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

Chapter 202: The Poem
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.



[Composed October 4th, 1802, after a journey over the Hambleton Hills, on a day memorable to me—the day of my marriage. The horizon commanded by those hills is most magnificent. The next day, while we were travelling in a post-chaise up Wensleydale, we were stopped by one of the horses proving restive, and were obliged to wait two hours in a severe storm before the post-boy could fetch from the inn another to supply its place. The spot was in front of Bolton Hall, where Mary Queen of Scots was kept prisoner, soon after her unfortunate landing at Workington. The place then belonged to the Scroops, and memorials of her are yet preserved there. To beguile the time I composed a Sonnet. The subject was our own confinement contrasted with hers; but it was not thought worthy of being preserved.—I. F.]


One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
Dark and more dark the shades of evening fell;
The wished-for point was reached—but at an hour
When little could be gained from that rich dower
Of prospect, whereof many thousands tell.
Yet did the glowing west with marvellous power
Salute us; there stood Indian citadel,
Temple of Greece, and minster with its tower
Substantially expressed—a place for bell
Or clock to toll from! Many a tempting isle,
With groves that never were imagined, lay
'Mid seas how steadfast! objects all for the eye
Of silent rapture; but we felt the while
We should forget them; they are of the sky,
And from our earthly memory fade away.



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Variant 1:
 
1837
Ere we had reach'd the wish'd-for place, night fell:
We were too late at least by one dark hour,
And nothing could we see of all that power
Of prospect, ...



1807
Dark, and more dark, the shades of Evening fell;
The wish'd-for point was reach'd—but late the hour;
And little could we see of all that power


1815
And little could be gained from all that dower
 1827
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Variant 2:
 
1837
The western sky did recompence us well
With Grecian Temple, Minaret, and Bower;
And, in one part, a Minster with its Tower
Substantially distinct, a place for Bell
Or Clock to toll from. Many a glorious pile
Did we behold, sights that might well repay
All disappointment! and, as such, the eye
Delighted in them; but we felt, the while,







1807
Substantially expressed—...
1815
Did we behold, fair sights that might repay
1815
Yet did the glowing west in all its power
1827
The text of 1827 is otherwise identical with that of 1837.

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Footnote A:
 
Called by Wordsworth, "The Hamilton Hills" in the editions from 1807 to 1827.—Ed.

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Note:
 
The following extract from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal indicates, as fully as any other passage in it, the use which her brother occasionally made of it. We have the "Grecian Temple," and the "Minster with its Tower":
"Before we had crossed the Hambleton Hill and reached the point overlooking Yorkshire it was quite dark. We had not wanted, however, fair prospects before us, as we drove along the flat plain of the high hill; far, far off from us, in the western sky, we saw shapes of castles, ruins among groves—a great, spreading wood, rocks, and single trees—a Minster with its Tower unusually distinct, Minarets in another quarter, and a round Grecian Temple also; the colours of the sky of a bright grey, and the forms of a sober grey, with a dome. As we descended the hill there was no distinct view, but of a great space, only near us, we saw the wild (and as the people say) bottomless Tarn in the hollow at the side of the hill. It seemed to be made visible to us only by its own light, for all the hill about us was dark."
Wordsworth and his sister crossed over the Hambleton (or Hamilton) Hills, on their way from Westmoreland to Gallow Hill, Yorkshire, to visit the Hutchinsons, before they went south to London and Calais, where they spent the month of August, 1802. But after his marriage to Mary Hutchinson, on the 4th of October, Wordsworth, his wife, and sister, recrossed these Hambleton Hills on their way to Grasmere, which they reached on the evening of the 6th October. The above sonnet was composed on the evening of the 4th October, as the Fenwick note indicates.—Ed.



Contents 1802
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To H. C.

Six Years Old

Composed 1802.—Published 1807

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





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
O thou! whose fancies from afar are brought;
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought
The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou faery voyager! that dost float
In such clear water, that thy boat
May rather seem
To brood on air than on an earthly stream;
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,
Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;
O blessed vision! happy child!
Thou art so exquisitely wild,
I think of thee with many fears
For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,
Lord of thy house and hospitality;
And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest
But when she sate within the touch of thee.
O too industrious folly!
O vain and causeless melancholy!
Nature will either end thee quite;
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,
A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast thou to do with sorrow,
Or the injuries of to-morrow?
Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth,
Ill fitted to sustain unkindly shocks,
Or to be trailed along the soiling earth;
A gem that glitters while it lives,
And no forewarning gives;
But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.



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1845
That ...
 1807
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Variant 2:
 
1827
Not doom'd to jostle with ...
1807
Not framed to undergo ...
1815
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Footnote A:
  See Carver's Description of his Situation upon one of the Lakes of America.—W. W. 1807.

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Note:
 
These stanzas were addressed to Hartley Coleridge. The lines,
'I think of thee with many fears
For what may be thy lot in future years,'
taken in connection with his subsequent career, suggest the similarly sad "presentiment" with which the Lines composed above Tintern Abbey conclude. The following is the postscript to a letter by his father, S. T. C., addressed to Sir Humphry Davy, Keswick, July 25, 1800:
"Hartley is a spirit that dances on an aspen leaf; the air that yonder sallow-faced and yawning tourist is breathing, is to my babe a perpetual nitrous oxide. Never was more joyous creature born. Pain with him is so wholly trans-substantiated by the joys that had rolled on before, and rushed on after, that oftentimes five minutes after his mother has whipt him he has gone up and asked her to whip him again."
(
Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific
, of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart., pp. 78, 79.)—Ed.



