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Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

Page 41

by William Wordsworth


  Nay, Boy, be of good hope: — we both may live

  To see a better day. At eighty-four

  I still am strong and stout; — do thou thy part,

  I will do mine. — I will begin again

  With many tasks that were resign’d to thee;

  Up to the heights, and in among the storms,

  Will I without thee go again, and do

  All works which I was wont to do alone,

  Before I knew thy face. — Heaven bless thee, Boy!

  Thy heart these two weeks has been beating fast

  With many hopes — it should be so — yes — yes —

  I knew that thou could’st never have a wish

  To leave me, Luke, thou hast been bound to me

  Only by links of love, when thou art gone

  What will be left to us! — But, I forget

  My purposes. Lay now the corner-stone,

  As I requested, and hereafter, Luke,

  When thou art gone away, should evil men

  Be thy companions, let this Sheep-fold be

  Thy anchor and thy shield; amid all fear

  And all temptation, let it be to thee

  An emblem of the life thy Fathers liv’d,

  Who, being innocent, did for that cause

  Bestir them in good deeds. Now, fare thee well —

  When thou return’st, thou in this place wilt see

  A work which is not here, a covenant

  ’Twill be between us — but whatever fate

  Befall thee, I shall love thee to the last,

  And bear thy memory with me to the grave.

  The Shepherd ended here; and Luke stoop’d down,

  And as his Father had requested, laid

  The first stone of the Sheep-fold; at the sight

  The Old Man’s grief broke from him, to his heart

  He press’d his Son, he kissed him and wept;

  And to the House together they return’d.

  Next morning, as had been resolv’d, the Boy

  Began his journey, and when he had reach’d

  The public Way, he put on a bold face;

  And all the Neighbours as he pass’d their doors

  Came forth, with wishes and with farewell pray’rs,

  That follow’d him ‘till he was out of sight.

  A good report did from their Kinsman come,

  Of Luke and his well-doing; and the Boy

  Wrote loving letters, full of wond’rous news,

  Which, as the House-wife phrased it, were throughout

  The prettiest letters that were ever seen.

  Both parents read them with rejoicing hearts.

  So, many months pass’d on: and once again

  The Shepherd went about his daily work

  With confident and cheerful thoughts; and now

  Sometimes when he could find a leisure hour

  He to that valley took his way, and there

  Wrought at the Sheep-fold. Meantime Luke began

  To slacken in his duty, and at length

  He in the dissolute city gave himself

  To evil courses: ignominy and shame

  Fell on him, so that he was driven at last

  To seek a hiding-place beyond the seas.

  There is a comfort in the strength of love;

  ’Twill make a thing endurable, which else

  Would break the heart: — Old Michael found it so.

  I have convers’d with more than one who well

  Remember the Old Man, and what he was

  Years after he had heard this heavy news.

  His bodily frame had been from youth to age

  Of an unusual strength. Among the rocks

  He went, and still look’d up upon the sun.

  And listen’d to the wind; and as before

  Perform’d all kinds of labour for his Sheep,

  And for the land his small inheritance.

  And to that hollow Dell from time to time

  Did he repair, to build the Fold of which

  His flock had need. ‘Tis not forgotten yet

  The pity which was then in every heart

  For the Old Man — ands ‘tis believ’d by all

  That many and many a day he thither went,

  And never lifted up a single stone.

  There, by the Sheep-fold, sometimes was he seen

  Sitting alone, with that his faithful Dog,

  Then old, beside him, lying at his feet.

  The length of full seven years from time to time

  He at the building of this Sheep-fold wrought,

  And left the work unfinished when he died.

  Three years, or little more, did Isabel,

  Survive her Husband: at her death the estate

  Was sold, and went into a Stranger’s hand.

  The Cottage which was nam’d The Evening Star

  Is gone, the ploughshare has been through the ground

  On which it stood; great changes have been wrought

  In all the neighbourhood, yet the Oak is left

  That grew beside their Door; and the remains

  Of the unfinished Sheep-fold may be seen

  Beside the boisterous brook of Green-head Gill.

