| 1815 |
|
—'Tis restless magic all; at once the bright vi
Breaks on the shade, the shade upon the light,
Fair Spirits are abroad; in sportive chase
Brushing with lucid wands the water's face,
While music stealing round the glimmering deeps
Charms the tall circle of th' enchanted steeps.
—As thro' th' astonished woods the notes ascend,
The mountain streams their rising song suspend;
Below Eve's listening Star, the sheep walk stills
It's drowsy tinklings on th' attentive hills;
The milkmaid stops her ballad, and her pail
Stays it's low murmur in th' unbreathing vale;
No night-duck clamours for his wilder'd mate,
Aw'd, while below the Genii hold their state.
—The pomp is fled, and mute the wondrous strains,
No wrack of all the pageant scene remains,
viiSo vanish those fair Shadows, human Joys,
But Death alone their vain regret destroys.
Unheeded Night has overcome the vales,
On the dark earth the baffl'd vision fails,
If peep between the clouds a star on high,
There turns for glad repose the weary eye;
The latest lingerer of the forest train,
The lone-black fir, forsakes the faded plain;
Last evening sight, the cottage smoke no more,
Lost in the deepen'd darkness, glimmers hoar;
High towering from the sullen dark-brown mere,
Like a black wall, the mountain steeps appear,
Thence red from different heights with restless gleam
Small cottage lights across the water stream,
Nought else of man or life remains behind
To call from other worlds the wilder'd mind,
Till pours the wakeful bird her solemn strains
viiiHeard by the night-calm of the watry plains.
—No purple prospects now the mind employ
Glowing in golden sunset tints of joy,
But o'er the sooth'd ...
|
Only in the edition of 1793. |
| 1836 |
|
The bird, with fading light who ceas'd to thread
Silent the hedge or steaming rivulet's bed,
The bird, who ceased, with fading light, to thread
|
1793
1815 |
| 1836 |
|
Salute with boding note the rising moon,
Frosting with hoary light the pearly ground,
And pouring deeper blue to Aether's bound;
Rejoic'd her solemn pomp of clouds to fold
In robes of azure, fleecy white, and gold,
While rose and poppy, as the glow-worm fades,
Checquer with paler red the thicket shades.
|
1793 |
The last two lines occur only in the edition of 1793.
And pleased her solemn pomp of clouds to fold
|
1815 |
| 1836 |
|
Now o'er the eastern hill, ...
See, o'er ...
|
1793
1815 |
| 1836 |
|
She lifts in silence up her lovely face;
|
1793 |
| 1815 |
|
... silvery ...
|
1793 |
| 1836 |
|
The deepest dell the mountain's breast displays,
... the mountain's front ...
|
1793
1820 |
| 1836 |
|
The scene is waken'd, yet its peace unbroke,
By silver'd wreaths of quiet charcoal smoke,
That, o'er the ruins of the fallen wood,
Steal down the hills, and spread along the flood.
|
1793 |
| 1836 |
|
All air is, as the sleeping water, still,
List'ning th' aëreal music of the hill,
Air listens, as the sleeping water still,
To catch the spiritual music of the hill,
|
1793
1832 |
| 1836 |
|
Soon follow'd by his hollow-parting oar,
And echo'd hoof approaching the far shore;
|
1793 |
| 1836 |
|
... the feeding ...
|
1793 |
| 1836 |
|
The tremulous sob of the complaining owl;
|
1793 |
These rude structures, to protect the flocks, are
frequent in this country: the traveller may recollect one in Withburne,
another upon Whinlatter.—W. W. 1793.
Not far from Broughton is a Druid monument, of which I
do not recollect that any tour descriptive of this country makes
mention. Perhaps this poem may fall into the hands of some curious
traveller, who may thank me for informing him, that up the Duddon, the
river which forms the aestuary at Broughton, may be found some of the
most romantic scenery of these mountains.—W. W. 1793.
This circle is at the top of Swinside, a glen about four miles from
Broughton. It consists of 50 stones, 90 yards in circumference; and is
on the fell, which is part of the range terminating in Black
Combe.—Ed.
The lily of the valley is found in great abundance in
the smaller islands of Winandermere.—W. W. 1793.
In the 1793 edition this line reads "Asleep on
Minden's charnel plain afar." The 'errata', list inserted in some copies
of that edition gives "Bunker's charnel hill."—Ed.
Sugh, a Scotch word, expressive, as Mr. Gilpin explains
it, of the sound of the motion of a stick through the air, or of the
wind passing through the trees. See Burns'
Cottar's Saturday
Night
.—W. W. 1793.
The line is in stanza ii., l. 1:
November chill blaws loud, wi' angry sugh
.
Ed.
This long passage occupies, in the edition of 1793,
the place of lines 297-314 in the final text given above.—Ed.
"So break those glittering shadows, human joys"
(
Young
).—W. W. 1793.
The line occurs 'Night V, The Complaint', l. 1042, or l. 27 from the
end.—Ed.
"Charming the night-calm with her powerful song."
A line of one of our older poets.—W. W. 1793.
This line I have been unable to discover, but see Webster and Dekker in
'Westward Hoe', iv. c.
"Charms with her excellent voice an awful silence through all this
building."
Ed.
See note to the "Juvenile Pieces" in the edition of 1836
(p. 1).—Ed.
It may not be irrelevant to mention that our late poet,
Robert Browning, besought me—both in conversation, and by letter—to
restore this "discarded" picture, in editing 'Dion'.—Ed.
