| 1820 | |
|
1800 |
| 1837 | |
|
1800 |
| 1827 | |
|
1800 |
| 1820 | |
|
1800 |
| 1800 | |
|
MS. 1798. |
| 1802 | |
|
1800 |
| 1837 | |
|
1800 |
| 1837 | |
|
1800 |
|
1820 |
Thomas Bewick, the wood engraver, born at Cherryburn, near
Newcastle-on-Tyne, in 1753, died 1828. He revived the art of wood
engraving in England. His illustrations—drawn for the General
History of British Quadrupeds (1790), and for his own History of
British Birds (1797 and l804)—were unrivalled in their way.—Ed.
Charles Lamb, writing to Wordsworth in 1815, spoke of
"that delicacy towards aberrations from the strict path, which is so fine in the 'Old Thief and the Boy by his side,' which always brings water into my eyes."
(See Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p.
287.)—Ed.
Written with a Slate Pencil upon a Stone, the largest of a Heap lying near a Deserted Quarry, upon one of the IslandsA at Rydal
Composed 1798.—Published 1800
Included among the "Inscriptions."—Ed.
The Poem
| text | variant | footnote | line number |
| Stranger! this hillock of mis-shapen stones Is not a Ruin spared or made by time, Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem'st, the Cairn Of some old British Chief: 'tis nothing more Than the rude embryo of a little Dome Or Pleasure-house, once destined to be built Among the birch-trees of this rocky isle. But, as it chanced, Sir William having learned That from the shore a full-grown man might wade, And make himself a freeman of this spot At any hour he chose, the prudent Knight Desisted, and the quarry and the mound Are monuments of his unfinished task. The block on which these lines are traced, perhaps, Was once selected as the corner-stone Of that intended Pile, which would have been Some quaint odd plaything of elaborate skill, So that, I guess, the linnet and the thrush, And other little builders who dwell here, Had wondered at the work. But blame him not, For old Sir William was a gentle Knight, Bred in this vale, to which he appertained With all his ancestry. Then peace to him, And for the outrage which he had devised Entire forgiveness!—But if thou art one On fire with thy impatience to become An inmate of these mountains,—if, disturbed By beautiful conceptions, thou hast hewn Out of the quiet rock the elements Of thy trim Mansion destined soon to blaze In snow-white splendour,—think again; and, taught By old Sir William and his quarry, leave Thy fragments to the bramble and the rose; There let the vernal slow-worm sun himself, And let the redbreast hop from stone to stone. Contents |
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 |
B |
5 10 15 20 25 30 |
| 1837 | |
|
1800 |
|
MS. |
| 1802 | |
|
1800 |
| 1800 | |
|
MS. |
| 1837 | |
|
1800 |
| 1837 | |
|
1800 |
| 1800 | |
|
MS. 1798. |
| 1800 | |
|
1802 |
The text of 1815 returns to that of 1800.
In a MS. copy this is given as "the lesser Island."—Ed
.
Compare Wordsworth'
s
"objections to white, as a colour, in large spots or masses in landscape,"
in his Guide through the
district of the Lakes (section third).—Ed.
| end of Volume II: 1798 | → | 1799 |
| Main Contents |
Wordsworth's Poetical Works, Volume 2: 1799
Edited by William Knight
1896
- 1799
-
- Influence of Natural Objects in calling forth and strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood and Early Youth
- The Simplon Pass
- Nutting
- Written in Germany, on one of the Coldest Days of the Century
- A Poet's Epitaph
- "Strange fits of passion have I known"
- "She dwelt among the untrodden ways"
- "I travelled among unknown men"
- "Three years she grew in sun and shower"
- "A slumber did my spirit seal"
- Address to the Scholars of the Village School of ——
- Matthew
- The Two April Mornings
- The Fountain
- To a Sexton
- The Danish Boy
- Lucy Gray; or, Solitude
- Ruth
1799
The poems belonging to the year 1799 were chiefly, if not wholly,
composed at Goslar, in Germany; and all, with three exceptions, appeared
in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800). The exceptions were
the following:
- The lyric beginning, "I travelled among unknown men," which was first published in the "Poems" of 1807;
- and two fragments from The Prelude, viz. The Influence of Natural Objects (which appeared in The Friend in 1809), and The Simplon Pass (first published in the 8vo edition of the Poems in 1845).
