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

The last stanza is only in the editions of 1802-1805

1836
And then he said "How sweet it were	1800

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Variant 10:

1845
A gardener in the shade, Still wandering with an easy mind To build ...	1800
In sunshine or through shade To wander with an easy mind; And build ...	1836

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Variant 11:

1836
... sweet ...	1800

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Variant 12:

1832
Dear ...	1800

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Variant 13:

1820
Sweet Ruth alone at midnight shed	1800

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Variant 14:

1800
... unhallow'd ...	1802 and MS.

The edition of 1805 returns to the reading of 1800.

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Variant 15:

1845
... lovely ...	1800

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Variant 16:

1845
... magic ...	1800
... gorgeous ...	1815

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Variant 17:

1800
That often ...	1802

The text of 1805 returns to that of 1800.

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Variant 18:

1800
For passions, amid forms so fair And stately, wanted not their share	1802

The text of 1805 returns to that of 1800.

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Variant 19:

1800
Ill did he live ...	1802

The text of 1805 returns to that of 1800.

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Variant 20:

1805
When I, in thoughtlessness and pride, Had crossed ...	1802
When first, in confidence and pride, I crossed ...	1820

C., and the edition of 1840, revert to the reading of 1805.

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Variant 21:

1840 and C.
"It was a fresh and glorious world, A banner bright that was unfurled Before me suddenly:	1805
A banner bright that shone unfurled	1836

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Variant 22:

Lines 163-168, and 175-180, were added in 1802. Lines 169-174 were added in 1805. All these were omitted in 1815, but were restored in 1820.

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Variant 23:

1845
So was it then, and so is now: For, Ruth! with thee I know not how I feel my spirit burn	1802
"But wherefore speak of this? for now, Sweet Ruth! with thee, ...	1805
Dear Ruth! with thee ...	1836

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Variant 24:

1836
Even as the east when day comes forth; And to the west, and south, and north,	1802

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Variant 25:

It is my purer better mind
O maiden innocently kind
What sights I might have seen!
Even now upon my eyes they break!
And then the youth began to speak
Of lands where he had been.

MS.

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Variant 26:

1845
But now the pleasant dream was gone,	1800
Full soon that purer mind ...	1820

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Variant 27:

1836
And there, exulting in her wrongs, Among the music of her songs She fearfully carouz'd^ib.	1800
And there she sang tumultuous songs, By recollection of her wrongs, To fearful passion rouzed.	1820

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Variant 28:

1836
wild brook....	1800

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Variant 29:

1802
And to the pleasant Banks of Tone She took her way, to dwell alone	1800

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Variant 30:

1802
... grief, ...	1800

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Variant 31:

1805
(And in this tale we all agree)	1800

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Variant 32:

1805
The neighbours grieve for her, and say That she will ...	1802

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Variant 33:

This stanza first appeared in the edition of 1802.

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Footnote A:

Taken from the portrait of the chief in Bartram's frontispiece.—Ed.

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Footnote B:

"The tall aspiring Gordonia lacianthus ... gradually changing colour, from green to golden yellow, from that to a scarlet, from scarlet to crimson, and lastly to a brownish purple, ... so that it may be said to change and renew its garments every morning throughout the year."

See Travels through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East Florida, the Cherokee Country, etc., by William Bartram (1791), pp. 159, 160.—Ed.

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Footnote C:

"Its thick foliage of a dark green colour is flowered over with large milk-white, fragrant blossoms, ... renewed every morning, and that in such incredible profusion that the tree appears silvered over with them, and the ground beneath covered with the fallen flowers. It, at the same time, continually pushes forth new twigs, with young buds on them."

(Bartram's Travels, etc., p. 159.)—Ed.

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Footnote D:

Magnolia grandiflora.—W. W. 1800;

and Bartram's Travels, p. 8. —Ed.

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Footnote E:

"The Cypressus distichia stands in the first order of North American trees. Its majestic stature, lifting its cumbrous top towards the skies, and casting a wide shade upon the ground, as a dark intervening cloud," etc.

(Bartram's Travels, p. 88).—Ed.

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Footnote F:

The splendid appearance of these scarlet flowers, which are scattered with such profusion over the Hills in the Southern parts of North America is frequently mentioned by Bartram in his

Travels

.—W. W. 1800.

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Footnote G:

Mr. Ernest Coleridge tells me he

"has traced, to a note-book of Coleridge's in the British Museum, the source from which Wordsworth derived his description of Georgian scenery in Ruth. He does, I know, refer to Bartram, but the whole passage is a poetical rendering, and a pretty close one, of Bartram's poetical narrative. I have a portrait—the frontispiece of Bartram's Travels—of Mico Chlucco, king of the Seminoles, whose feathers nod in the breeze just as did the military casque of the 'youth from Georgia's shore.'"

Ed.

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Footnote H:

"North and south almost endless green plains and meadows, embellished with islets and projecting promontories of high dark forests, where the pyramidal Magnolia grandiflora ... conspicuously towers."

(Bartram's Travels, p. 145).—Ed.

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Footnote I:

The Tone is a River of Somersetshire, at no great distance from the Quantock Hills. These Hills, which are alluded to a few stanzas below, are extremely beautiful, and in most places richly covered with Coppice woods. W. W. 1800.

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Sub-Footnote a:

The edition of 1805 substitutes the stanzas beginning,