"Three years she grew in sun and shower"

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

The Poem


[1799. Composed in the Hartz Forest.—I. F.]


One of the "Poems of the Imagination." It has no title in any edition, but from 1820 to 1836 the second page occupied by the poem is headed "Lucy." In the editions of 1836 to 1843 it is called "Lucy" in the list of contents.—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
Three years she grew in sun and shower,
Then Nature said, "A lovelier flower
On earth was never sown;
This Child I to myself will take;
She shall be mine, and I will make
A Lady of my own.

"Myself will to my darling be
Both law and impulse: and with me
The Girl, in rock and plain,
In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,
Shall feel an overseeing power
To kindle or restrain.

"She shall be sportive as the fawn
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs;
And her's shall be the breathing balm,
And her's the silence and the calm
Of mute insensate things.

"The floating clouds their state shall lend
To her; for her the willow bend;
Nor shall she fail to see
Even in the motions of the Storm
Grace that shall mould the Maiden's form
By silent sympathy.

"The stars of midnight shall be dear
To her; and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty born of murmuring sound
Shall pass into her face.

"And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height,
Her virgin bosom swell;
Such thoughts to Lucy I will give
While she and I together live
Here in this happy dell."

Thus Nature spake—The work was done—
How soon my Lucy's race was run!
She died, and left to me
This heath, this calm, and quiet scene;
The memory of what has been,
And never more will be.



Contents







1
















2































A














B



5





10





15





20





25




30





35





40





Variant 1:
 
1800
Her Teacher I myself will be, She is my darling;— ...
 MS. 1801, and the edition of 1802.
The edition of 1805 returns to the text of 1800.

return



Variant 2:
  A reading—printed in the edition of 1800, but replaced in its list of
errata
by that given in the text—may be quoted here,
A beauty that shall mould her form ... 1800
return





Footnote A:
 
Compare Dryden's Indian Emperor, iv. 3.—Ed.

return to footnote mark



Footnote B:
 
On Oct 9, 1800, S. T. Coleridge, in writing to Sir Humphry Davy of his own Christabel, said,
"I would rather have written Ruth, and Nature's Lady, than a million such poems."
This poem was printed in The Morning Post, March 2nd, 1801.—Ed.

return



1799 Contents
Main Contents



"A slumber did my spirit seal"

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

[Written in Germany.—I. F.]


Included among the "Poems of the Imagination."A—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
A slumber did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.



Contents







B




5





Footnote A:
 
It was one of the "Lucy" Poems. In his instructions to the printer in 1807, Wordsworth told him to insert "I travelled among unknown men" after "A slumber did my spirit seal."—Ed.

return to footnote mark



Footnote B:
 
Compare Suckling's Fragmenta Aurea (The Tragedy of Brennoralt), p. 170, edition 1658.
Heavens! shall this fresh ornament of the world,
These precious love-lines, pass with other common things,
Amongst the wastes of time? What pity 'twere.
Ed.

return



1799 Contents
Main Contents



Address to the Scholars of the Village School of ——

Composed 1798 or 1799.—Published 1842

[Composed at Goslar, in Germany.—I. F.]


First published in "Poems, chiefly of Early and Late Years," and included, in 1845, among the "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."—Ed.





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
I come, ye little noisy Crew,
Not long your pastime to prevent;
I heard the blessing which to you
Our common Friend and Father sent.
I kissed his cheek before he died;
And when his breath was fled,
I raised, while kneeling by his side,
His hand:—it dropped like lead.
Your hands, dear Little-ones, do all
That can be done, will never fall
Like his till they are dead.
By night or day blow foul or fair,
Ne'er will the best of all your train
Play with the locks of his white hair,
Or stand between his knees again.

Here did he sit confined for hours;
But he could see the woods and plains,
Could hear the wind and mark the showers
Come streaming down the streaming panes.
Now stretched beneath his grass-green mound
He rests a prisoner of the ground.
He loved the breathing air,
He loved the sun, but if it rise
Or set, to him where now he lies,
Brings not a moment's care.

Alas! what idle words; but take
The Dirge which for our Master's sake
And yours, love prompted me to make.
The rhymes so homely in attire
With learned ears may ill agree,
But chanted by your Orphan Quire
Will make a touching melody.


Dirge

Mourn, Shepherd, near thy old grey stone;
Thou Angler, by the silent flood;
And mourn when thou art all alone,
Thou Woodman, in the distant wood!

