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

return



Variant 4:
 
1820
Here's a Fly, ...
1800
return



Variant 5:
 
1827
... this ...
 1800
return



Variant 6:
 
1837
... and not back to the wall,
1800
return



Variant 7:
 
1827
... and the South ...
 1800
return



Variant 8:
 
1845
See! his spindles ...
 1800
How his spindles ...
 1827
return



Variant 9:
 
1827
... no Friend ...
 1800
No brother has he, no companion, while I
MS.
return



Variant 10:
 
1837
... comes ...
 1800
return



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
return



Variant 2:
 
1837
Of public business ...
1800
return



Variant 3:
 
1820
... to some other place
The hardness of thy coward eye,
The falsehood of thy sallow face.


1800
return



Variant 4:
 
1820
Art thou a man of gallant pride,
 1800
return



Variant 5:
 
1837
Thy pin-point of a soul away!
 1800
That abject thing, thy soul, away!
 1815
return



Variant 6:
 
1837
... nor ...
1800
return



Variant 7:
 
1800
... self-sufficient ...
 1802
The edition of 1815 returns to the text of 1800.

return





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

return to footnote mark



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.

return





Note:
 
See
the Fenwick note
t
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





Variant 1:
 
1832
... I have known,
 1800
return



Variant 2:
 
1836
When she I lov'd, was strong and gay
And like a rose in June,
1800
return



Variant 3:
 
1836
... the ...
 1800
return



Variant 4:
 
1836
My horse trudg'd on, and we drew nigh
 1800
return



Variant 5:
 
1836
Towards the roof of Lucy's cot
The moon descended stilla.
1800
return



Variant 6:
 
1815
... the planet dropp'd.
1800
return





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.

return to footnote mark



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





Variant 1:
 
1800
A very few ...
 1802
The text of the edition of 1805 returns to that of 1800.

return



Variant 2:
 
The word "lived" was italicised in the edition of 1800 only.
return



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.
return



Variant 2:
 
1836
And thine is, too, the last green field
Which ...

1807
That ...
 1815
return





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.

return to footnote mark



1799 Contents
Main Contents