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Title: The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Volume IV (of 8)

Author: William Wordsworth

Editor: William Knight

Release Date: May 20, 2010 [eBook #32459]

Language: English

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***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, VOLUME IV (OF 8)***

E-text prepared by Jonathan Ingram, Christine Aldridge,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

THE POETICAL WORKS

OF

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

EDITED BY

WILLIAM KNIGHT

VOL. IV

London

MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.

NEW YORK: MACMILLAN & CO.

1896

[Pg v]

CONTENTS

[Pg 1]

WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS

1806

Wordsworth left Grasmere with his household for Coleorton in November 1806, and there is no evidence that he returned to Westmoreland till April 1808; although his sister spent part of the winter of 1807-8 at Dove Cottage, while he and Mrs. Wordsworth wintered at Stockton with the Hutchinson family. Several of the sonnets which are published in the "Poems" of 1807 refer, however, to Grasmere, and were probably composed there. I have conjecturally assigned a good many of them to the year 1806. Some may have been composed earlier than 1806, but it is not likely that any belong to a later year.

In addition to these, the poems of 1806 include the Character of the Happy Warrior, unless it should be assigned to the close of the previous year (see the note to the poem, p. 11), The Horn of Egremont Castle, the three poems composed in London in the spring of the year (April or May)—viz. Stray Pleasures, Power of Music, and Star-gazers—the lines on the Mountain Echo, those composed in expectation of the death of Mr. Fox, and the Ode, Intimations of Immortality.[A] Southey, in writing to Sir Walter Scott, on the 4th of February 1806, said, "Wordsworth has of late been more employed in correcting his poems than in writing others."—Ed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Pg 2]

TO THE SPADE OF A FRIEND

(An Agriculturist)

COMPOSED WHILE WE WERE LABOURING[A] TOGETHER IN HIS PLEASURE-GROUND

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[This person was Thomas Wilkinson, a Quaker by religious profession; by natural constitution of mind—or, shall I venture to say, by God's grace? he was something better. He had inherited a small estate, and built a house upon it, near Yanwath, upon the banks of the Emont. I have heard him say that his heart used to beat, in his boyhood, when he heard the sound of a drum and fife. Nevertheless the spirit of adventure in him confined itself in tilling his ground, and conquering such obstacles as stood in the way of its fertility. Persons of his religious persuasion do now, in a far greater degree than formerly, attach themselves to trade and commerce. He kept the old track. As represented in this poem, he employed his leisure hours in shaping pleasant walks by the side of his beloved river, where he also built something between a hermitage and a summer house, attaching to it inscriptions after the manner of Shenstone at his Leasowes. He used to travel from time to time, partly from love of Nature, and partly with religious friends, in the service of humanity. His admiration of genius in every department did him much honour. Through his connection with the family in which Edmund Burke was educated, he became acquainted with that great man, who used to receive him with great kindness and condescension; and many times I have heard Wilkinson speak of those interesting interviews. He was honoured also by the friendship of Elizabeth Smith, and of Thomas Clarkson and his excellent wife, and was much esteemed by Lord and Lady Lonsdale, and every member of that family. Among his verses (he wrote many) are some worthy of preservation; one little poem in particular,[Pg 3] upon disturbing, by prying curiosity, a bird while hatching her young in his garden. The latter part of this innocent and good man's life was melancholy. He became blind, and also poor, by becoming surety for some of his relations. He was a bachelor. He bore, as I have often witnessed, his calamities with unfailing resignation. I will only add, that while working in one of his fields, he unearthed a stone of considerable size, then another, then two more; observing that they had been placed in order, as if forming the segment of a circle, he proceeded carefully to uncover the soil, and brought into view a beautiful Druid's temple, of perfect, though small dimensions. In order to make his farm more compact, he exchanged this field for another, and, I am sorry to add, the new proprietor destroyed this interesting relic of remote ages for some vulgar purpose. The fact, so far as concerns Thomas Wilkinson, is mentioned in the note on a sonnet on Long Meg and her Daughters.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.

Thomas Wilkinson of Yanwath, the friend of Wordsworth and the subject of these verses, deserves more than a passing note.

[Pg 5]

One of the old race of Cumbrian "Statesmen"—men who owned, and themselves cultivated, small bits of land (see Wordsworth's letter on The Brothers and Michael, vol. ii. p. 234)—he was Wordsworth's senior by nineteen years, and lived on a patrimonial farm of about forty acres, on the banks of the Emont,—the stream which, flowing out of Ullswater, divides Cumberland from Westmoreland. He was a Friend, and used to travel great distances to attend religious conferences, or engage in philanthropic work,—on one occasion riding on his pony from Yanwath to London, to the yearly meeting of the Friends; and, on another, walking the 300 miles to town, in eight days, for the same purpose. A simple, genuine nature; serene, refined, hospitable, naïve, and humorous withal; a quaint original man, with a true eye for Nature, a keen relish for rural life (especially for gardening) and a happy knack of characterization, whether he undertook descriptions of scenery in the course of his travels, or narrated the incidents which befell him on the way. This is how he writes of his farm, and his work upon it:—"We have at length some traces of spring (6th April 1784); the primrose under the hedge begins to open her modest flower, the buds begin to swell, and the birds to build; yet we have still a wide horizon, the mountain tops resign not their snows. The happiest season of the year with me is now commencing—I mean that in which I am at the plough; my horses pace slowly on before, the larks sing above my head, and the furrow falls at my side, and the face of Nature and my own mind seem to wear a sweet and cheerful tranquillity."

The following extract shows the interest which he took in the very implements of his industry, and may serve as an illustration of Wordsworth's stanzas on his "spade." "Eighth month, 16th, 1789. Yesterday I parted without regret from an old acquaintance—I set by my scythe for this year. I have often this season seen the dark blue mountains before the sun and his rising embroider them with gold. I have had many a good sleep in the shade among fragrant grass and refreshing breezes, and though closely engaged in what may be thought heavy work, I was sensible of the enjoyments of life with uninterrupted health." In the closing years of the last century, when the spirit of patriotic ardour was so thoroughly roused in England by the restlessness of France and the ambition of[Pg 6] Napoleon, he lived on at his pastoral farm, "busy with his husbandry." In London, he made the acquaintance of Edmund Burke; and Thomas Clarkson, the philanthropist,—whose labours for the abolition of the slave trade are matter of history,—became his intimate friend, and was a frequent visitor at Yanwath. Clarkson afterwards bought an estate near to Wilkinson's home, on the shores of Ullswater, where he built a house, and named it Eusemere, and there the Wordsworths were not infrequent guests. (See the note to the poem beginning "I wandered lonely as a cloud," vol. iii. p. 5.) Wordsworth stayed at Yanwath for two days in 1806. The Tours to the British Mountains, with the Descriptive Poems of Lowther and Emont Vale (London, 1824), have been referred to in the note to The Solitary Reaper, vol. ii. p. 399, one of the poems in the "Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803." It is an interesting volume—the prose much superior to the verse—and might be reprinted with advantage. Wilkinson was urged repeatedly to publish his "Tour through the Highlands," but he always declined, and it was printed at last without his knowledge, by some one to whom he had lent his MS.

Wilkinson's relations to Wordsworth are alluded to in the note to The Solitary Reaper. He is occasionally referred to in Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal of January and March 1802, e.g.:—"Monday, 12th March.—The ground covered with snow. Walked to T. Wilkinson's and sent for letters. The woman brought me one from Wm. and Mary. It was a sharp windy night. Thomas Wilkinson came with me to Barton, and questioned me like a catechiser all the way. Every question was like the snapping of a little thread about my heart. I was so full of thought of my half-read letter and other things."

The following are extracts from letters of Wilkinson to Miss Mary Leadbeater of Ballintore:—"Yanwath, 15. 2. 1801.—I had lately a young Poet seeing me that sprang originally from the next village. He has left the College, turned his back on all preferment, and settled down contentedly among our Lakes, with his Sister and his Muse. He ... writes in what he conceives to be the language of Nature in opposition to the finery of our present poetry. He has published two volumes of Poems, mostly of the same character. His name is William Wordsworth." In a letter, dated 29. 1. 1809, the following occurs:—"Thou hast wished to have W. Wordsworth's Lines on my Spade, which I shall transcribe thee. I had promised Lord Lonsdale to take him to Lowther, when he came to see[Pg 7] me, but when we arrived he was gone to shoot moor-game with Judge Sutton. William and I then returned, and wrought together at a walk I was then forming, which gave birth to his Verses." The expression "sprang from the next village" might not be intended to mean that he was born there; or, if it did, the fact that Wordsworth's mother was a native of Penrith, and his own visits to that town, might account for the mistake of one who had made no minute enquiry as to the poet's birthplace. He was born at Cockermouth. Compare an interesting account of Thomas Wilkinson, by Mary Carr, reprinted from the Friends' Quarterly Examiner, 1882.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[The course of the great war with the French naturally fixed one's attention upon the military character, and, to the honour of our country, there were many illustrious instances of the qualities that constitute its highest excellence. Lord Nelson carried most of the virtues that the trials he was exposed to in his department of the service necessarily call forth and sustain, if they do not produce the contrary vices. But his public life was stained with one great crime, so that though many passages of these lines were suggested by what was generally known as excellent in his conduct, I have not been able to connect his name with the poem as I could wish, or even to think of him with satisfaction in reference to the idea of what a warrior ought to be. For the sake of such of my friends as may happen to read this note, I will add that many elements of the character here pourtrayed were found in my brother John, who perished by shipwreck, as mentioned elsewhere. His messmates used to call him the Philosopher, from which it must be inferred that the qualities and dispositions I allude to had not escaped their notice. He often expressed his regret, after the war had continued some time, that he had not chosen the Naval, instead of the East India Company's, service, to which his family connection had led him. He greatly valued moral and religious instruction for youth, as tending to make good sailors. The best, he used to say, came from Scotland; the next to them,[Pg 8] from the North of England, especially from Westmoreland and Cumberland, where, thanks to the piety and local attachments of our ancestors, endowed, or, as they are commonly called, free, schools abound.—I. F.]

