| 1836 (Expanding eight lines into nine:) |
|
Oh give, great God, to Freedom's waves to ride
Sublime o'er Conquest, Avarice, and Pride,
To sweep where Pleasure decks her guilty bowers
And dark Oppression builds her thick-ribbed towers!
—Give them, beneath their breast while gladness springs
To brood the nations o'er with Nile-like wings;
And grant that every sceptred Child of clay,
Who cries, presumptuous, "here their tides shall stay,"
|
1820 |
This couplet was added in 1836.
| 1836 |
|
Swept in their anger from the affrighted shore,
With all his creatures sink—to rise no more!
|
1820 |
| 1845 |
|
Be the dead load of mortal ills forgot!
Be fear and joyful hope alike forgot
|
1820
1836 |
This couplet was added in 1827.
| 1836 |
|
Renewing, when the rosy summits glow
At morn, our various journey, sad and slow.
With lighter heart our course we may renew,
The first whose footsteps print the mountain dew.
|
1820
1827 |
A single taper in the vale profound
Shifts, while the Alps dilated glimmer round;
|
1832 |
By the deep gloom appalled, the Vagrant sighs,
|
1836 |
This couplet was cancelled in the edition of 1827.
Or on her fingers ...
|
1836 |
This couplet was withdrawn in 1827.
Near and yet nearer, from the piny gulf
Howls, by the darkness vexed, the famished wolf,
|
1836 |
See note to the "Juvenile Pieces" in the edition of 1836
(p. 1).—Ed.
There is something characteristic in Wordsworth's
addressing an intimate travelling companion in this way. S. T. C., or
Charles Lamb, would have written, as we do, "My dear Jones"; but
Wordsworth addressed his friend as "Dear Sir," and described his sister
as "a Young Lady," and as a "Female Friend."—Ed.
In a small pocket copy of the
Orlando Furioso
of
Ariosto—now in the possession of the poet's grandson, Mr. Gordon
Wordsworth—of which the title-page is torn away, the following is
written on the first page, "My companion in the Alps with Jones. W.
Wordsworth:" also "W. W. to D. W." (He had given it to his sister
Dorothy.) On the last page is written, "I carried this Book with me in
my pedestrian tour in the Alps with Jones. W. Wordsworth." Dorothy
Wordsworth gave this interesting relic to Miss Quillinan, from whose
library it passed to that of its present owner.—Ed.
By an evident error, corrected in the first reprint of this
edition (1840).
p. 79.—Ed.
See Addison's
Cato
, Act 1. Scene i., l. 171:
Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.
Ed.
The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy
or chearful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning
rays.—W. W. 1793.
Compare Pope's
Windsor Forest
, ll. 129, 130;
He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye:
Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky:
Ed.
Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of
the Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible.—W.
W. 1793.
Compare Milton's
Ode on the Nativity
, stanza xx.—Ed.
Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.—W. W. 1793.
Name of one of the valleys of the Chartreuse.—W. W. 1793.
The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the
Alps by the Simplon Pass—-W. W. 1793.
Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood and covered:
these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of
the scenery in some places.—W. W. 1793.
The Catholic religion prevails here; these cells are, as is
well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the
Roman tombs, along the roadside.—W. W. 1793.
Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the
fall of snow and other accidents very common along this dreadful
road.—W. W. 1793.
The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built
of wood.— W. W. 1793.
See Burns's
Postscript
to his
Cry and Prayer
:
And when he fa's,
His latest draught o' breathin' leaves him
In faint huzzas.
Ed.
For most of the images in the next sixteen verses I am
indebted to M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his
translation of Coxe's
Tour in Switzerland
.—W. W. 1793.
The people of this Canton are supposed to be of a more
melancholy disposition than the other inhabitants of the Alps: this, if
true, may proceed from their living more secluded.—W. W. 1793.
This picture is from the middle region of the Alps.—W. W.
1815.
Chalets
are summer huts for the Swiss herdsmen.—W. W. 1836.
Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind
through the trees.—W. W. 1793.
It may be as well to add that, in this Scotch word, the "gh" is
pronounced; so that, as used colloquially, the word could never rhyme
with "blue."—Ed.
See Smollett's
Ode to Leven Water
in
Humphry Clinker
,
and compare
The Italian Itinerant and the Swiss Goatherd
, in
"Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" in 1820, part ii. 1.—Ed.
Alluding to several battles which the Swiss in very small
numbers have gained over their oppressors the house of Austria; and in
particular, to one fought at Naeffels near Glarus, where three hundred
and thirty men defeated an army of between fifteen and twenty thousand
Austrians. Scattered over the valley are to be found eleven stones, with
this inscription, 1388, the year the battle was fought, marking out as I
was told upon the spot, the several places where the Austrians
attempting to make a stand were repulsed anew.—W. W. 1793.
As Schreck-Horn, the pike of terror. Wetter-Horn, the pike
of storms, etc., etc.—W. W. 1793.
The effect of the famous air called in French Ranz des
Vaches upon the Swiss troops.—W. W. 1793.
This shrine is resorted to, from a hope of relief, by
multitudes, from every corner of the Catholick world, labouring under
mental or bodily afflictions.—W. W. 1793.
Compare the Stanzas
Composed in one of the Catholic
Cantons
, in the "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" (1820), which
refer to Einsiedlen.—Ed.
Rude fountains built and covered with sheds for the
accommodation of the pilgrims, in their ascent of the mountain.—W. W.
1793.
Compare Coleridge's
Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of
Chamouni
:
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
...
... Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?
...
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
...
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly;
Compare also Shelley's
Mont Blanc
.—Ed.
See
on Coleridge's
Hymn before Sun-rise
on previous
page.—Ed.
An insect so called, which emits a short, melancholy cry,
heard, at the close of the summer evenings, on the banks of the
Loire.—W. W, 1793.
The duties upon many parts of the French rivers were so
exorbitant that the poorer people, deprived of the benefit of water
carriage, were obliged to transport their goods by land.—W. W. 1793.
In the edition of 1815, the 28 lines, from "No sad
vacuities" to "a wanderer came there," are entitled "Pleasures of the
Pedestrian."—Ed.
See
Ode on the Pleasure arising from Vicissitude
, l.
54:
The meanest floweret of the vale,
The simplest note that swells the gale.
Ed.
In the editions of 1820 to 1832 the four lines
beginning "The Grison gypsey," etc., precede those beginning "The mind
condemned," etc.—Ed.
In the edition of 1793 Wordsworth put the following
note:
"Red came the river down, and loud, and oft
The angry Spirit of the water shriek'd."
(
Home's
Douglas
.)
See Act III. l. 86; or p. 32 in the edition of 1757.—Ed.