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The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 2 (of 8)

Chapter 141: Composed 1802.—Published 1807
By William Wordsworth
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British LiteraturePoetry

About This Book

A collection of lyrical and narrative poems ranging from intimate meditations on landscape and memory to shorter occasional pieces and a moral tale in verse about a wandering man and his loyal animal guide. The texts move between vivid descriptions of rural scenes and inward reflection, using simple diction and everyday incidents to examine imagination, conscience, and the emotional power of recollection. Recurring features include pastoral imagery, moral questioning prompted by ordinary events, and a sustained interest in how nature and memory shape feeling and thought.




Variant 5:
 
1845
And thus, from what I knew, had heard, and guess'd,
1807
return



Variant 6:
 
1820
'Tis gone—forgotten—let me do
My best—there was a smile or two,
 1807
return



Variant 7:
 
1827
... sweet ...
1807
return



Variant 8:
 
1836
For they confound me: as it is,
I have forgot those smiles of his.

1807
For they bewilder me—even now
His smiles are lost,—I know not how!
1820
By those bewildering glances crost
In which the light of his is losta.

1827
return



Variant 9:
 
1827
From France across the Ocean came;
1807
return



Variant 10:
 
1845
My Darling, she is not to me
What thou art! though I love her well:
1807
But to my heart she cannot be
 1836
return



Variant 11:
 
1807
And I grow happy while I speak,
Kiss, kiss me, Baby, thou art good.

MS.
return



Variant 12:
 
1820
... that quiet face,
1807
return



Variant 13:
 
1807
A Joy, a Comforter thou art;
Sunshine and pleasure to my heart;
And love and hope and mother's glee,

MS.
return



Variant 14:
 
1807
My yearnings are allayed by thee,
My heaviness is turned to glee.

MS.
return





Sub-Footnote a:
 
In a letter to Barron Field (24th Oct. 1828), Wordsworth says that his substitution of the text of 1827 for that of 1807, was due to the objections of Coleridge.—Ed.

return to footnote mark



Contents 1802
Main Contents



To the Cuckoo

Composed 1802.—Published 1807

[Composed in the Orchard at Town-end, 1804.—I. F.]


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





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
O blithe New-comer! I have heard,
I hear thee and rejoice.
O Cuckoo! shall I call thee Bird,
Or but a wandering Voice?

While I am lying on the grass
Thy twofold shout I hear,
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off, and near.

Though babbling only to the Vale,
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou bringest unto me a tale
Of visionary hours.

Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring!
Even yet thou art to me
No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery;

The same whom in my school-boy days
I listened to; that Cry
Which made me look a thousand ways
In bush, and tree, and sky.

To seek thee did I often rove
Through woods and on the green;
And thou wert still a hope, a love;
Still longed for, never seen.

And I can listen to thee yet;
Can lie upon the plain
And listen, till I do beget
That golden time again.

O blessed Bird! the earth we pace
Again appears to be
An unsubstantial, faery place;
That is fit home for Thee!



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Variant 1:
 
1845
While I am lying on the grass,
I hear thy restless shout:
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
About, and all about!



1807
Thy loud note smites my ear!—
From hill to hill it seems to pass,
At once far off and near!


1815
Thy loud note smites my ear!
It seems to fill the whole air's space,
At once far off and near!


1820
Thy twofold shout I hear,
That seems to fill the whole air's space,
As loud far off as neara.


1827
return



Variant 2:
 
1827
To me, no Babbler with a tale
Of sunshine and of flowers,
Thou tellest, Cuckoo! in the vale


1807
I hear thee babbling to the Vale
Of sunshine and of flowers;
And unto me thou bring'st a tale


1815
But unto me ....
1820
return



Variant 3:
 
1836
No Bird; but an invisible Thing,
 1807
return





Footnote A:
 
"Vox et praterea nihil. See Lipsius 'of the Nightingale.'"
Barron Field.—Ed.

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Sub-Footnote a:
 
Barron Field remonstrated with Wordsworth about this reading, and he agreed to restore that of 1820; saying, at the same time, that he had "made the change to record a fact observed by himself."—Ed.

return to footnote mark





Note:
 
In the chronological lists of his poems, published in 1815 and 1820, Wordsworth left a blank opposite this one, in the column containing the year of composition. From 1836 to 1849, the date assigned by him was 1804. But in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal the following occurs under date Tuesday, 22nd March 1802:
"A mild morning. William worked at the Cuckoo poem.... At the closing in of day, went to sit in the orchard. William came to me, and walked backwards and forwards. W. repeated the poem to me. I left him there; and in 20 minutes he came in, rather tired with attempting to write."

"Friday (March 25).—A beautiful morning. William worked at The Cuckoo."
It is therefore evident that it belongs to the year 1802; although it may have been altered and readjusted in 1804. The connection of the seventh stanza of this poem with the first of that which follows it, "My heart leaps up," etc., and of both with the Ode, Intimations of Immortality (vol. viii.), is obvious.—Ed.



Contents 1802
Main Contents



"My heart leaps up when I behold"

Composed March 26, 1802.—Published 1807

The Poem


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


One of the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood." In 1807 it was No. 4 of the series called "Moods of my own Mind."—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.



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A



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Footnote A:
 
Compare Milton's phrase in Paradise Regained (book iv. l. 220):
'The childhood shews the man,
As morning shews the day.'
Dryden's All for Love, act IV. scene I:
'Men are but children of a larger growth.'
And Pope's Essay on Man, Ep. iv. l. 175:
'The boy and man an individual makes.'
Also Chatterton's Fragment (Aldine edition, vol. 1. p. 132):
'Nature in the infant marked the man.'
Ed.

return to footnote mark








Note:
 
(Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal.) This poem was known familiarly in the household as "The Rainbow," although not printed under that title. The text was never changed.