Classed among the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.

The following note was appended by Wordsworth in the edition of 1807. "The above Verses were written soon after tidings had been received of the Death of Lord Nelson, which event directed the Author's thoughts to the subject. His respect for the memory of his great fellow-countryman induces him to mention this; though he is well aware that the Verses must suffer from any connection in the Reader's mind with a Name so illustrious."

This note would seem to warrant our removing the date of the composition of the poem from 1806 to 1805; since Lord Nelson died at the battle of Trafalgar, on the 21st of October 1805. On the other hand, Wordsworth himself gave the date 1806; and the "soon after" of the above note may perhaps be stretched to include two months and a half. In writing to Sir George Beaumont on the 11th of February 1806, and enclosing a copy of these verses, he says, "they were written several weeks ago." Southey, writing to Sir Walter Scott, from Keswick, on the 4th of February 1806, says, "Wordsworth was with me last week; he has of late been more employed in correcting his poems than in writing others; but one piece he has written, upon the ideal character of a soldier, than which I have never seen anything more full of meaning and sound thought. The subject was suggested by Nelson's most glorious death, though having no reference to it. He had some thoughts of sending it to The Courier, in which case you will easily recognise his hand." (The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, vol. iii. p. 19.) As it is impossible to decide with accuracy, in the absence of more definite data, I follow the poet's own statement, and assign it to the year 1806.

Wordsworth tells us that features in the character, both of Lord Nelson and of his own brother John, are delineated in this poem. Mr. William Davies writes to me, "He might very well have set the name of Cuthbert, Lord Collingwood, Nelson's contemporary, at the head of the poem, as embodying its spirit and lofty rule of life."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

[Pg 12]

THE HORN OF EGREMONT CASTLE

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[A Tradition transferred from the ancient mansion of Hutton John, the seat of the Huddlestones, to Egremont Castle.—I. F.]

In 1815 this poem was placed among those "of the Imagination"; in 1845 it was transferred to the class of "Miscellaneous Poems."—Ed.

The following note is appended to this poem in the edition of 1807, and in those of 1836 to 1850:—

"This Story is a Cumberland tradition; I have heard it also related of the Hall of Hutton John, an antient residence of the Huddlestones, in a sequestered Valley upon the River Dacor."

Egremont Castle, to which this Cumberland tradition was transferred, is close to the town of Egremont, an ancient borough on the river Ehen, not far from St. Bees. The castle was founded about the beginning of the twelfth century, by William, brother of Ranulph de Meschines, who bestowed on William the whole of the extensive barony of Copeland. The gateway of the castle is vaulted with semi-circular arches, and defended by a strong tower. Westward from the castle area is an ascent to three narrow gates, standing in a line, and close together. These communicated with the outworks, each being defended by a portcullis. Beyond the gates is an artificial mound, seventy-eight feet above the moat; and on this stood an ancient circular tower. (See a description of the castle in Britton and Brayley's Cumberland.) The river Dacor, or Dacre, referred to in Wordsworth's note, joins the Emont a short way below Ullswater; and the hall of Hutton John, which in the reign of Edward III. belonged to the barony of Graystock, passed in the time of Elizabeth to the Huddlestones. The famous Catholic father, John Huddlestone, chaplain to Charles II. and James II., was of this family.

In the edition of 1815, there is the following footnote to the title of the poem:—"This Poem and the Ballad which follows it" (it was that of Goody Blake and Harry Gill), "as they rather refer to the imagination than are produced by it, would not have been placed here" (i.e. among the "Poems of the Imagination"), "but to avoid a needless multiplication of the Classes."

The text of 1807 underwent no change until 1845. But—as[Pg 17] is shown by the notes in the late Lord Coleridge's copy of the edition of 1836—the alterations subsequently adopted in 1845 were made in the interval between these years.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

A COMPLAINT

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Suggested by a change in the manner of a friend.—I. F.]

Classed among the "Poems founded on the Affections."—Ed.

It is highly probable that the friend was S. T. Coleridge. See the Life of Wordsworth (1889), vol. ii. pp. 166, 167.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

[Pg 18]

STRAY PLEASURES

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[Suggested on the Thames by the sight of one of those floating mills that used to be seen there. This I noticed on the Surrey side between Somerset House and Blackfriars' Bridge. Charles Lamb was with me at the time; and I thought it remarkable that I should have to point out to him, an idolatrous Londoner, a sight so interesting as the happy group dancing on the platform. Mills of this kind used to be, and perhaps still are, not uncommon on the continent. I noticed several upon the river Saone in the year 1799, particularly near the town of Chalons, where my friend Jones and I halted a day when we crossed France; so far on foot; there we embarked, and floated down to Lyons.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Fancy." The title Stray Pleasures was first given in the edition of 1820. In 1807 and 1815 the poem had no title; but in the original MS. it was called "Dancers."—Ed.

[Pg 20]

Wordsworth went up to London in April 1806, where he stayed two months. It was, doubtless, on that occasion that these lines were written. The year mentioned in the Fenwick note is incorrect. It was in 1790 that Wordsworth crossed France with his friend Jones.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

POWER OF MUSIC

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[Taken from life.—I. F.]

Classed among the "Poems of the Imagination." The original title in MS. was "A Street Fiddler (in London)."—Ed.

This must be assigned to the same London visit, in the[Pg 22] spring of 1806, referred to in the note to the previous poem.

Charles Lamb wrote to Wordsworth in 1815, "Your Power of Music reminded me of his" (Bourne's) "poem of The Ballad Singer in the Seven Dials."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

STAR-GAZERS

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[Observed by me in Leicester-square, as here described.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.

Doubtless "observed" during the visit to London in April and May 1806.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

"YES, IT WAS THE MOUNTAIN ECHO"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The echo came from Nab-scar, when I was walking on the opposite side of Rydal Mere. I will here mention, for my dear Sister's sake, that, while she was sitting alone one day high up on this part of Loughrigg Fell, she was so affected by the voice of the Cuckoo heard from the crags at some distance that she could not suppress a wish to have a stone inscribed with her name among the rocks from which the sound proceeded. On my return from my walk I recited these verses to Mrs. Wordsworth.—I. F.]

Classed among the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.

The place where this echo was heard can easily be identified by any one walking along the southern or Loughrigg shore of[Pg 27] Rydal. The Fenwick note refers to a wish of Dorothy Wordsworth to have her name inscribed on a stone among the rocks of Loughrigg Fell. It is impossible to know whether it was ever carried out or not. If it was, the place is undiscoverable, like the spot on the banks of the Rotha, where Joanna's name was graven "deep in the living rock," or the place where Wordsworth carved his wife's initials (as recorded in Mrs. Hemans' Memoirs), or where the daisy was found, which suggested the lines beginning

and it is well that they are undiscoverable. It is so easy for posterity to vulgarise, by idle and unappreciative curiosity, spots that are sacred only to the few who feel them to be shrines. The very grave where Wordsworth rests runs the risk of being thus abused by the unthinking crowd. But, in the hope that no one will desecrate it, as the Rock of Names has been injured, I may mention that there is a stone near Rydal Mere, on the north-eastern slope of Loughrigg, with the initial "M." deeply cut. The exact locality I need not more minutely indicate.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

"NUNS FRET NOT AT THEIR CONVENT'S NARROW ROOM"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[In the cottage, Town-end, Grasmere, one afternoon in 1801, my sister read to me the sonnets of Milton. I had long been well acquainted with them, but I was particularly struck on that occasion with the dignified simplicity and majestic harmony that runs through most of them,—in character so totally different from the Italian, and still more so from Shakspeare's fine sonnets. I took fire, if I may be allowed to say so, and produced three sonnets the same afternoon, the first I ever wrote, except an irregular one at school. Of these three, the only one I distinctly remember is—"I grieved for Buonaparté." One was never written down; the third, which was, I believe, preserved, I cannot particularise.—I. F.]

From 1807 to 1820 this was named Prefatory Sonnet, as[Pg 28] introducing the series of "Miscellaneous Sonnets" in these editions. In 1827 it took its place as the first in that series, following the Dedication To ——.—Ed.

In Wordsworth's time "Furness-fells" was a generic phrase for all the hills east of the Duddon, south of the Brathay, and west of Windermere; including the Coniston group, Wetherlam, with the Yewdale and Tilberthwaite fells. The district of Furness, like that of Craven in Yorkshire, being originally ecclesiastical, had a wide area, of which the abbey of Furness was the centre.

