Delphi Complete Works of William Wordsworth

by William Wordsworth

  444. Memory. [XXVIII.]

  The verses ‘Or strayed from hope and promise, self-betrayed,’ were, I am sorry to say, suggested from apprehensions of the fate of my friend H.C., the subject of the verses addressed to H.C. when six years old. The piece which follows, to ‘Memory,’ arose out of similar feelings.

  445. This Lawn. [XXIX.]

  This lawn is the sloping one approaching the kitchen-garden, and was made out of it. Hundreds of times have I here watched the dancing of shadows amid a press of sunshine, and other beautiful appearances of light and shade, flowers and shrubs. What a contrast between this and the cabbages and onions and carrots that used to grow there on a piece of ugly-shaped unsightly ground! No reflection, however, either upon cabbages or onions. The latter, we know, were worshipped by the Egyptians; and he must have a poor eye for beauty who has not observed how much of it there is in the form and colour which cabbages and plants of this genus exhibit through the various stages of their growth and decay. A richer display of colour in vegetable nature can scarcely be conceived than Coleridge, my sister, and I saw in a bed of potatoe plants in blossom near a hut upon the moor between Inversneyd and Loch Katrine. These blossoms were of such extraordinary beauty and richness that no one could have passed them without notice. But the sense must be cultivated through the mind before we can perceive those inexhaustible treasures of Nature — for such they truly are — without the least necessary reference to the utility of her productions, or even to the laws whereupon, as we learn by research, they are dependent. Some are of opinion that the habit of analysing, decomposing, and anatomising, is inevitably unfavourable to the perception of beauty. People are led into this mistake by overlooking the fact that such processes being to a certain extent within the reach of a limited intellect, we are apt to ascribe to them that insensibility of which they are in truth the effect, and not the cause. Admiration and love, to which all knowledge truly vital must tend, are felt by men of real genius in proportion as their discoveries in Natural Philosophy are enlarged; and the beauty in form of a plant or an animal is not made less but more apparent as a whole by a more accurate insight into its constituent properties and powers. A Savant, who is not also a poet in soul and a religionist in heart, is a feeble and unhappy creature.

  446. Humanity. [XXX.]

  These verses and the preceding ones, entitled ‘Liberty,’ were composed as one piece, which Mrs. W. complained of as unwieldy and ill-proportioned; and accordingly it was divided into two, on her judicious recommendation.

  [Printed notes: ‘The rocking-stones alluded to in the beginning of the following verses are supposed to have been used, by our British ancestors, both for judicial and religious purposes. Such stones are not uncommonly found, at this day, both in Great Britain and in Ireland.’ On l. 32, ‘Descending to the worm in charity:’ ‘I am indebted here to a passage in one of Mr. Digby’s valuable works.’]

  447. Thought on the Seasons. [XXXI.]

  Written at Rydal Mount, 1829.

  448. To — — , on the Birth of her first Child. [XXXII.]

  Written at Moresby near Whitehaven, 1833, when I was on a visit to my son, then incumbent of that small living. While I am dictating these Notes to my friend Miss Fenwick, Jan. 24th, 1843, the child, upon whose birth these verses were written, is under my roof, and is of a disposition so promising that the wishes and prayers and prophecies which I then breathed forth in verse are, thro’ God’s mercy, likely to be realised. [In pencil — Jane?]

  449. The Warning: a Sequel to the Foregoing. [XXXIII.]

  These lines were composed during the fever spread through the nation by the Reform Bill. As the motives which led to this measure, and the good or evil which has attended or has risen from it, will be duly appreciated by future historians, there is no call for dwelling on the subject in this place. I will content myself with saying that the then condition of the people’s mind is not, in these verses, exaggerated.

  450. The Labourer’s Noon-day Hymn. [XXXV.]

  Bishop Ken’s Morning and Evening Hymns are, as they deserve to be, familiarly known. Many other hymns have also been written on the same subjects; but not being aware of any being designed for noon-day I was induced to compose these verses. Often we had occasion to observe cottage children carrying in their baskets dinner to their fathers engaged with their daily labours in the fields and woods. How gratifying would it be to me could I be assured that any portion of these stanzas had been sung by such a domestic concert under such circumstances. A friend of mine has told me that she introduced this Hymn into a village-school which she superintended; and the stanzas in succession furnished her with texts to comment upon in a way which without difficulty was made intelligible to the children, and in which they obviously took delight; and they were taught to sing it to the tune of the old 100th Psalm.

  451. Ode composed on May Morning. [XXXVI.]

  *To May. [XXXVII.]

  These two Poems originated in these lines ‘How delicate, &c.’ My daughter and I left Rydal Mount upon a Tour through our mountains with Mr. and Mrs. Carr, in the month of May 1826; and as we were going up the Vale of Newlands I was struck with the appearance of the little chapel gleaming through the veil of half-opened leaves, and the feeling which was then conveyed to my mind was expressed in the stanza that follows. As in the case of ‘Liberty’ and ‘Humanity,’ mentioned before, my first intention was to write only one Poem; but subsequently I broke it into two, making additions to each part, so as to produce a consistent and appropriate whole.

