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

Chapter 262: 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.






Variant 1:
 
1827
We've ...
1807
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Variant 2:
 
1807
How ...
 MS.
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Variant 3:
 
1807
Aye, willingly, and what is more
One which you never heard before,
True story this which I shall tell

MS.
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Variant 4:
 
1837
In land where many a mountain towers,
1807
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1807
... could ...
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Variant 6:
 
1827
... sweetly ...
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Variant 7:
 
1815
You ...
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Variant 8:
 
1837
He's in a vessel of his own,
On the swift water hurrying down
Towards the mighty Sea.


1807
He in a vessel of his own,
On the swift flood is hurrying down

1827
Towards the great, great Sea.
 MS.
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Variant 9:
 
1815
... ne'er before
Did human Creature ...

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Variant 10:
 
The following stanza was only in the edition of 1807:
Strong is the current; but be mild,
Ye waves, and spare the helpless Child!
If ye in anger fret or chafe,
A Bee-hive would be ship as safe
As that in which he sails.
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Variant 11:
 
1815
But say, what was it? Thought of fear!
Well may ye tremble when ye hear!
—A Household Tub, like one of those,
Which women use to wash their clothes,
This carried the blind Boy.




1807
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Variant 12:
 
1820
And one, the rarest, was a Shell
Which he, poor Child, had studied well;
The Shell of a green Turtle, thin
And hollow;—you might sit therein.
It was so wide and deep.



1815
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Variant 13:
 
1820
'Twas even the largest of its kind,
Large, thin, and light as birch-tree rind;
So light a Shell that it would swim,
And gaily lift its fearless brim
Above the tossing waves.




1815
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Variant 14:
 
1837
... which ...
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Variant 15:
 
1827
... in his arms.
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Variant 16:
 
1827
Close to the water he had found
This Vessel, push'd it from dry ground,
Went into it; and, without dread,
Following the fancies in his head,
He paddled up and down.




1807
And with the happy burthen hied,
And pushed it from Loch Levin's side,—
Stepped into it; and, without dread,


1815
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Variant 17:
 
1827
And dallied thus, till from the shore
The tide retreating more and more
Had suck'd, and suck'd him in.


1807
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Variant 18:
  The two previous stanzas were added in the edition of 1815.

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Variant 19:
 
1837
... then did he cry
... most eagerly;
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Variant 20:
 
1807
... read ...
 MS.
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Variant 21:
 
1837
Had ...
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Variant 22:
 
1832
She could not blame him, or chastise;
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Variant 23:
  This stanza was added in the edition of 1815.

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Footnote A:
  The title in the editions of 1807 to 1820 was
The Blind Highland Boy. (A Tale told by the Fireside.)


This poem gave its title to a separate division in the second volume of the edition of 1807, viz. "The Blind Highland Boy; with other Poems."—Ed.

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Footnote B:
 
This reading occurs in all the editions. But Wordsworth, whose MS. was not specially clear, may have written, or meant to write "petty," (a much better word), and not perceived the mistake when revising the sheets. If he really wrote "petty," he may have meant either small rills (rillets), or used the word as Shakespeare used it, for "pelting" rills.—Ed.

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Footnote C:
 
Compare Tennyson's In Memoriam, stanza xix.:
'There twice a day the Severn fills;
The salt sea-water passes by,
And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills, etc.'
Ed.

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Footnote D:
 
This and the following six stanzas were added in 1815.—Ed.

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Footnote E:
 
Writing to Walter Scott, from Coleorton, on Jan. 20, 1807, Wordsworth sent him this stanza of the poem, and asked
"Could you furnish me, by application to any of your Gaelic friends, a phrase in that language which could take its place in the following verse of eight syllables, and have the following meaning."
He adds,
"The above is part of a little poem which I have written on a Highland story told me by an eye-witness ..."
This is the nearest clue we have to the date of the composition of the poem.—Ed.

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Note:
  It is recorded in Dampier's Voyages that a Boy, the Son of a Captain of a Man of War, seated himself in a Turtle-shell and floated in it from the shore to his Father's Ship, which lay at anchor at the distance of half a mile. Upon the suggestion of a Friend, I have substituted such a Shell for that less elegant vessel in which my blind voyager did actually intrust himself to the dangerous current of Loch Levin, as was related to me by an Eye-witness.—W. W. 1815.


This note varies slightly in later editions.