In the Fenwick note prefixed to this sonnet, Wordsworth[Pg 29] refers to his earliest attempt at sonnet writing. He says he wrote an irregular one at school, and the next were three sonnets written one afternoon in Dove Cottage in the year 1801, after his sister had read the sonnets of Milton. This note is not, however, to be trusted. It was not in 1801, but on the 21st of May 1802, that his sister read to him these sonnets of Milton; and he afterwards wrote not one but two sonnets on Buonaparte. What the irregular sonnet written at school was it is impossible to say, unless he refers to the one entitled, in 1807 and subsequent editions, Written in Very Early Youth; and beginning—

But on a copy of An Evening Walk (1793 edition) Wordsworth wrote:—"This is the first of my published poems, with the exception of a sonnet, written when I was a schoolboy, and published in the European Magazine in June or July 1786, and signed Axiologus." Even as to this date his memory was at fault. It was published in 1787, when he was seventeen years of age. Its full title may be given; although, for reasons already stated, it would be unjustifiable to republish the sonnet, except in an appendix to the poems, and mainly for its biographical interest. It was entitled, Sonnet, on seeing Miss Maria Williams weep at a Tale of Distress. But, fully ten years before the date mentioned by Dorothy Wordsworth in her Grasmere Journal—as the day on which she read Milton's sonnets to her brother, and on which he wrote the two on Buonaparte—he had written others, the existence of which he had evidently forgotten. On the 6th of May 1792, his sister wrote thus from Forncett Rectory in Norfolk to her friend, Miss Jane Pollard:—"I promised to transcribe some of William's compositions. As I made the promise, I will give you a little sonnet.... I take the first that offers. It is very valuable to me, because the cause which gave birth to it was the favourite evening walk of William and me.... I have not chosen this sonnet from any particular beauty it has. It was the first I laid my hands upon." From the clause I have italicised, it would almost seem that other sonnets belong to that period, viz. before 1793, when An Evening Walk appeared. She would hardly have spoken of it as she did, if this was the only sonnet her brother had then written. Though very inferior to his later work, this sonnet may be preserved as a specimen of Wordsworth's earlier manner, before he had broken away, by[Pg 30] the force of his own imagination, from the trammels of the conventional style, which he inherited. It is printed in the Appendix to volume viii.

It will be seen that Wordsworth's memory cannot be always relied upon, in reference to dates, and similar details, in the Fenwick memoranda.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

PERSONAL TALK

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The last line but two stood, at first, better and more characteristically, thus:—

My sister and I were in the habit of having the tea-kettle in our little sitting room; and we toasted the bread ourselves, which reminds me of a little circumstance not unworthy to be set down among these minutiæ. Happening both of us to be engaged a few minutes one morning when we had a young prig of a Scotch lawyer to breakfast with us, my dear Sister, with her usual simplicity, put the toasting fork with a slice of bread into the hands of this Edinburgh genius. Our little book-case stood on one side of the fire. To prevent loss of time, he took down a book, and fell to reading, to the neglect of the toast, which was burnt to a cinder. Many a time have we laughed at this circumstance, and other cottage simplicities of that day. By the bye, I have a spite at one of this series of Sonnets (I will leave the reader to discover which) as having been the means of nearly putting off for ever our acquaintance with dear Miss Fenwick, who has always stigmatized one line of it as vulgar, and worthy only of having been composed by a country squire.—I. F.]

In 1815, this was classed among the "Poems proceeding from Sentiment and Reflection." From 1820 to 1843, it found a place among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets," and in 1845 was restored to its earlier one among the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.

[Pg 31]

I

II

III

IV

The text of the poem was little altered, and was fixed in 1827. It had no title in 1807 and 1815.

The reading of 1807,

was a reminiscence of Dove Cottage, which we regret to lose in the later editions.

In the Baptistery of Westminster Abbey, there is a statue of Wordsworth by Frederick Thrupp of great merit, placed there by the late Dean Stanley, beside busts of Keble, Maurice, and Kingsley. Underneath the statue of Wordsworth are the four lines from Personal Talk—

Dean Stanley found it difficult to select from Wordsworth's poems the lines most appropriate for inscription, and adopted these at the suggestion of his friend, Principal Shairp.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

[Pg 34]

ADMONITION

Intended more particularly for the perusal of those who may have happened to be enamoured of some beautiful place of Retreat, in the Country of the Lakes.

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

Classed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

The cottage at Town-end, Grasmere—where this sonnet was composed—may have suggested it. Some of the details, however, are scarcely applicable to Dove Cottage; the "brook" (referred to elsewhere) is outside the orchard ground, and there is scarcely anything in the garden to warrant the phrase, "its own small pasture." It is unnecessary to localise the allusions.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

"'BELOVED VALE!' I SAID, 'WHEN I SHALL CON'"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

Doubtless the "Vale" referred to is that of Hawkshead; the "brooks" may refer to the one that feeds Esthwaite lake, or to Sawrey beck, or (more likely) to the streamlet, "the famous brook within our garden boxed," described in The Prelude, books i. and ii. (vol. iii.) See also The Fountain, vol. ii. p. 92.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

"HOW SWEET IT IS, WHEN MOTHER FANCY ROCKS"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

Placed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

"THOSE WORDS WERE UTTERED AS IN PENSIVE MOOD"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

Placed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

"WITH HOW SAD STEPS, O MOON, THOU CLIMB'ST THE SKY"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

In the edition of 1815, this was placed among the "Poems of the Fancy." In 1820 it became one of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

The sonnet of Sir Philip Sidney's, from which the two first lines are taken, is No. XXXI. in Astrophel and Stella. In the edition of 1807 these lines were printed, not as a sonnet, but as No. III. in the series of "Poems composed during a Tour, chiefly on foot;" and in 1807 and 1815 the first two lines were placed within quotation marks.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

The "pleasant lea" referred to in this sonnet is unknown. It may have been on the Cumbrian coast, or in the Isle of Man.

I am indebted to the Rev. Canon Ainger for suggesting an (unconscious) reminiscence of Spenser in the last line of the sonnet. Compare Dr. Arnold's commentary (Miscellaneous Works of Thomas Arnold, p. 311), and that of Sir Henry Taylor in his Notes from Books.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

"WITH SHIPS THE SEA WAS SPRINKLED FAR AND NIGH"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

Placed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

FOOTNOTES:

"WHERE LIES THE LAND TO WHICH YON SHIP MUST GO?"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

Classed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

TO SLEEP

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

Placed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

TO SLEEP

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

TO SLEEP

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

Classed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

Compare Ovid, Metamorphoses, book xi. l. 623; Macbeth, act II. scene ii. l. 39; King Henry IV., Part II., act III. scene i. l. 5; Midsummer Night's Dream, act III. scene ii. l. 435.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[This young man, Raisley Calvert, to whom I was so much indebted, died at Penrith, 1795.—I. F.]

Classed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

Raisley Calvert was the son of R. Calvert, steward to the Duke of Norfolk. Writing to Sir George Beaumont, on the 20th February 1805, Wordsworth said, "I should have been forced into one of the professions" (the church or law) "by necessity, had not a friend left me £900. This bequest was from a young man with whom, though I call him friend, I had but little connection; and the act was done entirely from a confidence on his part that I had powers and attainments which might be of use to mankind.... Upon the interest of the £900, and £100 legacy to my sister, and £100 more which the 'Lyrical Ballads' have brought me, my sister and I contrived to live seven years, nearly eight." To his friend Matthews he wrote, November 7th, 1794, "My friend" (Calvert) "has every symptom of a confirmed consumption, and I cannot think of quitting him in his present debilitated state." And in January 1795 he wrote to Matthews from Penrith (where Calvert was staying), "I have been here for some time. I am still much engaged with my sick friend; and am sorry to add that he worsens daily ... he is barely alive." In a letter to Dr. Joshua Stanger of Keswick, written in the year 1842, Wordsworth referred thus to Raisley Calvert. Dr. Calvert—a nephew of Raisley, and son of the W. Calvert whom the poet accompanied to the Isle of Wight and Salisbury in 1793—had just died. "His removal (Dr. Calvert's) has naturally thrown my mind back as far as Dr. Calvert's grandfather, his father, and sister (the former of whom was, as you know, among my intimate friends), and his uncle Raisley, whom I have so much cause to remember with gratitude for his testamentary remembrance of me, when the greatest part of my patrimony was kept back from us by injustice. It may be satisfactory to your[Pg 46] wife for me to declare that my friend's bequest enabled me to devote myself to literary pursuits, independent of any necessity to look at pecuniary emolument, so that my talents, such as they might be, were free to take their natural course. Your brothers Raisley and William were both so well known to me, and I have so many reasons to respect them, that I cannot forbear saying, that my sympathy with this last bereavement is deepened by the remembrance that they both have been taken from you...." On October 1, 1794, Wordsworth wrote from Keswick to Ensign William Calvert about his brother Raisley. (The year is not given in the letter, but it must have been 1794.) He tells him that Raisley was determined to set out for Lisbon; but that he (Wordsworth) could not brook the idea of his going alone; and that he wished to accompany his friend and stay with him, till his health was re-established. He adds, "Reflecting that his return is uncertain, your brother requests me to inform you that he has drawn out his will, which he means to get executed in London. The purport of his will is to leave you all his property, real and personal, chargeable with a legacy of £600 to me, in case that, on inquiry into the state of our affairs in London, he should think it advisable to do so. It is at my request that this information is communicated to you." Calvert did not live to go south; and he changed the sum left to Wordsworth from £600 to £900. The relationship of the two men suggests the somewhat parallel one between Spinoza and Simon de Vries.—Ed.