Contents 1802
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To the Daisy

Composed 1802.—Published 1807

The Poem


"HerA divine skill taught me this,
That from every thing I saw
I could some instruction draw,
And raise pleasure to the height
Through the meanest object's sight.
By the murmur of a spring,
Or the least bough's rustelling;
By a Daisy whose leaves spread
Shut when Titan goes to bed;
Or a shady bush or tree;
She could more infuse in me
Than all Nature's beauties can
In some other wiser man."

G. Wither.1
[Composed in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.—I. F.]


One of the "Poems of the Fancy."—Ed.




The Poem


text variant footnote line number
In youth from rock to rock I went,
From hill to hill in discontent
Of pleasure high and turbulent,
Most pleased 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!

Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly decks his few grey hairs;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun 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;
Pleased at his greeting thee again;
Yet nothing daunted,
Nor grieved if thou be set at nought:
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 choose;
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;
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,
Imprisoned by hot sunshine lie
Near the green holly,
And wearily at length should fare;
He needs but look about, and there
Thou art!—a friend at hand, to scare
His melancholy.

A hundred times, by rock or bower,
Ere thus I have lain couched 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,
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.

Fresh-smitten by the morning ray,
When thou art up, alert and gay,
Then, cheerful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred gladness:
And when, at dusk, by dews opprest
Thou sink'st, the image of thy rest
Hath often eased my pensive breast
Of careful sadness.

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,
Coming one knows not how, nor whence,
Nor whither going.

Child of the Year! that round dost run
Thy pleasant course,—when day's begun
As ready to salute the sun
As lark or leveret,
Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Nor be less dear to future men
Than in old time;—thou not in vain
Art Nature's favourite.



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Variant 1:
 
The extract from Wither was first prefixed to this poem in the edition of 1815. The late Mr. Dykes Campbell was of opinion that Charles Lamb had suggested this motto to Wordsworth, as The Shepherd's Hunting was Lamb's "prime favourite" amongst Wither's poems. It may be as well to note that his quotation was erroneous in two places. His "instruction" should be "invention" (l. 3), and his "the" (in l. 4) should be "her."—Ed.

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Variant 2:
 
1807
To gentle sympathies awake,
MS.
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Variant 3:
 
1807
And Nature's love of Thee partake,
Her much-loved Daisy!
1836
Of her sweet Daisy.
 C.
The text of 1840 returns to the reading of 1807.

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Variant 4:
 
1836
When soothed a while by milder airs,
Thee Winter in the garland wears
That thinly shades his few grey hairs;
Spring cannot shun thee;



1807
When Winter decks his few grey hairs
Thee in the scanty wreath he wears;
Spring parts the clouds with softest airs,
That she may sun thee;



1827
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Variant 5:
 
1836
... in the lane;
If welcome once thou count'st it gain;
Thou art not daunted,
Nor car'st if thou be set at naught;


1807
If welcom'd ...
1815
The text of 1827 returns to that of 1807.

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Variant 6:
 
1820
He need ...
1807
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Variant 7:
 
1807
... some chance delight;
MS.
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Variant 8:
 
1807
Some charm ...
C.
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Variant 9:
 
1807
And some ...
MS.
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Variant 10:
 
1836
When, smitten by the morning ray,
I see thee rise alert and gay,
Then, chearful Flower! my spirits play
With kindred motion:



1807
With kindred gladness:
1815
Then Daisy! do my spirits play,
With cheerful motion.

MS.
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Variant 11:
 
1815
At dusk, I've seldom mark'd thee press
The ground, as if in thankfulness
Without some feeling, more or less,
Of true devotion.



1807
The ground in modest thankfulness
 MS.
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Variant 12:
 
1807
But more than all I number yet
O bounteous Flower! another debt
Which I to thee wherever met
Am daily owing;



MS.
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Variant 13:
 
1836
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






1807
Thy long-lost praise thou shalt regain;
Dear shalt thou be to future men
As in old time;—


1815
Dear thou shalt be
1820
The text of 1827 returns to that of 1815.

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Footnote A:
  His Muse.—W. W. 1815.


The extract is from The Shepherds Hunting, eclogue fourth, ll. 368-80.—Ed.

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Footnote B:
  See, in Chaucer and the elder Poets, the honours formerly paid to this flower.—W. W. 1815.

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Footnote C:
  This Poem, and two others to the same Flower, which the Reader will find in the second Volume, were written in the year 1802; which is mentioned, because in some of the ideas, though not in the manner in which those ideas are connected, and likewise even in some of the expressions, they bear a striking resemblance to a Poem (lately published) of Mr. Montgomery, entitled,
A Field Flower
. This being said, Mr. Montgomery will not think any apology due to him; I cannot however help addressing him in the words of the Father of English Poets:
'Though it happe me to rehersin—
That ye han in your freshe songis saied,
Forberith me, and beth not ill apaied,
Sith that ye se I doe it in the honour
Of Love, and eke in service of the Flour.'