The Loch Leven referred to is a sea-loch in Argyllshire, into which the tidal water flows with some force from Loch Linnhe at Ballachulish.
'By night and day
The great Sea-water finds its way
Through long, long windings of the hills.'
The friend referred to in the note of 1815, who urged Wordsworth to give his blind voyager a Shell, instead of a washing-tub to sail in, was Coleridge. The original tale of the tub was not more unfortunate than the lines in praise of Wilkinson's spade, and several of Wordsworth's friends, notably Charles Lamb and Barren Field, objected to the change. Lamb wrote to Wordsworth in 1815,
"I am afraid lest that substitution of a shell (a flat falsification of the history) for the household implement, as it stood at first, was a kind of tub thrown out to the beast" [i. e. the reviewer!] "or rather thrown out for him. The tub was a good honest tub in its place, and nothing could fairly be said against it. You say you made the alteration for the 'friendly reader,' but the 'malicious' will take it to himself."
(The Letters of Charles Lamb, edited by Alfred Ainger, vol. i. p. 283.) Wordsworth could not be induced to "undo his work," and go back to his own original; although he evidently agreed with what Lamb had said (as is seen in a letter to Barren Field, Oct. 24, 1828).—Ed.



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October, 1803

Composed October 1803.—Published 1807

Included among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"; renamed in 1845, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
One might believe that natural miseries
Had blasted France, and made of it a land
Unfit for men; and that in one great band
Her sons were bursting forth, to dwell at ease.
But 'tis a chosen soil, where sun and breeze
Shed gentle favours: rural works are there,
And ordinary business without care;
Spot rich in all things that can soothe and please!
How piteous then that there should be such dearth
Of knowledge; that whole myriads should unite
To work against themselves such fell despite:
Should come in phrensy and in drunken mirth,
Impatient to put out the only light
Of Liberty that yet remains on earth!



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"There is a bondage worse, far worse, to bear"

Composed possibly in 1803.—Published 1807

Included among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"; renamed in 1845, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
There is a bondage worse, far worse, to bear
Than his who breathes, by roof, and floor, and wall,
Pent in, a Tyrant's solitary Thrall:
'Tis his who walks about in the open air,
One of a Nation who, henceforth, must wear
Their fetters in their souls. For who could be,
Who, even the best, in such condition, free
From self-reproach, reproach that he must share
With Human-nature? Never be it ours
To see the sun how brightly it will shine,
And know that noble feelings, manly powers,
Instead of gathering strength, must droop and pine;
And earth with all her pleasant fruits and flowers
Fade, and participate in man's decline.



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Variant 1:
 
1827
... which is worse to bear
 1807
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Variant 2:
 
1837
... which ...
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October, 1803 (2)

Composed October 1803.—Published 1807

This was one of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"; afterwards called, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
These times strike monied worldlings with dismay:
Even rich men, brave by nature, taint the air
With words of apprehension and despair:
While tens of thousands, thinking on the affray,
Men unto whom sufficient for the day
And minds not stinted or unfilled are given,
Sound, healthy, children of the God of heaven,
Are cheerful as the rising sun in May.
What do we gather hence but firmer faith
That every gift of noble origin
Is breathed upon by Hope's perpetual breath;
That virtue and the faculties within
Are vital,—and that riches are akin
To fear, to change, to cowardice, and death?



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1837
... touch ...
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"England! the time is come when thou should'st wean"

Composed possibly in 1803.—Published 1807

This was one of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"; afterwards called, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
England! the time is come when thou should'st wean
Thy heart from its emasculating food;
The truth should now be better understood;
Old things have been unsettled; we have seen
Fair seed-time, better harvest might have been
But for thy trespasses; and, at this day,
If for Greece, Egypt, India, Africa,
Aught good were destined, thou would'st step between.
England! all nations in this charge agree:
But worse, more ignorant in love and hate,
Far—far more abject, is thine Enemy:
Therefore the wise pray for thee, though the freight
Of thy offences be a heavy weight:
Oh grief that Earth's best hopes rest all with Thee!



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October, 1803 (3)

Composed October 1803.—Published 1807

Included among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"; afterwards called, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
When, looking on the present face of things,
I see one man, of men the meanest too!
Raised up to sway the world, to do, undo,
With mighty Nations for his underlings,
The great events with which old story rings
Seem vain and hollow; I find nothing great:
Nothing is left which I can venerate;
So that a doubt almost within me springs
Of Providence, such emptiness at length
Seems at the heart of all things. But, great God!
I measure back the steps which I have trod;
And tremble, seeing whence proceeds the strength
Of such poor Instruments, with thoughts sublime
I tremble at the sorrow of the time.



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