These lines are only applicable to the middle part of that
lake.—W. W. 1793.
In the beginning of winter, these mountains, in the
moonlight nights, are covered with immense quantities of woodcocks;
which, in the dark nights, retire into the woods.—W. W. 1793.
The word 'intake' is local, and signifies a
mountain-inclosure.—W. W. 1793.
Gill is also, I believe, a term confined to this country.
Glen, gill, and dingle, have the same meaning.—W. W. 1793.
The spelling "Ghyll" is first used in the edition of 1820 in the text.
In the note to that edition it remains "gill". In 1827 the spelling in
the note was "ghyll."—Ed.
Compare Dr. John Brown:
Not a passing breeze
Sigh'd to the grove, which in the midnight air
Stood motionless, and in the peaceful floods
Inverted hung.
and see
A to page 31.—Ed.
This line was first inserted in the edition of 1845. In the
following line, the edition of 1793 has
Save that, atop, the subtle ...
Subsequent editions previous to 1845 have
Save that aloft ...
Ed.
The reader, who has made the tour of this country, will
recognize, in this description, the features which characterize the
lower waterfall in the gardens of Rydale.—W. W. 1793.
"Vivid rings of green."
Greenwood's Poem on Shooting.—W. W. 1793.
The title is 'A Poem written during a Shooting Excursion on the Moors'.
It was published by Cruttwell at Bath in 1787, 4to, pp. 25. The
quotation is from stanza xvi., l. 11.—Ed.
"Down the rough slope the pondrous waggon rings."
Beattie
.—W. W.
1793. See 'The Minstrel', stanza xxxix., l. 4.—Ed.
"Dolcemente feroce."
Tasso
.
In this description of the cock, I remembered a spirited one of
the same animal in the
L'Agriculture ou Les Géorgiques Françoises
, of
M. Rossuet.—W. W. 1793.
I am unable to trace this quotation.—Ed.
From Thomson: see Scott's
Critical Essays
.—W. W. 1793.
It is difficult to know to what Wordsworth here alludes, but compare
'The Seasons', "Summer," l. 1467.
and now a golden curve,
Gives one bright glance, then total disappears.
Ed.
See a description of an appearance of this kind in Clark's
Survey of the Lakes
, accompanied with vouchers of its veracity, that
may amuse the reader.—W. W. 1793.
The passage in Clark's folio volume,
A Survey of the Lakes
, etc.,
which suggested to Wordsworth the above lines in the
Evening Walk
, is
to be found in chapter i. of the second book, p. 55. It gives a weird
account of the appearance of horsemen being exercised in troops upon
"Southen-fell side, as seen on the 25th of June 1744 by William
Lancaster of Blakehills, and a farm servant, David Strichet:
"These visionary horsemen seemed to come from the lowest part of
Southen-fell, and became visible just at a place called Knott. They
then moved in regular troops along the side of the fell, till they
came opposite Blakehills, when they went over the mountain. Then they
described a kind of curvilinear path upon the side of the fell, and
both these first and last appearances were bounded by the top of the
mountain.
"Frequently the last, or last but one, in a troop would leave his
place, and gallop to the front, and then take the same pace with the
rest—a regular swift walk. Thus changes happened to every troop (for
many troops appeared) and oftener than once or twice, yet not at all
times alike.... Nor was this phenomenon seen at Blakehill only, it was
seen by every person at every cottage within the distance of a mile.
Neither was it confined to a momentary view, for from the time that
Strichet first observed it, the appearance must have lasted at least
two hours and a half, viz. from half past seven till the night coming
on prevented further view."
This interesting optical illusion—which suggests the wonderful island
in the Atlantic, seen from the isles of Aran near Galway, alluded to in
the
Chorographical description of West, or H-Ier-Connaught
, of R.
O'Flaherty—was caused by the peculiar angle of the light from the
setting sun, the reflection of the water of the Solway, and the
refraction of the vapour and clouds above the Solway. These aerial and
visionary horsemen were being exercised somewhere above the
Kirkcudbright shore. It was not the first time the phenomenon had been
seen within historic times, on the same fell-side, and at the same time
of year. Canon Rawnsley writes to me,
"I have an idea that the fact that it took place at midsummer eve
(June 27), the eve of the Feast of St. John, upon which occasion the
shepherds hereabout used to light bonfires on the hills (no doubt a
relic of the custom of the Beltane fires of old Norse days, perhaps of
earlier sun-worship festivals of British times), may have had
something to do with the naming of the mountain Blencathara of which
Southen-fell (or Shepherd's-fell, as the name implies) is part.
Blencathara, we are told, may mean the Hill of Demons, or the haunted
hill. My suggestion is that the old sun-worshippers, who met in
midsummer eve on Castrigg at the Druid circle or Donn-ring, saw just
the same phenomenon as Strichet and Lancaster saw upon Southen-fell,
and hence the name. Nay, perhaps the Druid circle was built where it
is, because it was well in view of the Demon Hill."
Ed.
This is a fact of which I have been an eye-witness.—W. W.
1793.
The quotation is from Collins'
The Passions
, l. 60.
Compare
Personal Talk
, l. 26.—Ed.
Alluding to this passage of Spenser:
... Her angel face
As the great eye of Heaven shined bright,
And made a sunshine in that shady place.
W. W. 1793.
This passage is in
The Fairy Queen
, book I. canto iii. stanza 4.—Ed.