Wordsworth reached Goslar on the 6th of October 1798, and left it on the
10th of February 1799. It is impossible to determine the precise order
in which the nineteen or twenty poems associated with that city were
composed. But it is certain that the fragment on the immortal boy of
Windermere —whom its cliffs and islands knew so well—was written in
1798, and not in 1799 (as Wordsworth himself states); because Coleridge
sent a letter to his friend, thanking him for a MS. copy of these lines,
and commenting on them, of which the date is "Ratzeburg, Dec. 10, 1798."
For obvious reasons, however, I place the fragments originally meant to
be parts of The Recluse together; and, since Wordsworth gave the
date 1799 to the others, it would be gratuitous to suppose that he erred
in reference to them all, because we know that his memory failed him in
reference to one of the series. Therefore, although he spent more than
twice as many days in 1798 as in 1799 at Goslar, I set down this group
of poems as belonging to 1799, rather than to the previous year. It will
be seen that, after placing all the poems of this Goslar period in the
year to which they belong, it is possible also to group them according
to their subject matter, without violating chronological order. I
therefore put the fragments, afterwards incorporated in The
Prelude, together. These are naturally followed by Nutting—a
poem intended for The Prelude, but afterwards excluded, as
inappropriate. The five poems referring to "Lucy" are placed in
sequence, and the same is done with the four "Matthew" poems. A small
group of four poems follows appropriately, viz. To a Sexton, The
Danish Boy, Lucy Gray, and Ruth; while the Fenwick note
almost necessitates our placing the Poet's Epitaph immediately
after the Lines Written in Germany; and, with Wordsworth's life
at Goslar, we naturally associate five things—the cold winter, The
Prelude, the "Lucy" and the "Matthew" poems, and the Poet's
Epitaph.—Ed.
Influence of Natural Objects in calling forth and strengthening the Imagination in Boyhood and Early Youth
From an Unpublished Poem
[This extract is reprinted from
The Friend
.]
Composed 1799.—Published 1809
It was included by Wordsworth among the "Poems referring to the Period
of Childhood."—Ed.
The Poem
| text | variant | footnote | line number |
| Wisdom and Spirit of the universe! Thou Soul, that art the Eternity of thought! And giv'st to forms and images a breath And everlasting motion! not in vain, By day or star-light, thus from my first dawn Of childhood didst thou intertwine for me The passions that build up our human soul; Not with the mean and vulgar works of Man: But with high objects, with enduring things, With life and nature: purifying thus The elements of feeling and of thought, And sanctifying by such discipline Both pain and fear,—until we recognise A grandeur in the beatings of the heart. Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me With stinted kindness. In November days, When vapours rolling down the valleys made A lonely scene more lonesome; among woods At noon; and 'mid the calm of summer nights, When, by the margin of the trembling lake, Beneath the gloomy hills, homeward I went In solitude, such intercourse was mine: Mine was it in the fields both day and night, And by the waters, all the summer long. And in the frosty season, when the sun Was set, and, visible for many a mile, The cottage-windows through the twilight blazed, I heeded not the summons: happy time It was indeed for all of us; for me It was a time of rapture! Clear and loud The village-clock tolled six—I wheeled about, Proud and exulting like an untired horse That cares not for his home.—All shod with steel We hissed along the polished ice, in games Confederate, imitative of the chase And woodland pleasures,—the resounding horn, The pack loud-chiming, and the hunted hare. So through the darkness and the cold we flew, And not a voice was idle: with the din Smitten, the precipices rang aloud; The leafless trees and every icy crag Tinkled like iron; while far-distant hills Into the tumult sent an alien sound Of melancholy, not unnoticed while the stars, Eastward, were sparkling clear, and in the west The orange sky of evening died away. Not seldom from the uproar I retired Into a silent bay, or sportively Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous throng, To cut across the reflex of a star; Image, that, flying still before me, gleamed Upon the glassy plain: and oftentimes, When we had given our bodies to the wind, And all the shadowy banks on either side Came sweeping through the darkness, spinning still The rapid line of motion, then at once Have I, reclining back upon my heels, Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs Wheeled by me—even as if the earth had rolled With visible motion her diurnal round! Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a summer sea. Contents |
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5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60 |
| 1809 | |
|
The Prelude, 1850. |
| 1815 | |
|
1809 |
| 1809 | |
|
The Prelude, 1850. |
| 1836 | |
|
1809 |
| 1845 | |
|
1809 |
| 1809 | |
|
The Prelude, 1850. |
| 1815 | |
|
1809 |