  452. Lines suggested by a Portrait from the Pencil of F. Stone.

  The foregoing Subject resumed. [XXXIX.]

  This Portrait has hung for many years in our principal sitting-room, and represents J.Q. as she was when a girl. The picture, though it is somewhat thinly painted, has much merit in tone and general effect. It is chiefly valuable, however, from the sentiment that pervades it. The anecdote of the saying of the monk in sight of Titian’s picture was told in this house by Mr. Wilkie, and was, I believe, first communicated to the public in this poem, the former portion of which I was composing at the time. Southey heard the story from Miss Hutchinson, and transferred it to the ‘Doctor;’ but it is not easy to explain how my friend Mr. Rogers, in a note subsequently added to his ‘Italy,’ was led to speak of the same remarkable words having many years before been spoken in his hearing by a monk or priest in front of a picture of the Last Supper placed over a refectory-table in a convent at Padua. [Printed note on XXXVIII., last line: ‘The Escurial. The pile of buildings composing the palace and convent of San Lorenzo has, in common usage, lost its proper name in that of the Escurial, a village at the foot of the hill upon which the splendid edifice, built by Philip the Second, stands. It need scarcely be added, that Wilkie is the painter alluded to.’ On XXXIX.:

  ‘Frail ties, dissolving or dissolved On earth, will be revived, we trust, in heaven.’

  ‘In the class entitled “Musings,” in Mr. Southey’s Minor Poems, is one upon his own miniature picture, taken in childhood, and another upon a landscape painted by Gaspar Poussin. It is possible that every word of the above verses, though similar in subject, might have been written had the author been unacquainted with those beautiful effusions of poetic sentiment. But, for his own satisfaction, he must be allowed thus publicly to acknowledge the pleasure those two Poems of his friend have given him, and the grateful influence they have upon his mind as often as he reads them or thinks of them.’]

  453. Upon seeing a coloured Drawing of the Bird of Paradise in an Album. [XLI.]

  I cannot forbear to record that the last seven lines of this poem were composed in bed, during the night of the day on which my sister S.H. died, about six P.M., and it was the thought of her innocent and beautiful life that through faith prompted the words:

  ‘On wings that fear no glance of God’s pure sight, No tempest from His breath.’

  The reader will find two Poems on pictures of this bird among my Poems. I will here observe,
that in a far greater number of instances than have been mentioned in these Notes one Poem has, as in this case, grown out of another, either because I felt the subject had been inadequately treated or that the thoughts and images suggested in course of composition have been such as I found interfered with the unity indispensable to every work of art, however humble in character.

  XIX. SONNETS DEDICATED TO LIBERTY AND ORDER.

  454. Change, [iv. 1. 14.]

  ‘Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.’ ‘All change is perilous, and all chance unsound.’ SPENSER.

  455. American Repudiation. [VIII.]

  ‘Men of the Western World.’

  These lines were written several years ago, when reports prevailed of cruelties committed in many parts of America, by men making a law of their own passions. A far more formidable, as being a more deliberate mischief, has appeared among those States, which have lately broken faith with the public creditor in a manner so infamous. I cannot, however, but look at both evils under a similar relation to inherent good, and hope that the time is not distant when our brethren of the West will wipe off this stain from their name and nation.

  456. To the Pennsylvanians. [IX.]

  Happily the language of expostulation in which this Sonnet is written is no longer applicable. It will be gratifying to Americans and Englishmen (indignos fraternum rumpere foedus) to read the following particulars communicated in a letter from Mr. Reed, dated October 28, 1850. ‘In Mr. Wordsworth’s letters to me you will have observed that a good deal is said on the Pennsylvania Loans, a subject in which, as you are aware, he was interested for his friends rather than for himself. Last December, when I learned that a new edition of his poems was in press, I wrote to him (it was my last letter) to say frankly that his Sonnet “To Pennsylvanians” was no longer just, and to desire him not to let it stand so for after time. It was very gratifying to me on receiving a copy of the new edition, which was not till after his death, to find the ‘additional note’ at the end of the fifth volume, showing by its being printed on the unusual place of a fly-leaf, that he had been anxious to attend to such a request. It was characteristic of that righteousness which distinguished him as an author; and it has this interest (as I conjecture) that it was probably the last sentence he composed for the press. It is chiefly on this account that I mention it to you.’

  457. Feel for the Wrongs, &c. [XIV.]

  This Sonnet is recommended to the perusal of the Anti-Corn-Law-Leaguers, the Political Economists, and of all those who consider that the evils under which we groan are to be removed or palliated by measures ungoverned by moral and religious principles.

  458. Sonnets upon the Punishment of Death,[XX.]

  Of these Sonnets the author thus wrote to John Peace, Esq., Bristol:

  Rydal Mount, Feb. 23. 1842.