"METHOUGHT I SAW THE FOOTSTEPS OF A THRONE"

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

[The latter part of this sonnet was a great favourite with my sister S. H. When I saw her lying in death, I could not resist the impulse to compose the Sonnet that follows it.—I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

"The Sonnet that follows," referred to in the Fenwick note, is one belonging to the year 1836, beginning—

See the note to that sonnet.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

LINES

Composed at Grasmere, during a walk one Evening, after a stormy day, the Author having just read in a Newspaper that the dissolution of Mr. Fox was hourly expected.

Composed September 1806.—Published 1807

This poem was ranked among the "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."—Ed.

Charles James Fox died September 13, 1806. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time, having assumed office on the 5th February, shortly after the death of William Pitt. Wordsworth's sadness on this occasion, his recognition of Fox as great and good, and as "a Power" that was "passing from the earth," may have been due partly to personal and political sympathy, but also probably to Fox's appreciation of the better[Pg 49] side of the French Revolution, and to his welcoming the pacific proposals of Talleyrand, perhaps also to his efforts for the abolition of slavery.

The "lonely road" referred to in these Lines, was, in all likelihood, the path from Town-end towards the Swan Inn past the Hollins, Grasmere. A "mighty unison of streams" may be heard there any autumn evening after a stormy day, and especially after long continued rain, the sound of waters from Easdale, from Greenhead Ghyll, and the slopes of Silver How, blending with that of the Rothay in the valley below. Compare Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland, in 1803, p. 229 (edition 1874).—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

NOVEMBER, 1806

Composed 1806.—Published 1807

Classed among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty," re-named in 1845, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.

Napoleon won the battle of Jena on the 14th October 1806, entered Potsdam on the 25th, and Berlin on the 28th; Prince Hohenlohe laid down his arms on the 6th November; Blücher surrendered at Lübeck on the 7th; Magdeburg was taken on the 8th; on the 14th the French occupied Hanover; and on the 21st Napoleon issued his Berlin decree for the blockade of England—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

ADDRESS TO A CHILD

During a Boisterous Winter Evening

By my Sister

Composed 1806.—Published 1815

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood."—Ed.

Wordsworth dated this poem 1806, and said to Miss Fenwick that it was written at Grasmere. If it was written "during a boisterous winter evening" in 1806, it could not have been written at Grasmere; because the Wordsworths spent most of that winter at Coleorton. I am inclined to believe that the date which the poet gave is wrong, and that the Address really belongs to the year 1805; but, as it is just possible that—although referring to winter—it may have been written at Town-end in the summer of 1806, it is placed among the poems belonging to the latter year.

This Address was translated into French by Mme. Amable Tastu, and published in a popular school-book series of extracts, but Wordsworth's name is not given along with the translation.

From 1815 to 1843 the authorship was veiled under the title, "by a female Friend of the Author." In 1845, it was disclosed, "by my Sister."

In 1815 Charles Lamb wrote to Wordsworth, "We were glad to see the poems 'by a female friend.' The one of the Wind is masterly, but not new to us. Being only three, perhaps you might have clapt a D. at the corner, and let it have past as a printer's mark to the uninitiated, as a delightful hint to the better instructed. As it is, expect a formal criticism on the poems of your female friend, and she must expect it." (The Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p. 285.)—Ed.

VARIANTS:

"BROOK! WHOSE SOCIETY THE POET SEEKS"

Composed 1806?—Published 1815

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

"THERE IS A LITTLE UNPRETENDING RILL"

Composed 1806?—Published 1820

[This Rill trickles down the hill-side into Windermere, near Low-wood. My sister and I, on our first visit together to this part of the country, walked from Kendal, and we rested to refresh ourselves by the side of the lake where the streamlet falls into it. This sonnet was written some years after in recollection of that happy ramble, that most happy day and hour.—I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

One of the MS. readings of the ninth line of this sonnet[Pg 55] gives the date of the incident as "now seven years gone"; but I leave the date of composition undetermined. If we could know accurately the date of the "first visit" to the district with his sister (referred to in the Fenwick note), and if we could implicitly trust this MS. reading, it might be possible to fix it; but we can do neither. Wordsworth visited the Lake District with his sister as early as 1794, and in December 1799 he took up his abode with her at Dove Cottage. I have no doubt that the sonnet belongs to the year 1806, or was composed at an earlier date. As to the locality of the rill, the late Rev. R. Perceval Graves, of Dublin, wrote to me:—

VARIANTS:

[Pg 56]

1807

In few instances is it more evident that the dates which Wordsworth affixed to his poems, in the editions of 1815, 1820, 1836, and 1845,—and those assigned in the Fenwick notes—cannot be absolutely relied upon, than in the case of the poems referring to Coleorton. Trusting to these dates, in the absence of contrary evidence, one would naturally assign the majority of the Coleorton poems to the year 1808. But it is clear that, while the sonnet To Lady Beaumont may have been written in 1806, the "Inscription" For a Seat in the Groves of Coleorton, beginning—

was written, not in 1808 (as stated by Wordsworth himself), but in 1811; and that the other "Inscription" designed for a Niche in the Winter-garden at Coleorton, belongs (I think) to the same year; a year in which he also wrote the sonnet on Sir George Beaumont's picture of Bredon Hill and Cloud Hill, beginning—

When the dates are so difficult to determine, there is a natural fitness in bringing all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as this can be done without seriously interfering with chronological order. The two "Inscriptions" intended for the Coleorton grounds, which were written at Grasmere in 1811, are therefore printed along with the poems of 1807; the precise date of each being given—so far as it can be ascertained—underneath its title.

Several political sonnets, and others, were written in 1807; also the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, and the first and larger part of The White Doe of Rylstone, with a few minor fragments. But, for reasons stated in the notes to [Pg 57]The White Doe of Rylstone (see p. 191), I have assigned that poem to the year 1808. The Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle forms as natural a preface to The White Doe, as The Force of Prayer, a Tradition of Bolton Abbey, is its natural appendix. The latter was written, however, before The White Doe of Rylstone was finished.

It would be easier to fix the date of some of the poems written between the years 1806 and 1808, if we knew the exact month in which the two volumes of 1807 were published; but this, I fear, it is impossible to discover now.

On November 10th, 1806, Wordsworth wrote to Sir George Beaumont from Coleorton, "In a day or two I mean to send a sheet or two of my intended volume to the press" (evidently referring to the "Poems" of 1807). On the following day—11th November 1806—Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to Lady Beaumont, "William has written two other poems, which you will see when they are printed. He composes frequently in the grove.... We have not yet received a sheet from the printer." On the 15th November 1806 she again wrote to Lady Beaumont (from Coleorton), "My brother works very hard at his poems, preparing them for the press. Miss Hutchinson is the transcriber." In a subsequent letter from Coleorton, undated, but bearing the post-mark February 18, 1807, she is speaking of her brother's poetical labour, and says, "He must go on, when he begins: and any interruptions (such as attending to the progress of the workmen and planning the garden) are of the greatest use to him; for, after a certain time, the progress is by no means proportioned to the labour in composition; and if he is called from it by other thoughts, he returns to it with ten times the pleasure, and the work goes on proportionately the more rapidly." From this we may infer that the years 1806-7 were productive ones, but it is disappointing that the dates of the composition of the poems are so difficult to determine.—Ed.

TO LADY BEAUMONT

Composed 1807.—Published 1807

[The winter garden of Coleorton, fashioned out of an old quarry, under the superintendence and direction of Mrs. Wordsworth[Pg 58] and my sister Dorothy, during the winter and spring we resided there.—I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

The title, To Lady Beaumont, was first given in 1845. In 1807 it was To the ——; in 1815, To the Lady ——; and from 1820 to 1843, To the Lady Beaumont.

This winter garden, fashioned by the Wordsworths out of the old quarry at Coleorton, during Sir George and Lady Beaumont's absence in 1807, exists very much as it was at the beginning of the century. The "perennial bowers and murmuring pines" may still be seen, little altered since 1807. The late Sir George Beaumont (whose grandfather was first-cousin to the artist Sir George, Wordsworth's friend), with strong reverence for the past, and for the traditions of literary men which have made the district famous since the days of his ancestor Beaumont the dramatist, and especially for the memorials of Wordsworth's ten months' residence at Coleorton,—took a pleasure in preserving these memorials, very much as they were when he entered in possession of the estates of his ancestors.[Pg 59] Such a reverence for the past is not only consistent with the "improvement" of an estate, and its belongings; it is a part of it. Wordsworth, and his wife and sister, were adepts in the laying out of grounds. (See the reference to the poet's joint labour with Wilkinson at Yanwath, p. 2.) It was the Wordsworths also, I believe, who designed the grounds of Fox How—Dr. Arnold's residence, near Ambleside. Similar memorials of the poet survive at Hallsteads, Ullswater. The following is an extract from the letter of Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont above referred to, and having the post-mark of February 18, 1807. "For more than a week we have had the most delightful weather. If William had but waited a few days, it would have been no anticipation when he said to you, 'the songs of Spring were in the grove;' for all this week the birds have chanted from morn till evening, larks, blackbirds, thrushes, and far more than I can name, and the busy rooks have joined their happy voices."