Thou one blind Sailor, rich in joy
Though blind, thy tunes in sadness hum;
And mourn, thou poor half-witted Boy!
Born deaf, and living deaf and dumb.

Thou drooping sick Man, bless the Guide
Who checked or turned thy headstrong youth,
As he before had sanctified
Thy infancy with heavenly truth.

Ye Striplings, light of heart and gay,
Bold settlers on some foreign shore,
Give, when your thoughts are turned this way,
A sigh to him whom we deplore.

For us who here in funeral strain
With one accord our voices raise,
Let sorrow overcharged with pain
Be lost in thankfulness and praise.

And when our hearts shall feel a sting
From ill we meet or good we miss,
May touches of his memory bring
Fond healing, like a mother's kiss.


By the Side of the Grave Some Years After

Long time his pulse hath ceased to beat;
But benefits, his gift, we trace—
Expressed in every eye we meet
Round this dear Vale, his native place.

To stately Hall and Cottage rude
Flowed from his life what still they hold,
Light pleasures, every day, renewed;
And blessings half a century old.

Oh true of heart, of spirit gay,
Thy faults, where not already gone
From memory, prolong their stay
For charity's sweet sake alone.

Such solace find we for our loss;
And what beyond this thought we crave
Comes in the promise from the Cross,
Shining upon thy happy grave.


Note
Contents



5




10




15





20




25





30








35





40






45





50





55








60






65





70



Note:
 
To this poem, when first published in the "Poems of Early and Late Years" (1842), Wordsworth appended the note,
"See, upon the subject of the three foregoing pieces, The Fountain [p. 91], etc. etc. in the fifth volume of the Author's Poems."
He thus connects it with the poems referring to Matthew in such a way that it may be said to belong to that series; and, while he assigned it to the year 1798, both in the edition of 1845, and in that of 1849-50, it is quite possible that it was written in 1799. "The village school" was the Grammar School of Hawkshead, where Wordsworth spent his boyhood; and the schoolmaster was the Rev. William Taylor, M. A., Emmanuel College, Cambridge, who was the third of the four masters who taught in it during Wordsworth's residence there. He was master from 1782 to 1786. Just before his death he sent for the upper boys of the school (amongst whom was Wordsworth), and calling them into his room, took leave of them with a solemn blessing. This farewell doubtless suggested the lines:
the blessing which to you
Our common Friend and Father sent.
Mr. Taylor was buried in Cartmell Churchyard. In The Prelude, Wordsworth writes of him as "an honoured teacher of my youth;" and there describes, with some minuteness, a visit to his grave. (See book x. l. 532.) It will be seen, however, from the Fenwick note to Matthew, that the Hawkshead Schoolmaster, like the Wanderer in The Excursion, was "made up of several both of his class and men of other occupations;" but of the four masters who taught Wordsworth at Hawkshead—Peake, Christian, Taylor, and Bowman—Taylor was far the ablest, the most interesting, and the most beloved by the boys, and it was doubtless the memory of this man that gave rise to the above poem, and the four which follow it. He was but thirty-two years old when he died, 12th June, 1786. This fact, taken in connection with line 14 of the Address, may illustrate the composite character of Matthew.—Ed.



1799 Contents
Main Contents



Matthew

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

The Poem


In the School of—is a tablet on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the names of the several persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite one of those names the Author wrote the following lines.—W. W. 1800.


[Such a tablet as is here spoken of continued to be preserved in Hawkshead School, though the inscriptions were not brought down to our time. This, and other poems connected with Matthew, would not gain by a literal detail of facts. Like the Wanderer in The Excursion this Schoolmaster was made up of several, both of his class and men of other occupations. I do not ask pardon for what there is of untruth in such verses, considered strictly as matters of fact. It is enough, if, being true and consistent in spirit, they move and teach in a manner not unworthy of a Poet's calling.—I. F.]A


In the editions of 1800 to 1820 this poem had no title except the note prefixed to it above, although in the Table of Contents it was called Lines written on a Tablet in a School. From 1820-32 "Matthew" is the page heading, though there is no title. In the editions of 1827 and 1832 it was named, in the Table of Contents, by its first line, "If Nature, for a favourite child." In 1837 it was entitled Matthew. It was included among the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." The Tablet, with the names of the Masters inscribed on it, still exists in Hawkshead School.—Ed.