  MY DEAR SIR,

  I was truly pleased with the receipt of the letter which you were put upon writing by the perusal of my ‘Penal Sonnets’ in the Quarterly Review. Being much engaged at present, I might have deferred making my acknowledgments for this and other favours (particularly your ‘Descant’) if I had not had a special occasion for addressing you at this moment. A Bristol lady has kindly undertaken to be the bearer of the walking-stick which I spoke to you of some time since. It was cut from a holly-tree planted in our garden by my own hand.

  Your ‘Descant’ amused me, but I must protest against your system, which would discard punctuation to the extent you propose. It would, I think, destroy the harmony of blank verse when skilfully written. What would become of the pauses at the third syllable followed by an and, or any such word, without the rest which a comma, when consistent with the sense, calls upon the reader to make, and which being made, he starts with the weak syllable that follows, as from the beginning of a verse? I am sure Milton would have supported me in this opinion. Thomson wrote his blank verse before his ear was formed as it was when he wrote the ‘Castle of Indolence,’ and some of his short rhyme poems. It was, therefore, rather hard in you to select him as an instance of punctuation abused. I am glad that you concur in my view on the Punishment of Death. An outcry, as I expected, has been raised against me by weak-minded humanitarians. What do you think of one person having opened a battery of nineteen fourteen-pounders upon me, i.e. nineteen sonnets, in which he gives himself credit for having blown me and my system to atoms? Another sonneteer has had a solitary shot at me from Ireland.

  Ever faithfully yours,

  W. WORDSWORTH.

  XX. MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

  459. Epistle to Sir G. H. Beaumont, Bart.

  From the South-west Coast of Cumberland, — 1811. This poem opened, when first written, with a paragraph that has been transferred as an introduction to the first series of my ‘Scotch Memorials.’ The journey, of which the first part is here described, was from Grasmere to Bootle, on the south-west coast of Cumberland, the whole along mountain-roads, through a beautiful country, and we had fine weather. The verses end with our breakfast at the Head of Yewdale, in a yeoman’s house, which, like all the other property in that sequestered vale, has passed, or is passing, into the hands of Mr. James Marshall, of Monk Coniston, in Mr. Knott’s, the late owner’s time, called Waterhead. Our hostess married a Mr. Oldfield, a lieutenant in the navy; they lived together for some time at Hackett, where she still resides as his widow. It was in front of that house, on the mountain-side, near which stood the peasant who, while we were passing at a distance, saluted us, waving a kerchief in his hand, as described in the poem. The dog which we met soon after our starting, had belonged to Mr. Rowlandson, who for forty years was curate at Grasmere, in place of the rector, who lived to extreme old age, in a state of insanity. Of this Mr. R. much might be said, both with reference to his character, and the way in which he was regarded by his parishioners. He was a man of a robust frame, had a firm voice and authoritative manner, of strong natural talents, of which he was himself conscious, for he has been heard to say (it grieves me to add with an oath), ‘If I had been brought up at college by — — I should have been a Bishop.’ Two vices used to struggle in him for mastery, avarice and the love of strong drink. But avarice, as is common in like cases, always got the better of its opponent, for though he was often intoxicated it was never, I believe, at his own expense. As has been said of one in a more exalted station, he could take any given quantity. I have heard a story of him which is worth the telling. One Summer’s morning our Grasmere curate, after a night’s carouse in the Vale of Langdale, on his return home having reached a point near which the whole Vale of Grasmere might be seen with the Lake immediately below him, he stept aside and sat down upon the turf. After looking for some time at the landscape, then in the perfection of its morning beauty, he exclaimed, ‘Good God! that I should have led so long such a life in such a place!’ This no doubt was deeply felt by him at the time, but I am not authorised to say that any noticeable amendment followed. Penuriousness strengthened upon him as his body grew feebler with age. He had purchased property and kept some land in his own hands, but he could not find in his heart to lay out the necessary hire for labourers at the proper season, and consequently he has often been seen in half dotage working his hay in the month of November by moonlight — a melancholy sight, which I myself have witnessed. Notwithstanding all that has been said, this man, on account of his talents and superior education, was looked up to by his parishioners, who, without a single exception, lived at that time (and most of them upon their own small inheritances) in a state of republican equality, a condition favourable to the growth of kindly feelings among them, and, in a striking degree, exclusive to temptations to gross vice and scandalous behaviour. As a pastor, their curate did little or nothing for them; but what could more strikingly set forth the efficacy of the Church of England, through its Ordinances and Liturgy, than that, in spite of the unworthiness of the minister, his church was regularly attended; and though there was not much appearance in his flock of what might be called animated piety, intoxicatio
n was rare, and dissolute morals unknown? With the Bible they were, for the most part, well acquainted, and, as was strikingly shown when they were under affliction, must have been supported and comforted by habitual belief in those truths which it is the aim of the Church to inculcate. [Notes: ‘Sled’ (l.110) — a local word for sledge; ‘bield’ (l. 175) — a word common in the country, signifying shelter, as in Scotland.]

  460. Upon perusing the foregoing Epistle, thirty Years after its thirty Years after its Compositon.