In The Friend, vol. i. p. 58 (ed. 1818), Coleridge writes:
"Men laugh at the falsehoods imposed on them during their childhood, because they are not good and wise enough to contemplate the past in the present, and so to produce that continuity in their self-consciousness, which Nature has made the law of their animal life. Men are ungrateful to others, only when they have ceased to look back on their former selves with joy and tenderness. They exist in fragments."
He then quotes the above poem, and adds:
"I am informed that these lines have been cited as a specimen of despicable puerility. So much the worse for the citer; not willingly in his presence would I behold the sun setting behind our mountains.... But let the dead bury their dead! The poet sang for the living.... I was always pleased with the motto placed under the figure of the rosemary in old herbals:
'Sus, apage! Haud tibi spiro.'"
Compare the passage in The Excursion (book ix. l. 36) beginning:
'... Ah! why in age
Do we revert so fondly, etc.'
also that in The Prelude (book v. l. 507) beginning:
'Our childhood sits.'


Contents 1802
Main Contents



Written in March, while resting on the Bridge at the Foot of Brothers Water

Composed April 16, 1802.—Published 1807

The Poem


[Extempore. This little poem was a favourite with Joanna Baillie.—I. F.]


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





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
The Cock is crowing,
The stream is flowing,
The small birds twitter,
The lake doth glitter,
The green field sleeps in the sun;
The oldest and youngest
Are at work with the strongest;
The cattle are grazing,
Their heads never raising;
There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,
And now doth fare ill
On the top of the bare hill;
The Ploughboy is whooping—anon—anon:
There's joy in the mountains;
There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,
Blue sky prevailing;
The rain is over and gone!



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Footnote A:
 
This line was an afterthought.—Ed.

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Note:
 
The text of this poem was never altered. It was not "written in March" (as the title states), but on the 16th of April (Good Friday) 1802. The bridge referred to crosses Goldrill Beck, a little below Hartsop in Patterdale. The following, from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, records the walk from Ullswater, over Kirkstone Pass, to Ambleside:
"Friday, 16th April (Good Friday).—... When we came to the foot of Brothers Water, I left William sitting on the bridge, and went along the path on the right side of the lake through the wood. I was delighted with what I saw: the water under the boughs of the bare old trees, the simplicity of the mountains, and the exquisite beauty of the path. There was one grey cottage. I repeated The Glowworm as I walked along. I hung over the gate, and thought I could have stayed for ever. When I returned, I found William writing a poem descriptive of the sights and sounds we saw and heard. There was the gentle flowing of the stream, the glittering lively lake, green fields, without a living creature to be seen on them; behind us, a flat pasture with forty-two cattle feeding; to our left, the road leading to the hamlet. No smoke there, the sun shone on the bare roofs. The people were at work, ploughing, harrowing, and sowing; lasses working; a dog barking now and then; cocks crowing, birds twittering; the snow in patches at the top of the highest hills; yellow palms, purple and green twigs on the birches, ashes with their glittering stems quite bare. The hawthorn a bright green, with black stems under the oak. The moss of the oaks glossy.... As we went up the vale of Brothers Water, more and more cattle feeding, a hundred of them. William finished his poem before we got to the foot of Kirkstone. There were hundreds of cattle in the vale.... The walk up Kirkstone was very interesting. The becks among the rocks were all alive. William shewed me the little mossy streamlet which he had before loved, when he saw its bright green track in the snow. The view above Ambleside very beautiful. There we sate, and looked down on the green vale. We watched the crows at a little distance from us become white as silver, as they flew in the sunshine; and, when they went still farther, they looked like shapes of water passing over the green fields."
Ed.



Contents 1802
Main Contents



The Redbreast chasing the ButterflyA

Composed April 18, 1802.—Published 1807

The Poem


[Observed, as described, in the then beautiful orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.—I. F.]


Included among the "Poems of the Fancy."

In some editions this poem is assigned to the year 1806; but, in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal the following occurs, under date "Sunday, 18th" (April 1802):
"A mild grey morning with rising vapours. We sate in the orchard. William wrote the poem on the Robin and the Butterfly.... W. met me at Rydal with the conclusion of the poem to the Robin. I read it to him in bed. We left out some lines."
Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
Art thou the bird whom Man loves best,
The pious bird with the scarlet breast,
Our little English Robin;
The bird that comes about our doors
When Autumn-winds are sobbing?
Art thou the Peter of Norway Boors?
Their Thomas in Finland,
And Russia far inland?
The bird, that by some name or other
All men who know thee call their brother,
The darling of children and men?
Could Father Adam open his eyes
And see this sight beneath the skies,
He'd wish to close them again.
—If the Butterfly knew but his friend,
Hither his flight he would bend;
And find his way to me,
Under the branches of the tree:
In and out, he darts about;
Can this be the bird, to man so good,
That, after their bewildering,
Covered with leaves the little children,
So painfully in the wood?

What ailed thee, Robin, that thou could'st pursue
A beautiful creature,
That is gentle by nature?
Beneath the summer sky
From flower to flower let him fly;
'Tis all that he wishes to do.
The cheerer Thou of our in-door sadness,
He is the friend of our summer gladness:
What hinders, then, that ye should be
Playmates in the sunny weather,
And fly about in the air together!
His beautiful wings in crimson are drest,
A crimson as bright as thine own:
Would'st thou be happy in thy nest,
O pious Bird! whom man loves best,
Love him, or leave him alone!



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