The Poem


text variant footnote line number
If Nature, for a favourite child,
In thee hath tempered so her clay,
That every hour thy heart runs wild,
Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review
This tablet, that thus humbly rears
In such diversity of hue
Its history of two hundred years.

—When through this little wreck of fame,
Cipher and syllable! thine eye
Has travelled down to Matthew's name,
Pause with no common sympathy.

And; if a sleeping tear should wake,
Then be it neither checked nor stayed:
For Matthew a request I make
Which for himself he had not made.

Poor Matthew, all his frolics o'er,
Is silent as a standing pool;
Far from the chimney's merry roar,
And murmur of the village school.

The sighs which Matthew heaved were sighs
Of one tired out with fun and madness;
The tears which came to Matthew's eyes
Were tears of light, the dew of gladness.

Yet, sometimes, when the secret cup
Of still and serious thought went round,
It seemed as if he drank it up—
He felt with spirit so profound.

—Thou soul of God's best earthly mould!
Thou happy Soul! and can it be
That these two words of glittering gold
Are all that must remain of thee?



Contents



























1









2




5





10





15





20






25





30





Variant 1:
 
1815
... the oil ...
1800
return



Variant 2:
 
1800
... to thee?
 1805, and MS.
The text of 1815 returns to that of 1800.

return





Footnote A:
 
On the 27th March 1843, Wordsworth wrote to Professor Henry Reed of Philadelphia:
"The character of the schoolmaster, had like the Wanderer in The Excursion a solid foundation in fact and reality, but like him it was also in some degree a composition: I will not, and need not, call it an invention—it was no such thing."
Ed.

return to footnote mark



1799 Contents
Main Contents



The Two April Mornings

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

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





The Poem


text variant footnote line number
We walked along, while bright and red
Uprose the morning sun;
And Matthew stopped, he looked, and said,
"The will of God be done!"

A village schoolmaster was he,
With hair of glittering grey;
As blithe a man as you could see
On a spring holiday.

And on that morning, through the grass,
And by the steaming rills,
We travelled merrily, to pass
A day among the hills.

"Our work," said I, "was well begun,
Then, from thy breast what thought,
Beneath so beautiful a sun,
So sad a sigh has brought?"

A second time did Matthew stop;
And fixing still his eye
Upon the eastern mountain-top,
To me he made reply:

"Yon cloud with that long purple cleft
Brings fresh into my mind
A day like this which I have left
Full thirty years behind.

"And just above yon slope of corn
Such colours, and no other,
Were in the sky, that April morn,
Of this the very brother.

"With rod and line I sued the sport
Which that sweet season gave,
And, to the church-yard come, stopped short
Beside my daughter's grave.

"Nine summers had she scarcely seen,
The pride of all the vale;
And then she sang;—she would have been
A very nightingale.

"Six feet in earth my Emma lay;
And yet I loved her more,
For so it seemed, than till that day
I e'er had loved before.

"And, turning from her grave, I met,
Beside the church-yard yew,
A blooming Girl, whose hair was wet
With points of morning dew.

"A basket on her head she bare;
Her brow was smooth and white:
To see a child so very fair,
It was a pure delight!

"No fountain from its rocky cave
E'er tripped with foot so free;
She seemed as happy as a wave
That dances on the sea.

"There came from me a sigh of pain
Which I could ill confine;
I looked at her, and looked again:
And did not wish her mine!"

Matthew is in his grave, yet now,
Methinks, I see him stand,
As at that moment, with a bough
Of wilding in his hand.



Contents
































1


2
3




4





























5






























































A




5





10





15





20






25





30





35





40






45





50





55





60





Variant 1:
 
1802
And on that slope of springing corn
The self-same crimson hue
Fell from the sky that April morn,
The same which now I view!



1800
return



Variant 2:
 
1815
With rod and line my silent sport
I plied by Derwent's wave,
1800
return



Variant 3:
 
1837
And, coming to the church, ...
1800
return



Variant 4:
 
1800
... sung;— ...
 1802
The text of 1815 returns to that of 1800.

return



Variant 5:
 
1820
... his bough
 1800
return





Footnote A:
 
Compare the Winters Tale, act IV. scene iii. ll. 140-2:
'when you do dance, I wish you
A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do
Nothing but that, etc.'
Ed.

return to footnote mark



1799 Contents
Main Contents



The Fountain

A Conversation

Composed 1799.—Published 1800

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