  POEMS, IN TWO VOLUMES

  In 1802 Wordsworth received money owed to his father and he was financially secure enough to marry Mary Hutchinson, an old childhood friend. Mary, William, and his sister Dorothy lived together in the village of Grasmere, in the Lake District.

  Wordsworth then released the following poetry collection in 1807, containing what would later become some of his most celebrated works. Nevertheless, Poems, in Two Volumes received negative criticism at the time, with Lord Byron complaining that, “Mr. W. ceases to please... clothing his ideas in language not simple, but puerile”. Wordsworth wrote to his friend Wrangham to prevent a known enemy from writing a negative review in The Critical Review, but more criticism followed instead. Even Wordsworth’s close friend Coleridge said that some of the poems contained “mental bombast”. Wordsworth took the reviews stoically, expecting to receive such criticism due to the originality and non-conformity of his poetry.

  Following this period, Wordsworth’s happy home life turned to tragedy when two of his four children died within a year. Soon after, Wordsworth was appointed Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, which brought him enough money to continue writing. Although his poems were often criticised, they were gaining a wide popular readership. In the absence of success for his poems, Wordsworth turned to travel writing, publishing a travel guide to the Lake District, which was very popular.

  The collection Poems, in Two Volumes features Wordsworth’s most enduring poem, which has since become one of the most famous poems in the English language. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud was inspired by a walk on April 15, 1802 around Glencoyne Bay, Ullswater, when Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy came across a “long belt” of daffodils. There are two versions of the poem, the 1807 version and a revised 1815 version, in which the poet added a new stanza between the first and second stanzas, whilst leaving the last stanza untouched. The poem was composed in six-line stanzas with an ababcc rhyme scheme in tetrameters. At the end of the poem, Wordsworth famously stresses how important the scene of daffodils was to him at a later time, when:

  ”They flash upon that inward eye

  Which is the bliss of solitude…”

  The concept that the beauty of nature can give pleasure to the mind at a time when we are unable to see and appreciate the natural world in situ, demonstrates the poem’s power to replicate a beautiful scene in the reader’s mind.

  The original title page

  Mary Wordsworth, the poet’s wife

  CONTENTS

  VOLUME I

  TO THE DAISY

  LOUISA

  FIDELITY

  SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT

  THE REDBREAST AND THE BUTTERFLY

  THE SAILOR’S MOTHER

  TO THE SMALL CELANDINE

&n
bsp; TO THE SAME FLOWER

  CHARACTER OF THE HAPPY WARRIOR

  THE HORN OF EGREMONT CASTLE

  THE AFFLICTION of MARGARET — — OF — —

  THE KITTEN AND THE FALLING LEAVES

  THE SEVEN SISTERS, OR THE SOLITUDE OF BINNORIE

  SIX YEARS OLD

  AMONG ALL LOVELY THINGS MY LOVE HAD BEEN

  I TRAVELL’D AMONG UNKNOWN MEN

  ODE TO DUTY

  POEMS COMPOSED DURING A TOUR, CHIEFLY ON FOOT.

  BEGGARS

  TO A SKY-LARK

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

  ALICE FELL

  RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE

  SONNETS.

  PREFATORY SONNET

  MISCELLANEOUS SONNETS

  COMPOSED AFTER A JOURNEY ACROSS THE HAMILTON HILLS, YORKSHIRE

  THEY ARE OF THE SKY

  TO SLEEP

  TO SLEEP

  TO SLEEP

  WITH SHIPS THE SEA WAS SPRINKLED FAR AND NIGH

  TO THE RIVER DUDDON

  FROM THE ITALIAN OF MICHAEL ANGELO

  FROM THE SAME

  TO THE SUPREME BEING

  CALM IS ALL NATURE AS A RESTING WHEEL

  COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE

  BELOVED VALE!

