, vii 95
Wouldst thou be gathered to Christ’s chosen flock, viii 303
Wouldst thou be taught, when sleep has taken flight, viii 151
Would that our scrupulous Sires had dared to leave vii 99
Ye Apennines! with all your fertile vales, viii 45
Ye brood of conscience--Spectres! that frequent, viii 107
Ye Lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed Urn, iv 78
Ye sacred Nurseries of blooming Youth! vi 213
Ye shadowy Beings, that have rights and claims vii 377
Yes! hope may with my strong desire keep pace, iii 381
Yes, if the intensities of hope and fear vii 88
Yes, it was the mountain Echo, iv 25
Yes! thou art fair, yet be not moved, viii 176
Yes, though He well may tremble at the sound, viii 111
Ye Storms, resound the praises of your King! vi 109
Yet are they here the same unbroken knot iv 65
Yet many a Novice of the cloistral shade, vii 53
Yet more,--round many a Convent’s blazing fire vii 51
Ye, too, must fly before a chasing hand, vii 54
Ye torrents, foaming down the rocky steeps, viii 161
Ye Trees! whose slender roots entwine, viii 82
Yet Truth is keenly sought for, and the wind vii 76
Yet, yet, Biscayans! we must meet our Foes iv 242
Ye vales and hills whose beauty hither drew, viii 157
You call it, “Love lies bleeding,”--so you may, viii 149
You have heard “a Spanish Lady” vii 232
YOUNG ENGLAND--what is then become of Old, viii 180
You’re here for one long vernal day; viii 284
END OF VOL. VIII
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.
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