Wordsworth, writing to Sir George Beaumont, November 16, 1811, says, "I remember, Mr. Bowles, the poet, objected to the word 'ravishment' at the end of the sonnet to the winter-garden; yet it has the authority of all the first-rate poets, for instance, Milton:

VARIANTS:

A PROPHECY. FEBRUARY, 1807

Composed 1807.—Published 1807

Included among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty," re-named in 1845, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND

Composed 1807.—Published 1807

[This was composed while pacing to and fro between the Hall of Coleorton, then rebuilding, and the principal Farmhouse of the Estate, in which we lived for nine or ten months. [Pg 61]I will here mention that the Song on the Restoration of Lord Clifford, as well as that on the Feast of Brougham Castle, were produced on the same ground.—I. F.]

This sonnet was classed among those "dedicated to Liberty," re-named in 1845, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.

In 1807 the whole of the Continent of Europe was prostrate under the power of Napoleon. It is impossible to say to what special incident, if to any in particular, Wordsworth refers in the phrase, "with holy glee thou fought'st against him;" but, as the sonnet was composed at Coleorton in 1807—after the battles of Austerlitz and Jena, and Napoleon's practical mastery of Europe—our knowing the particular event or events in Swiss history to which he refers, would not add much to our understanding of the poem.

In the Fenwick note Wordsworth incorrectly separates his Song on the Restoration of Lord Clifford from the Feast of Brougham Castle. They are the same song.—Ed.

[Pg 62]

TO THOMAS CLARKSON, ON THE FINAL PASSING OF THE BILL FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE, MARCH, 1807

Composed 1807.—Published 1807

One of the "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.

On the 25th of March 1807, the Royal assent was given to the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. The movement for its abolition was begun by Wilberforce, and carried on by Clarkson. Its abolition was voted by the House of Lords on the motion of Lord Grenville, and by the Commons on the motion of Charles James Fox, on the 10th of June 1806. The bill was read a second time in the Lords on the 5th of February, and became law on the 25th of March 1807.

VARIANTS:

[Pg 63]

THE MOTHER'S RETURN

By My Sister

Composed 1807.—Published 1815

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood."—Ed.

[Pg 65]The Fenwick note is inaccurate. These lines were written by Dorothy Wordsworth at Coleorton, on the eve of her brother and sister's return from London, in the spring of 1807, whither they had gone for a month—Dorothy remaining at Coleorton, in charge of the children. Previous to 1845, the poem was attributed to "a female Friend of the Author."—Ed.

GIPSIES

Composed 1807.—Published 1807

[Composed at Coleorton. I had observed them, as here described, near Castle Donnington, on my way to and from Derby.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.

See S. T. Coleridge's criticism of this poem in his Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. p. 156 (edition 1847).—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

[Pg 67]

"O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART"

Composed 1807 (probably).—Published 1807

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. (Mrs. W. says, in a note,—"At Coleorton.")—I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.

Mrs. Wordsworth corrected her husband's note to Miss Fenwick, by adding in the MS., "at Coleorton"; and at Coleorton the Wordsworths certainly spent the winter of 1806, the Town-end Cottage at Grasmere being too small for their increasing household. It is more likely that Wordsworth wrote the poem at Coleorton than at Grasmere, and it looks as if it had been an evening impromptu, after hearing both the nightingale and the stock-dove. There are no nightingales at Grasmere,—they are not heard further north than the Trent valley,—while they used to abound in the "peaceful groves" of Coleorton. If the locality was—as Mrs. Wordsworth states—Coleorton, and if the lines were written after hearing the nightingale, the year would be 1807, and not 1806 (the poet's own date). The nightingale is a summer visitor in this country, and could not have been heard by Wordsworth at Coleorton in 1806, as he did not go south to Leicestershire till November in that year. But it is quite possible that it was "the stock-dove's voice" that alone suggested the lines, and that they were written either in 1806, or (as I think more likely), very early in 1807. In the month of January Wordsworth was corresponding with Scott about the poems in this edition of 1807.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

"THOUGH NARROW BE THAT OLD MAN'S CARES, AND NEAR"

Composed 1807.—Published 1807

[Written at Coleorton. This old man's name was Mitchell. He was, in all his ways and conversation, a great curiosity, both individually and as a representative of past times. His chief employment was keeping watch at night by pacing round the house, at that time building, to keep off depredators. He has often told me gravely of having seen the Seven Whistlers, and the Hounds as here described. Among the groves of[Pg 69] Coleorton, where I became familiar with the habits and notions of old Mitchell, there was also a labourer of whom, I regret, I had no personal knowledge; for, more than forty years after, when he was become an old man, I learned that while I was composing verses, which I usually did aloud, he took much pleasure, unknown to me, in following my steps that he might catch the words I uttered; and, what is not a little remarkable, several lines caught in this way kept their place in his memory. My volumes have lately been given to him by my informant, and surely he must have been gratified to meet in print his old acquaintances.—I. F.]

In 1815 this sonnet was one of the "Poems belonging to the Period of Old Age"; in 1820 it was transferred to the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.

To bring all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as possible, this and the next sonnet are transferred from their places in the chronological list, and placed beside the Coleorton "Inscriptions."

I am indebted to Mr. William Kelly of Leicester for the following note on the Leicestershire superstition of the Seven Whistlers.

[Pg 71]In Notes and Queries there are several allusions to this local superstition. In the Fifth Series (vol. ii. p. 264), Oct. 3, 1874, the editor gives a summary of several notes on the subject in vol. viii. of the Fourth Series (pp. 68, 134, 196, and 268), with additional information. He says "record was made of their having been heard in Leicestershire; and that the develin or martin, the swift, and the plover were probably of the whistling fraternity that frightened men. At p. 134 it was shown that Wordsworth had spoken of one who

On the same page, the swift is said to be the true whistler (but, as noted at page 196, the swifts never make nightly rounds), and the superstition is said to be common in our Midland Counties. At page 268, Mr. Pearson put on record that in Lancashire the plovers, whistling as they fly, are accounted heralds of ill, though sometimes of trivial accident, and that they are there called 'Wandering Jews,' and are said to be, or to carry with them, the ever-restless souls of those Jews who assisted at the Crucifixion. At page 336, the whistlers are chronicled as having been the harbingers of the great Hartley Colliery explosion. A correspondent, Viator, added, that on the Bosphorus there are flocks of birds, the size of a thrush, which fly up and down the channel, and are never seen to rest on land or water. The men who rowed Viator's caique told him that they were the souls of the damned, condemned to perpetual motion. The Seven Whistlers have not furnished chroniclers with later circumstances of their tuneful and awful progresses till a week or two ago.... The whistlers are also heard and feared in Portugal. See The New Quarterly for July 1874, for a record of some travelling experience in that country."

Another extract from Notes and Queries is to the following effect:—

Gabriel's Hounds.—"At Wednesbury in Staffordshire, the colliers going to their pits early in the morning hear the noise of a pack of hounds in the air, to which they give the name of Gabriel's Hounds, though the more sober and judicious take them only to be wild geese making this noise in their flight." Kennet MS., Lansd. 1033. (See Halliwell's Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, vol. i. p. 388.) The peculiar cry or cackle, both of the Brent Goose and of the Bean or Harvest Goose (Anser Segetum), has often been likened to that of a pack of hounds in full cry—especially when the birds are on the wing during night. For some account of the superstition of "Gabriel's Hounds," see Notes and Queries, First Series, vol. v. pp. 534 and 596; and vol. xii. p. 470; Second Series, vol. i. p. 80; and Fourth Series, vol. vii. p. 299. In the last note these hounds are said to be popularly believed to be "the souls of unbaptized children wandering in the air till the day of judgment." They are also explained as "a thing in the air, that is said in these parts (Sheffield) to foretell calamity, sounding like a great pack of beagles in full cry." This quotation is from Charles Reade's Put yourself in his place, which contains many scraps of local folk-lore. The following is from the Statistical History of Kirkmichael, by the Rev. John Grant. "In the autumnal season, when the moon shines from a serene sky, often is the wayfaring traveller arrested by the music of the hills. Often struck with a more sober scene, he beholds the visionary hunters engaged in the chase, and pursuing the deer of the clouds, while the hollow rocks in long[Pg 73] sounding echoes reverberate their cries." "There are several now living who assert that they have seen and heard this aërial hunting." See the Statistical History of Scotland, edited by Sir J. Sinclair, vol. xii. pp. 461, 462. Compare note to An Evening Walk, vol. i. p. 19.—Ed.