  METHOUGHT I SAW THE FOOTSTEPS OF A THRONE

  TO THE — —

  THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US; LATE AND SOON

  IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM AND FREE

  TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT

  DEDICATED TO LIBERTY

  IS IT A REED THAT’S SHAKEN BY THE WIND

  TO A FRIEND, COMPOSED NEAR CALAIS

  I GRIEV’D FOR BUONAPARTE, WITH A VAIN

  FESTIVALS HAVE I SEEN THAT WERE NOT NAMES

  ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC

  THE KING OF SWEDEN

  TO TOUSSAINT L’OUVERTURE

  WE HAD A FELLOW-PASSENGER WHO CAME

  DEAR FELLOW TRAVELLER! HERE WE ARE ONCE MORE

  INLAND, WITHIN A HOLLOW VALE, I STOOD

  THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND

  O FRIEND! I KNOW NOT WHICH WAY I MUST LOOK

  MILTON! THOU SHOULD’ST BE LIVING AT THIS HOUR

  GREAT MEN HAVE BEEN AMONG US

  IT IS NOT TO BE THOUGHT OF THAT THE FLOOD

  WHEN I HAVE BORNE IN MEMORY WHAT HAS TAMED

  ONE MIGHT BELIEVE THAT NATURAL MISERIES

  THERE IS A BONDAGE WHICH IS WORSE TO BEAR

  THESE TIMES TOUCH MONEY’D WORLDLINGS WITH DISMAY

  ENGLAND! THE TIME IS COME WHEN THOU SHOULDST WEAN

  WHEN, LOOKING ON THE PRESENT FACE OF THINGS

  TO THE MEN OF KENT

  SIX THOUSAND VETERANS PRACTIS’D IN WAR’S GAME

  ANTICIPATION

  ANOTHER YEAR! — ANOTHER DEADLY BLOW

  VOLUME II

  ROB ROY’S GRAVE

  THE SOLITARY REAPER

  STEPPING WESTWARD

  GLEN-ALMAIN OR THE NARROW GLEN

  THE MATRON OF JEDBOROUGH AND HER HUSBAND

  TO A HIGHLAND GIRL

  SONNET: DEGENERATE DOUGLAS! OH, THE UNWORTHY LORD!

  ADDRESS TO THE SONS OF BURNS

  YARROW UNVISITED

  MOODS OF MY OWN MIND.

  TO A BUTTERFLY

  THE SUN HAS LONG BEEN SET

  O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART

  MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD

  THE COCK IS CROWING

  THE SMALL CELANDINE

  I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

  WHO FANCIED WHAT A PRETTY SIGHT

  THE SPARROW’S NEST

  GIPSIES

  TO THE CUCKOO

  TO A BUTTERFLY

  IT IS NO SPIRIT WHO FROM HEAVEN HATH FLOWN

  THE BLIND HIGHLAND BOY; WITH OTHER POEMS.

  THE BLIND HIGHLAND BOY

  THE GREEN LINNET

  TO A YOUNG LADY

  STAR GAZERS

  POWER OF MUSIC

  TO THE DAISY

  TO THE SAME FLOWER

  INCIDENT CHARACTERISTIC OF A FAVOURITE DOG, WHICH BELONGED TO A FRIEND OF THE AUTHOR

  TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF THE SAME DOG

  SONNET: ADMONITION

  SONNET. THOUGH NARROW BE THAT OLD MAN’S CARES

  SONNET. HIGH DEEDS, O GERMANS, ARE TO COME FROM YOU!

  SONNET: CLARKSON! IT WAS AN OBSTINATE HILL TO CLIMB

  FORESIGHT

  A COMPLAINT

  TO THE SPADE OF A FRIEND, (AN AGRICULTURIST.)

  SONG, AT THE FEAST OF BROUGHAM CASTLE

  LINES, COMPOSED AT GRASMERE DURING A WALK, ONE EVENING, AFTER A STORMY DAY

  ELEGIAC STANZAS SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT

  ODE

  The handwritten manuscript of ‘ I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’

  ‘Ullswater from Gobarrow Park’ by J. M. W. Turner, 1819 — the setting of Wordsworth’s most famous poem

  Glencoyne Bay, today

  VOLUME I

  TO THE DAISY

  In youth from rock to rock I went

  From hill to hill, in discontent

  Of pleasure high and turbulent,

  Most pleas’d when most uneasy;

  But now my own delights I make,

  My thirst at every rill can slake,

  And gladly Nature’s love partake

  Of thee, sweet Daisy!

