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

This stanza occurs only in the editions of 1800 to 1815.

1820
Here's a Fly, ...	1800

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Variant 5:

1827
... this ...	1800

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Variant 6:

1837
... and not back to the wall,	1800

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Variant 7:

1827
... and the South ...	1800

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Variant 8:

1845
See! his spindles ...	1800
How his spindles ...	1827

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Variant 9:

1827
... no Friend ...	1800
No brother has he, no companion, while I	MS.

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Variant 10:

1837
... comes ...	1800

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1799 Contents
Main Contents

A Poet's Epitaph

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.

The Poem

text	variant	footnote	line number
Art thou a Statist in the van Of public conflicts trained and bred? —First learn to love one living man; Then may'st thou think upon the dead. A Lawyer art thou?—draw not nigh! Go, carry to some fitter place The keenness of that practised eye, The hardness of that sallow face. Art thou a Man of purple cheer? A rosy Man, right plump to see? Approach; yet, Doctor, not too near, This grave no cushion is for thee. Or art thou one of gallant pride, A Soldier and no man of chaff? Welcome!—but lay thy sword aside, And lean upon a peasant's staff. Physician art thou?—one, all eyes, Philosopher!—a fingering slave, One that would peep and botanize Upon his mother's grave? Wrapt closely in thy sensual fleece, O turn aside,—and take, I pray, That he below may rest in peace, Thy ever-dwindling soul, away! A Moralist perchance appears; Led, Heaven knows how! to this poor sod: And he has neither eyes nor ears; Himself his world, and his own God; One to whose smooth-rubbed soul can cling Nor form, nor feeling, great or small; A reasoning, self-sufficing thing, An intellectual All-in-all! Shut close the door; press down the latch; Sleep in thy intellectual crust; Nor lose ten tickings of thy watch Near this unprofitable dust. But who is He, with modest looks, And clad in homely russet brown? He murmurs near the running brooks A music sweeter than their own. He is retired as noontide dew, Or fountain in a noon-day grove; And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love. The outward shows of sky and earth, Of hill and valley, he has viewed; And impulses of deeper birth Have come to him in solitude. In common things that round us lie Some random truths he can impart,— The harvest of a quiet eye That broods and sleeps on his own heart. But he is weak; both Man and Boy, Hath been an idler in the land; Contented if he might enjoy The things which others understand. —Come hither in thy hour of strength; Come, weak as is a breaking wave! Here stretch thy body at full length; Or build thy house upon this grave. Contents Note	1 2 3 4 5 6 7	A B	5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60

Variant 1:

1837
... Statesman, ...	1800

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Variant 2:

1837
Of public business ...	1800

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Variant 3:

1820
... to some other place The hardness of thy coward eye, The falsehood of thy sallow face.	1800

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Variant 4:

1820
Art thou a man of gallant pride,	1800

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Variant 5:

1837
Thy pin-point of a soul away!	1800
That abject thing, thy soul, away!	1815

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Variant 6:

1837
... nor ...	1800

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Variant 7:

1800
... self-sufficient ...	1802

The edition of 1815 returns to the text of 1800.

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Footnote A:

D. D., not M. D. The physician is referred to in the fifth stanza.—Ed.

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Footnote B:

Compare Thomson's description of the Bard, in his Castle of Indolence (canto ii., stanza xxxiii.):

'He came, the bard, a little Druid wight,
Of withered aspect; but his eye was keen,
With sweetness mixed. In russet brown bedight,
He crept along, etc.'

Ed.

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Note:

See

the Fenwick note

o the poem, Written in Germany, on one of the coldest Days of the Century (p. 73).

"The Poet's Epitaph is disfigured to my taste by the common satire upon parsons and lawyers in the beginning, and the coarse epithet of "pin-point," in the sixth stanza. All the rest is eminently good, and your own."

(Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth, January 1801.)—Ed.

1799 Contents
Main Contents

"Strange fits of passion have I known"

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

[Written in Germany, 1799.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections." In MS. Wordsworth gave, as the title, "A Reverie," but erased it.—Ed.

The Poem

text	variant	footnote	line number
Strange fits of passion have I known: And I will dare to tell, But in the Lover's ear alone, What once to me befel. When she I loved looked every day Fresh as a rose in June, I to her cottage bent my way, Beneath an evening moon. Upon the moon I fixed my eye, All over the wide lea; With quickening pace my horse drew nigh Those paths so dear to me. And now we reached the orchard-plot; And, as we climbed the hill, The sinking moon to Lucy's cot Came near, and nearer still. In one of those sweet dreams I slept, Kind Nature's gentlest boon! And all the while my eyes I kept On the descending moon. My horse moved on; hoof after hoof He raised, and never stopped: When down behind the cottage roof, At once, the bright moon dropped. What fond and wayward thoughts will slide Into a Lover's head! "O mercy!" to myself I cried, "If Lucy should be dead!" Contents	1 2 3 4 5 6		5 10 15 20 25

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1832
... I have known,	1800

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Variant 2:

1836
When she I lov'd, was strong and gay And like a rose in June,	1800

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Variant 3:

1836
... the ...	1800

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Variant 4:

1836
My horse trudg'd on, and we drew nigh	1800

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Variant 5:

1836
Towards the roof of Lucy's cot The moon descended still^a.	1800

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Variant 6:

1815
... the planet dropp'd.	1800

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Sub-Footnote a:

Compare the lines in Arthur Hugh Clough's poem, The Stream of Life:

'And houses stand on either hand
And thou descendest still.'

Ed.

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1799 Contents
Main Contents

"She dwelt among the untrodden ways"

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections." In the edition of 1800 it is entitled Song.—Ed.

The Poem

text	variant	footnote	line number
She dwelt among the untrodden ways Beside the springs of Dove, A Maid whom there were none to praise And very few to love: A violet by a mossy stone Half hidden from the eye! —Fair as a star, when only one Is shining in the sky. She lived unknown, and few could know When Lucy ceased to be; But she is in her grave, and, oh, The difference to me! Contents	1 2		5 10

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1800
A very few ...	1802

The text of the edition of 1805 returns to that of 1800.

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Variant 2:

The word "lived" was italicised in the edition of 1800 only.

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1799 Contents
Main Contents

"I travelled among unknown men"

Composed 1799.-Published 1807

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."—Ed.

The Poem

text	variant	footnote	line number
I travelled among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee. 'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Nor will I quit thy shore A second time; for still I seem To love thee more and more. Among thy mountains did I feel The joy of my desire; And she I cherished turned her wheel Beside an English fire. Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed The bowers where Lucy played; And thine too is the last green field That Lucy's eyes surveyed. Contents	1 2	A	5 10 15

Variant 1:

The gladness of desire;

MS.

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Variant 2:

1836
And thine is, too, the last green field Which ...	1807
That ...	1815

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Footnote A:

Compare Sara Coleridge's comment on this poem in the Biographia Literaria (1847), vol. ii. chap. ix. p. 173. Also Mrs. Oliphant's remarks in her Literary History of the Nineteenth Century, vol. i. pp. 306-9.—Ed.

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1799 Contents
Main Contents

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

About This Book

A Poet's Epitaph

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

The Poem

"Strange fits of passion have I known"

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

The Poem

"She dwelt among the untrodden ways"

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

The Poem

"I travelled among unknown men"

Composed 1799.-Published 1807

The Poem