FOOTNOTES:

COMPOSED BY THE SIDE OF GRASMERE LAKE. 1807

Composed 1806.—Published 1819

This sonnet was first published along with The Waggoner in 1819. In 1820 it was classed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets," and in 1827 it was transferred to the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty." Previous to 1837 this sonnet had no title.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

IN THE GROUNDS OF COLEORTON, THE SEAT OF SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT, BART., LEICESTERSHIRE

Composed 1808.—Published 1815

[In the grounds of Coleorton these verses are engraved on a stone placed near the Tree, which was thriving and spreading when I saw it in the summer of 1841.—I. F.]

Included among the "Inscriptions."—Ed.

About twelve years after the last visit of Wordsworth to Coleorton, referred to in the Fenwick note—of which the date should, I think, be 1842, not 1841—this cedar tree fell, uprooted during a storm. It was, however, as the Coleorton gardener who was then on the estate told me, replanted with much labour, and protected with care; although, the top branches being injured, it was never quite the same as it had been. During the night of the great storm on the 13th October 1880, however, it fell a second time, and perished irretrievably. The memorial stone remains, injured a good deal by the wear and tear of time; and the inscription is more than half obliterated. It is in a situation much more exposed to the elements than the other two inscriptions at Coleorton. He

was Sir John Beaumont, the brother of the dramatist, who wrote a poem on the battle of Bosworth. (See one of Wordsworth's notes to the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, p. 98.) The

was Francis Beaumont, the dramatist, who wrote in conjunction with Fletcher. He died at the age of twenty-nine.

In an undated letter addressed to Sir George Beaumont, Wordsworth wrote, "I like your ancestor's verses the more, the more I see of them. They are manly, dignified, and extremely harmonious. I do not remember in any author of that age such a series of well-tuned couplets."

In another letter written from Grasmere (probably in 1811) to Sir George, he says in reference to his own poems, "These inscriptions have all one fault, they are too long; but I was[Pg 76] unable to do justice to the thoughts in less room. The second has brought Sir John Beaumont and his brother Francis so livelily to my mind that I recur to the plan of republishing the former's poems, perhaps in connection with those of Francis."

On November 16, 1811, he wrote to him again, "I am glad that the inscriptions please you. It did always appear to me, that inscriptions, particularly those in verse, or in a dead language, were never supposed necessarily to be the composition of those in whose name they appeared. If a more striking or more dramatic effect could be produced, I have always thought, that in an epitaph or memorial of any kind, a father or husband, etc., might be introduced speaking, without any absolute deception being intended; that is, the reader is understood to be at liberty to say to himself,—these verses, or this Latin, may be the composition of some unknown person, and not that of the father, widow, or friend, from whose hand or voice they profess to proceed.... I have altered the verses, and I have only to regret that the alteration is not more happily done. But I never found anything more difficult. I wished to preserve the expression patrimonial grounds,[A] but I found this impossible, on account of the awkwardness of the pronouns, he and his, as applied to Reynolds, and to yourself. This, even when it does not produce confusion, is always inelegant. I was, therefore, obliged to drop it; so that we must be content, I fear, with the inscription as it stands below. I hope it will do. I tried a hundred different ways, but cannot hit upon anything better...."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

IN A GARDEN OF THE SAME

Composed 1811.—Published 1815

[This Niche is in the sandstone-rock in the winter-garden at Coleorton, which garden, as has been elsewhere said, was made under our direction out of an old unsightly quarry. While the labourers were at work, Mrs. Wordsworth, my sister and I used to amuse ourselves occasionally in scooping this seat out of the soft stone. It is of the size, with something of the appearance, of a stall in a Cathedral. This inscription is not engraven, as the former and the two following are, in the grounds.—I. F.]

Classed by Wordsworth among his "Inscriptions."—Ed.

This niche is still to be seen, although not quite "unconscious of decay." The growth of yew-trees, over and around it, has darkened the seat; and constant damp has decayed the soft stone. The niche having been scooped out by Mrs. Wordsworth and Dorothy, as well as by Wordsworth, suggests the cutting of the inscriptions on the Rock of Names in 1800, in which they all took part. (See vol. iii. pp. 61, 62.) On his return to Grasmere from Coleorton, Wordsworth wrote thus to Sir George Beaumont, in an undated letter, about this inscription:—"What follows I composed yesterday morning, thinking there might be no impropriety in placing it so as to be visible only to a person sitting within the niche, which is hollowed out of the sandstone in the winter-garden. I am told that this is, in the[Pg 78] present form of the niche, impossible; but I shall be most ready, when I come to Coleorton, to scoop out a place for it, if Lady Beaumont think it worth while." Then follows the—

Inscription

Oft is the medal faithful to its trust.

On Nov. 16, 1811, writing again to Sir George on this subject of the "Inscriptions," and evidently referring to this one on the "Niche," he says, "As to the 'Female,' and 'Male,' I know not how to get rid of it; for that circumstance gives the recess an appropriate interest.... On this account, the lines had better be suppressed, for it is not improbable that the altering of them might cost me more trouble than writing a hundred fresh ones."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT, BART., AND IN HIS NAME, FOR AN URN, PLACED BY HIM AT THE TERMINATION OF A NEWLY-PLANTED AVENUE, IN THE SAME GROUNDS

Composed 1808.—Published 1815

One of the "Inscriptions."—Ed.

These Lime-trees now form "a stately growth of pillars," "a darksome aisle"; and the urn remains, as set up in 1807, at the end of the avenue.

The "awful Pile," where Reynolds lies, and where—

is, of course, Westminster Abbey.

After Wordsworth's return from Coleorton and Stockton to Grasmere, he wrote thus to Sir George Beaumont:—

This letter—which is not now in the Beaumont collection at Coleorton Hall—seems to imply that Wordsworth thought of combining the first couplet on the Urn with the last nine lines of the inscription for the stone behind the Cedar tree. But this was never carried out. The inscriptions are printed in the text as they were carved at Coleorton.—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOR A SEAT IN THE GROVES OF COLEORTON

Composed November 19, 1811.—Published 1815

One of the "Inscriptions."—Ed.

Charnwood forest, in Leicestershire, is an almost treeless wold of between fifteen and sixteen thousand acres. The

[Pg 82]

refers probably to High Cadmon. The nunnery of Grace Dieu was a religious house, in a retired spot near the centre of the forest; and was built between 1236 and 1242. The English monasteries were suppressed in 1536; but Grace Dieu, with thirty others of the smaller monasteries, was allowed to continue some time longer. It was finally suppressed in 1539, when the site of the priory, with the demesne lands, was granted to Sir Humphrey Foster, who conveyed the whole to John Beaumont. Francis Beaumont, the dramatic poet, was born at Grace Dieu in 1586. He died in 1615, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

"William and I went to Grace Dieu last week. We were enchanted with the little valley and its nooks, and the rocks of Charnwood upon the hill."—Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont, November 17, 1806.

This "Inscription" was composed at Grasmere, November 19, 1811, as the following extract from a letter of Wordsworth's to Lady Beaumont indicates:—"Grasmere, Wednesday, November 20, 1811.—My Dear Lady Beaumont—When you see this you will think I mean to overrun you with inscriptions. I do not mean to tax you with putting them up, only with reading them. The following I composed yesterday morning in a walk from Brathay, whither I had been to accompany my sister:—

For a Seat in the Groves of Coleorton.

Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound.

The thought of writing this inscription occurred to me many years ago."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

SONG AT THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM CASTLE,

Upon the Restoration of Lord Clifford, the Shepherd, to the Estates and Honours of his Ancestors

Composed 1807.—Published 1807

[See the note. This poem was composed at Coleorton while I was walking to and fro along the path that led from Sir[Pg 83] George Beaumont's Farmhouse, where we resided, to the Hall, which was building at that time.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.

The original text of this Song was altered but little in succeeding editions, and was not changed at all till 1836 and 1845. The following is Wordsworth's explanatory note, appended to the poem in all the editions:—