  When soothed a while by milder airs,

  Thee Winter in the garland wears 10

  That thinly shades his few grey hairs;

  Spring cannot shun thee;

  Whole summer fields are thine by right;

  And Autumn, melancholy Wight!

  Doth in thy crimson head delight

  When rains are on thee.

  In shoals and bands, a morrice train,

  Thou greet’st the Traveller in the lane;

  If welcome once thou count’st it gain;

  Thou art not daunted, 20

  Nor car’st if thou be set at naught;

  And oft alone in nooks remote

  We meet thee, like a pleasant thought,

  When such are wanted.

  Be Violets in their secret mews

  The flowers the wanton Zephyrs chuse;

  Proud be the Rose, with rains and dews

  Her head impearling;

  Thou liv’st with less ambitious aim,

  Yet hast not gone without thy fame; 30

  Thou art indeed by many a claim

  The Poet’s darling.

  If to a rock from rains he fly,

  Or, some bright day of April sky,

  Imprison’d by hot sunshine lie

  Near the green holly,

  And wearily at length should fare;

  He need but look about, and there

  Thou art! a Friend at hand, to scare

  His melancholy. 40

  A hundred times, by rock or bower,

  Ere thus I have lain couch’d an hour,

  Have I derived from thy sweet power

  Some apprehension;

  Some steady love; some brief delight;

  Some memory that had taken flight;

  Some chime of fancy wrong or right;

  Or stray invention.

  If stately passions in me burn,

  And one chance look to Thee should turn, 50

  I drink out of an humbler urn

  A lowlier pleasure;

  The homely sympathy that heeds

  The common life, our nature breeds;

  A wisdom fitted to the needs

  Of hearts at leisure.

  When, smitten by the morning ray,

  I see thee rise alert and gay,

  Then, chearful Flower! my spirits play

  With kindred motion: 60

  At dusk, I’ve seldom mark’d thee press

  The ground, as if in thankfulness,

  Without some feeling, more or less,

  Of true devotion.

  And all day long
I number yet,

  All seasons through, another debt,

  Which I wherever thou art met,

  To thee am owing;

  An instinct call it, a blind sense;

  A happy, genial influence, 70

  Coming one knows not how nor whence,

  Nor whither going.

  Child of the Year! that round dost run

  Thy course, bold lover of the sun,

  And chearful when the day’s begun

  As morning Leveret,

  Thou long the Poet’s praise shalt gain;

  Thou wilt be more belov’d by men

  In times to come; thou not in vain

  Art Nature’s Favorite. 80

  LOUISA

  I met Louisa in the shade;

  And, having seen that lovely Maid,

  Why should I fear to say

  That she is ruddy, fleet, and strong;

  And down the rocks can leap along,

  Like rivulets in May?

  And she hath smiles to earth unknown;

  Smiles, that with motion of their own

  Do spread, and sink, and rise;

  That come and go with endless play, 10

  And ever, as they pass away,

  Are hidden in her eyes.

  She loves her fire, her Cottage-home;

  Yet o’er the moorland will she roam

  In weather rough and bleak;

  And when against the wind she strains,

  Oh! might I kiss the mountain rains

  That sparkle on her cheek.

  Take all that’s mine ‘beneath the moon’,

  If I with her but half a noon 20

  May sit beneath the walls

  Of some old cave, or mossy nook,

  When up she winds along the brook,

  To hunt the waterfalls.

  FIDELITY

  A barking sound the Shepherd hears,

  A cry as of a Dog or Fox;

  He halts, and searches with his eyes

  Among the scatter’d rocks:

  And now at distance can discern

  A stirring in a brake of fern;

  From which immediately leaps out

  A Dog, and yelping runs about.

  The Dog is not of mountain breed;

  It’s motions, too, are wild and shy; 10

  With something, as the Shepherd thinks,

  Unusual in its’ cry:

  Nor is there any one in sight

  All round, in Hollow or on Height;

  Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;

  What is the Creature doing here?

  It was a Cove, a huge Recess,

 

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