"Henry Lord Clifford, etc. etc., who is the subject of this Poem, was the son of John, Lord Clifford, who was slain at[Pg 90] Towton Field,[H] which John, Lord Clifford, as is known to the Reader of English History, was the person who after the battle of Wakefield slew, in the pursuit, the young Earl of Rutland, Son of the Duke of York who had fallen in the battle, 'in part of revenge' (say the Authors of the History of Cumberland and Westmoreland); 'for the Earl's Father had slain his.' A deed which worthily blemished the author (saith Speed); But who, as he adds, 'dare promise any thing temperate of himself in the heat of martial fury? chiefly, when it was resolved not to leave any branch of the York line standing; for so one maketh this Lord to speak.' This, no doubt, I would observe by the bye, was an action sufficiently in the vindictive spirit of the times, and yet not altogether so bad as represented; 'for the Earl was no child, as some writers would have him, but able to bear arms, being sixteen or seventeen years of age, as is evident from this (say the Memoirs of the Countess of Pembroke, who was laudably anxious to wipe away, as far as could be, this stigma from the illustrious name to which she was born); that he was the next Child to King Edward the Fourth, which his mother had by Richard Duke of York, and that King was then eighteen years of age: and for the small distance betwixt her Children, see Austin Vincent in his book of Nobility, page 622, where he writes of them all. It may further be observed, that Lord Clifford, who was then himself only twenty-five years of age, had been a leading Man and Commander, two or three years together in the Army of Lancaster, before this time; and, therefore, would be less likely to think that the Earl of Rutland might be entitled to mercy from his youth.—But, independent of this act, at best a cruel and savage one, the Family of Clifford had done enough to draw upon them the vehement hatred of the House of York: so that after the Battle of Towton there was no hope for them but in flight and concealment. Henry, the subject of the Poem, was deprived of his estate and honours during the space of twenty-four years; all which time he lived as a shepherd in Yorkshire, or in Cumberland, where the estate of his Father-in-law (Sir Lancelot Threlkeld) lay. He was restored to his estate and honours in the first year of Henry the Seventh. It is recorded that, 'when called to parliament, he behaved nobly and wisely; but otherwise came seldom to London or the Court; and rather delighted to live in the country, where he repaired several of his Castles, which had[Pg 91] gone to decay during the late troubles.' Thus far is chiefly collected from Nicholson and Burn; and I can add, from my own knowledge, that there is a tradition current in the village of Threlkeld and its neighbourhood, his principal retreat, that, in the course of his shepherd life, he had acquired great astronomical knowledge. I cannot conclude this note without adding a word upon the subject of those numerous and noble feudal Edifices, spoken of in the Poem, the ruins of some of which are, at this day, so great an ornament to that interesting country. The Cliffords had always been distinguished for an honourable pride in these Castles; and we have seen that after the wars of York and Lancaster they were rebuilt; in the civil Wars of Charles the First, they were again laid waste, and again restored almost to their former magnificence by the celebrated Lady Anne Clifford, Countess of Pembroke, etc. etc. Not more than twenty-five years after this was done, when the Estates of Clifford had passed into the Family of Tufton, three of these Castles, namely Brough, Brougham, and Pendragon, were demolished, and the timber and other materials sold by Thomas Earl of Thanet. We will hope that, when this order was issued, the Earl had not consulted the text of Isaiah, 58th Chap. 12th Verse, to which the inscription placed over the gate of Pendragon Castle, by the Countess of Pembroke (I believe his Grandmother) at the time she repaired that structure, refers the reader. 'And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places; thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations, and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in.' The Earl of Thanet, the present possessor of the Estates, with a due respect for the memory of his ancestors, and a proper sense of the value and beauty of these remains of antiquity, has (I am told) given orders that they shall be preserved from all depredations."

Compare the reference to the "Shepherd-lord" in the first canto of The White Doe of Rylstone, p. 116, and the topographical allusions there, with this Song. Compare also the life of Anne Clifford, in Hartley Coleridge's Lives of Distinguished Northerners.

Brougham Castle, past which the river Emont flows, is about two miles out of Penrith, on the Appleby Road. It is now a ruin, but was once a place of importance. The larger[Pg 92] part of it was built by Roger, Lord Clifford, son of Isabella de Veteripont, who placed over the inner door the inscription, "This made Roger." His grandson added the eastern part. The castle was frequently laid waste by the Scottish Bands, and during the Wars of the Roses. The Earl of Cumberland entertained James I. within it, in 1617, on the occasion of the king's last return from Scotland; but it seems to have "layen ruinous" from that date, and to have suffered much during the civil wars in the reign of Charles I. In 1651-52 it was repaired by Lady Anne Clifford, Countess Dowager of Pembroke, who wrote thus—"After I had been there myself to direct the building of it, did I cause my old decayed castle of Brougham to be repaired, and also the tower called the "Roman Tower," in the same old castle, and the court-house, for keeping my courts in, with some dozen or fourteen rooms to be built in it upon the old foundation." (Pembroke Memoirs, i. p. 216.) After the time of the Countess Anne, the castle was neglected, and much of the stone, timber, and lead disposed of at public sales: the wainscotting being purchased by the neighbouring villagers.

This refers to the thirty years interval between 1455 (the first battle of St. Albans in the wars of the Roses) and 1485 (the battle of Bosworth and the accession of Henry VII.)

Alluding to the marriage of Henry VII. with Elizabeth, which united the two warring lines of York and Lancaster.

The battle of Bosworth Field, in Leicestershire, was fought in 1485.

Henry VII.—who, as Henry, Earl of Richmond, last scion of the line of Lancaster, had fled to Brittany—returned with Morton, the exiled Bishop of Ely, landed at Milford, advanced through Wales, and met the royal army at Bosworth, where Richard was slain, and Henry crowned king on the battlefield. The "cry of blood" refers, doubtless, to the murder of the young princes in the Tower.

[Pg 93]

Skipton is the "capital" of the Craven district of Yorkshire, as Barrow is the capital of the Furness district of Lancashire and Westmoreland. The castle of Skipton was the chief residence of the Cliffords. Architecturally it is of two periods: the round tower dating from the reign of Edward II., and the rest from that of Henry VIII. From the time of Robert de Clifford, who fell at Bannockburn (1314), until the seventeenth century, the estates of the Cliffords extended from Skipton to Brougham Castle—seventy miles—with only a short interruption of ten miles. The "Shepherd-lord" Clifford of this poem was attainted—as explained in Wordsworth's note—by the triumphant House of York. He was "committed by his mother to the care of certain shepherds, whose wives had served her," and who kept him concealed both in Cumberland, and at Londesborough, in Yorkshire, where his mother's (Lady Margaret Vesci) own estates lay. The old "Tower" of Skipton Castle was "deserted" during these years when the "Shepherd-lord" was concealed in Cumberland.

Pendragon Castle, in a narrow dell in the forest of Mallerstang, near the source of the Eden, south of Kirkby-Stephen, was another of the castles of the Cliffords. Its building was traditionally ascribed to Uter Pendragon, of Stonehenge celebrity, who was fabled to have tried to make the Eden flow round the castle of Pendragon: hence the distich—

In the Countess of Pembroke's Memoirs (vol. i. pp. 22, 228), we are told that Idonea de Veteripont "made a great part of her residence in Westmoreland at Brough Castle, near Stanemore, and at Pendragon Castle, in Mallerstang." The castle was burned and destroyed by Scottish raiders in 1341, and for 140 years it was in a ruinous state. It is probably to this that reference is made in the phrase, "though the sleep of years be on her." During the attainder of Henry Lord Clifford, in the reign of Edward IV., part of this estate of Mallerstang was granted to Sir William Parr of Kendal Castle.[Pg 94] It was again destroyed during the civil wars of the Stuarts, and was restored, along with Skipton and Brougham, by Lady Anne Clifford, in 1660, who put up an inscription "... Repaired in 1660, so as she came to lye in it herself for a little while in October 1661, after it had lain ruinous without timber or any other covering since 1541. Isaiah, chap. lviii. ver. 12." It was again demolished in 1685.

Brough—the Verterae of the Romans—is called, for distinction's sake, "Brough-under-Stainmore" (or "Stanemore"). The "little humble stream" is Hillbeck, formerly Hellebeck—(it was said to derive its name from the waters rushing or "helleing" down the channel)—which descends from Warcop Fell, runs through Market Brough, and joins the Eden below it. The date of the building of the castle of Brough is uncertain, but it is probably older than the Conquest. It was sacked by the Scottish King William in 1174. It was "one of the chief residences" of Idonea de Veteripont (above referred to); for "then it was in its prime." (Pemb. Mem., vol. i. p. 22.) Probably she rebuilt it, and changed it from a tower—like Pendragon—into a castle. In the Pembroke Memoirs (i. p. 108), we read of its subsequent destruction by fire. "A great misfortune befell Henry Lord Clifford, some two years before his death, which happened in 1521; his ancient and great castle of Brough-under-Stanemore was set on fire by a casual mischance, a little after he had kept a great Christmas there, so as all the timber and lead were utterly consumed, and nothing left but the bare walls, which since are more and more consumed, and quite ruinated." This same Countess Anne Pembroke began to repair it in April 1660, "at her exceeding great charge and cost." She put up an inscription over the gate similar to the one which she inscribed at Pendragon.

Doubtless Appleby Castle. Its origin is equally uncertain. Before 1422, John Lord Clifford, "builded that strong and fine artificial gate-house, all arched with stone, and decorated with the arms of the Veteriponts, Cliffords, and Percys, which with several parts of the castle walls was defaced and broken down in the civil war of 1648." His successor, Thomas, Lord[Pg 95] Clifford, "built the chiefest part of the castle towards the east, as the hall, the chapel, and the great chamber." This was in 1454. The Countess Anne Pembroke wrote of Appleby Castle thus (Pemb. Mem., vol. i. p. 187): "In 1651 I continued to live in Appleby Castle a whole year, and spent much time in repairing it and Brougham Castle, to make them as habitable as I could, though Brougham was very ruinous, and much out of repair. And in this year, the 21st of April, I helped to lay the foundation stone of the middle wall of the great tower of Appleby Castle, called "Cæsar's Tower," to the end it might be repaired again, and made habitable, if it pleased God (Is. lviii. 12), after it had stood without a roof or covering, or one chamber habitable in it, since about 1567," etc. etc.

Brougham Castle.

Lady Margaret, daughter and heiress of Lord Vesci, who married John, Lord Clifford—the Clifford of Shakespeare's Henry VI. He was killed at Ferrybridge near Knottingley in 1461. Their son was Henry, "the Shepherd-lord." His mother is buried in Londesborough Church, near Market Weighton.

Carrock-fell is three miles south-west from Castle Sowerby, in Cumberland.

There are many "Mosedales" in the English Lake District. The one referred to here is to the north of Blencathara or Saddleback.

The river Glenderamakin rises in the lofty ground to the north of Blencathara.

[Pg 96]It was on Sir Lancelot Threlkeld's estates in Cumberland that the young Lord was concealed, disguised as a shepherd-boy. He was the "tree of covert" for the young "Bird" Henry Clifford. Compare The Waggoner, ll. 628-39 (vol. iii. p. 100)—

The old hall of Threlkeld has long been a ruin. Its only habitable part has been a farmhouse for many years.

Bowscale Tarn is to the north of Blencathara. Its stream joins the Caldew river.

Compare the previous reference to Blencathara's "rugged coves." There are many such on this mountain.

After restoration to his ancestral estates, the Shepherd-lord preferred to live in comparative retirement. He spent most of his time at Barden Tower (see notes to The White Doe of Rylstone), which he enlarged, and where he lived with a small retinue. He was much at Bolton (which was close at hand), and there he studied astronomy and alchemy, aided by the monks. It is to the time when he lived at Threlkeld, however—wandering as a shepherd-boy, over the ridges and around the coves of Blencathara, amongst the groves of Mosedale, and[Pg 97] by the lofty springs of Glenderamakin—that Wordsworth refers in the lines,

He was at Flodden in 1513, when nearly sixty years of age, leading there the "flower of Craven."

Compare, in the first canto of The White Doe of Rylstone (p. 117)—

He died in 1523, and was buried in the choir of Bolton Priory.

The following is Sarah Coleridge's criticism of the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, in the editorial note to her father's Biographia Literaria (vol. ii. ch. ix. p. 152, ed. 1847):—

"The transitions and vicissitudes in this noble lyric I have always thought rendered it one of the finest specimens of modern subjective poetry which our age has seen. The ode commences in a tone of high gratulation and festivity—a tone not only glad, but comparatively even jocund and light-hearted. The Clifford is restored to the home, the honours and estates of his ancestors. Then it sinks and falls away to the remembrance of tribulation—times of war and bloodshed, flight and terror, and hiding away from the enemy—times of poverty and distress, when the Clifford was brought, a little child, to the shelter of a northern valley. After a while it emerges from those depths of sorrow—gradually rises into a strain of elevated tranquillity and contemplative rapture; through the power of imagination, the beautiful and impressive aspects of nature are brought into relationship with the spirit of him, whose fortunes and character form the subject of the piece, and are represented as gladdening and exalting it, whilst they keep it pure and unspotted from the world. Suddenly the Poet is carried on with greater animation and passion: he has returned to the point whence he started—flung himself back into the tide of stirring[Pg 98] life and moving events. All is to come over again, struggle and conflict, chances and changes of war, victory and triumph, overthrow and desolation. I know nothing, in lyric poetry, more beautiful or affecting than the final transition from this part of the ode, with its rapid metre, to the slow elegiac stanzas at the end, when, from the warlike fervour and eagerness, the jubilant strain which has just been described, the Poet passes back into the sublime silence of Nature, gathering amid her deep and quiet bosom a more subdued and solemn tenderness than he had manifested before; it is as if from the heights of the imaginative intellect, his spirit had retreated into the recesses of a profoundly thoughtful Christian heart."

Professor Henry Reed said of this poem—"Had he never written another ode, this alone would set him at the head of the lyric poets of England."—Ed.

VARIANTS:

FOOTNOTES:

[Pg 99]

1808

The poems referring to Coleorton are all transferred to the year 1807, and The Force of Prayer was written in that year. Those composed in 1808 were few in number. With the exception of The White Doe of Rylstone—to which additions were made in that year—they include only the two sonnets Composed while the Author was engaged in writing a Tract, occasioned by the Convention of Cintra, and the fragment on George and Sarah Green. The latter poem Wordsworth gave to De Quincey, who published it in his "Recollections of Grasmere," which appeared in Tait's Edinburgh Magazine in September 1839; but it never found a place in any edition of Wordsworth's own poems. In this edition it is printed in the appendix to volume viii.

The reasons which have led me to assign The White Doe of Rylstone to the year 1808, are stated in a note to the poem (see p. 191). I infer that it was practically finished in April 1808, because Dorothy Wordsworth, in a letter to Lady Beaumont, dated April 20, 1808, says, "The poem is to be published. Longman has consented—in spite of the odium under which my brother labours as a poet—to give him 100 guineas for 1000 copies, according to his demand." She gives no indication of the name of the poem referred to. As it must, however, have been one which was to be published separately, she can only refer to The White Doe or to The Excursion; but the latter poem was not finished in 1808.

It is probable, from the remark made in a subsequent letter to Lady Beaumont, February 1810, that Wordsworth intended either to add to what he had written in 1808, or to alter some passages before publication; or by "completing" the poem, he may have meant simply adding the Dedication, which was not written till 1815.

[Pg 100]All things considered, it seems the best arrangement that the poems of 1808 should begin with The White Doe of Rylstone. In the year 1891 I edited this poem for the Clarendon Press. A few additional details have come to light since then, and are introduced into the notes. S. T. Coleridge's criticism of the poem in Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. chap. xxii. p. 176 (edition 1817), should be consulted.—Ed.

THE WHITE DOE OF RYLSTONE;

Or, The Fate of the Nortons

Composed 1807-10.—Published 1815

ADVERTISEMENT

During the Summer of 1807, I visited, for the first time, the beautiful country that surrounds Bolton Priory, in Yorkshire; and the Poem of the White Doe, founded upon a Tradition connected with that place, was composed at the close of the same year.—W. W.[A]

[The earlier half of this poem was composed at Stockton-upon-Tees, when Mrs. Wordsworth and I were on a visit to her eldest brother, Mr. Hutchinson, at the close of the year 1807. The country is flat, and the weather was rough. I was accustomed every day to walk to and fro under the shelter of a row of stacks, in a field at a small distance from the town, and there poured forth my verses aloud as freely as they would come. Mrs. Wordsworth reminds me that her brother stood upon the punctilio of not sitting down to dinner till I joined the party; and it frequently happened that I did not make my appearance till too late, so that she was made uncomfortable. I here beg her pardon for this and similar transgressions during the whole course of our wedded life. To my beloved sister the same apology is due.

[Pg 101]When, from the visit just mentioned, we returned to Town-end, Grasmere, I proceeded with the poem; and it may be worth while to note, as a caution to others who may cast their eye on these memoranda, that the skin having been rubbed off my heel by my wearing too tight a shoe, though I desisted from walking, I found that the irritation of the wounded part was kept up, by the act of composition, to a degree that made it necessary to give my constitution a holiday. A rapid cure was the consequence. Poetic excitement, when accompanied by protracted labour in composition, has throughout my life brought on more or less bodily derangement. Nevertheless, I am at the close of my seventy-third year, in what may be called excellent health; so that intellectual labour is not necessarily unfavourable to longevity. But perhaps I ought here to add that mine has been generally carried on out of doors.

Let me here say a few words of this poem in the way of criticism. The subject being taken from feudal times has led to its being compared to some of Walter Scott's poems that belong to the same age and state of society. The comparison is inconsiderate. Sir Walter pursued the customary and very natural course of conducting an action, presenting various turns of fortune, to some outstanding point on which the mind might rest as a termination or catastrophe. The course I have attempted to pursue is entirely different. Everything that is attempted by the principal personages in The White Doe fails, so far as its object is external and substantial. So far as it is moral and spiritual it succeeds. The heroine of the poem knows that her duty is not to interfere with the current of events, either to forward or delay them, but

This she does in obedience to her brother's injunction, as most suitable to a mind and character that, under previous trials, has been proved to accord with his. She achieves this not without aid from the communication with the inferior Creature, which often leads her thoughts to revolve upon the past with a tender and humanising influence that exalts rather than depresses her. The anticipated beatification, if I may so say, of her mind, and the apotheosis of the companion of her solitude, are the points at which the Poem aims, and constitute its legitimate catastrophe, far too spiritual a one for instant or widely-spread sympathy, but not, therefore, the less fitted to make a deep and[Pg 102] permanent impression upon that class of minds who think and feel more independently, than the many do, of the surfaces of things and interests transitory, because belonging more to the outward and social forms of life than to its internal spirit. How insignificant a thing, for example, does personal prowess appear compared with the fortitude of patience and heroic martyrdom; in other words, with struggles for the sake of principle, in preference to victory gloried in for its own sake.—I. F.]

DEDICATION

I

II

[Pg 103]

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

Rydal Mount, Westmoreland,
April 20, 1815.

"They that deny a God, destroy Man's nobility: for certainly Man is of kinn to the Beast by his Body; and if he be not of kinn to God by his Spirit, he is a base ignoble Creature. It destroys likewise Magnanimity, and the raising of humane Nature: for take an example of a Dogg, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on, when he finds himself maintained by a Man, who to him is instead of a God, or Melior Natura. Which courage is manifestly such, as that Creature without that confidence of a better Nature than his own could never attain. So Man, when he resteth and assureth[Pg 106] himself upon Divine protection and favour, gathereth a force and faith which human Nature in itself could not obtain."
Lord Bacon.[F]

CANTO FIRST