Ode to Duty

The Poem

"Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eò perductus, ut non tantum rectè facere possim, sed nisi rectè facere non possim." ^A

[This Ode is on the model of Gray's Ode to Adversity, which is copied from Horace's Ode to Fortune. Many and many a time have I been twitted by my wife and sister for having forgotten this dedication of myself to the stern law-giver. Transgressor indeed I have been from hour to hour, from day to day: I would fain hope, however, not more flagrantly, or in a worse way than most of my tuneful brethren. But these last words are in a wrong strain. We should be rigorous to ourselves, and forbearing, if not indulgent, to others; and, if we make comparison at all, it ought to be with those who have morally excelled us.—I. F.]

In pencil on the MS.,

"But is not the first stanza of Gray's from a chorus of Æschylus? And is not Horace's Ode also modelled on the Greek?"

This poem was placed by Wordsworth among his "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.

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Footnote A:   This motto was added in the edition of 1837.—Ed.
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Footnote B:   Compare S. T. C. in The Friend (edition 1818, vol. iii. p. 62),

"Its instinct, its safety, its benefit, its glory is to love, to admire, to feel, and to labour."

Ed.
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Footnote C:  Compare Churchill's Gotham, i. 49:

'An Englishman in chartered freedom born.'

Ed.
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Footnote D:   Compare in Sartor Resartus,

"Happy he for whom a kind of heavenly sun brightens it [Necessity] into a ring of Duty, and plays round it with beautiful prismatic refractions."

Ed.
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Footnote E:   Compare Persius, Satura, ii. l. 38:

'Quidquic calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.'

And Ben Jonson, in The Sad Shepherd, act I. scene i. ll. 8, 9:

'And where she went, the flowers took thickest root,
As she had sow'd them with her odorous foot.'

Also, a similar reference to Aphrodite in Hesiod, Theogony, vv. 192 seq.—Ed.
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Footnote F:   Compare S. T. C. in The Friend (edition 1818), vol. iii. p. 64.—Ed.
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Footnote G:   In the original MS. sent to the printer, I find that this stanza was transcribed by Coleridge.—Ed.
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Note:   Mr. J. R. Tutin has supplied me with the text of a proof copy of the sheets of the edition of 1807, which was cancelled by Wordsworth, in which the following stanzas take the place of the first four of that edition:

'There are who tread a blameless way
In purity, and love, and truth,
Though resting on no better stay
Than on the genial sense of youth:
Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
Who do the right, and know it not:
May joy be theirs while life shall last
And may a genial sense remain, when youth is past.

Serene would be our days and bright;
And happy would our nature be;
If Love were an unerring light;
And Joy its own security.
And bless'd are they who in the main,
This creed, even now, do entertain,
Do in this spirit live; yet know
That Man hath other hopes; strength which elsewhere must grow.

I, loving freedom, and untried;
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust;
Resolv'd that nothing e'er should press
Upon my present happiness,
I shov'd unwelcome tasks away:
But henceforth I would serve; and strictly if I may.

O Power of Duty! sent from God
To enforce on earth his high behest,
And keep us faithful to the road
Which conscience hath pronounc'd the best:
Thou, who art Victory and Law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free,
From Strife, and from Despair, a glorious Ministry!^G'

Ed.

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To a Sky-Lark

The Poem

[Rydal Mount, 1825.^A—I. F.]

In pencil opposite,

"Where there are no skylarks; but the poet is everywhere."

In the edition of 1807 this is No. 2 of the "Poems, composed during a Tour, chiefly on foot."^B In 1815 it became one of the "Poems of the Fancy."—Ed.

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Variant 5:   This and the previous stanza were omitted in the edition of 1827, but restored in that of 1832.
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Footnote A:  So it is printed in the Prose Works of Wordsworth (1876); but the date was 1805.—Ed.
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Footnote B:  In a MS. copy this series is called "Poems composed 'for amusement' during a Tour, chiefly on foot."—Ed.
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Note:   Compare this poem with Shelley's Skylark, and with Wordsworth's poem, on the same subject, written in the year 1825, and the last five stanzas of his Morning Exercise written in 1827; also with William Watson's First Skylark of Spring, 1895.—Ed.

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Fidelity

The Poem

[The young man whose death gave occasion to this poem was named Charles Gough, and had come early in the spring to Patterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere he slipped from a steep part of the rock where the ice was not thawed, and perished. His body was discovered as described in this poem. Walter Scott heard of the accident, and both he and I, without either of us knowing that the other had taken up the subject, each wrote a poem in admiration of the dog's fidelity. His contains a most beautiful stanza:

"How long did'st thou think that his silence was slumber!
When the wind waved his garment how oft did'st thou start!"

I will add that the sentiment in the last four lines of the last stanza of my verses was uttered by a shepherd with such exactness, that a traveller, who afterwards reported his account in print, was induced to question the man whether he had read them, which he had not.—I. F.]

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

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Footnote A:   Tarn is a small Mere or Lake mostly high up in the mountains,—W. W.
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Footnote B:   Compare the reference to Helvellyn, and its "deep coves, shaped by skeleton arms," in the Musings near Aquapendente (1837). Wordsworth here describes Red Tarn, under Helvellyn, to the east; but Charles Gough was killed on the Kepplecove side of Swirell Edge, and not at Red Tarn. Bishop Watson of Llandaff, writing to Hayley (see Anecdotes of the Life of Bishop Watson, p. 440), writes about Charles Gouche (evidently Gough). He had been lodging at "the Cherry Inn," near Wytheburn, sometime before his death.—Ed.
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Footnote C:   Compare The Excursion, book iv. ll. 1185-94.—Ed.
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Note:   Thomas Wilkinson—referred to in the notes to The Solitary Reaper, vol. ii. pp. 399, 400, and the verses To the Spade of a Friend, in vol. iv.—alludes to this incident at some length in his poem, Emont Vale. Wilkinson attended the funeral of young Gough, and writes of the incident with feeling, but without inspiration. Gough perished early in April, and his body was not found till July 22nd, 1805. A reference to his fate will be found in Lockhart's Life of Scott (vol. ii. p. 274); also in a letter of Mr. Luff of Patterdale, to his wife, July 23rd, 1805. Henry Crabb Robinson records (see his Diary, Reminiscences, etc., vol. ii. p. 25) a conversation with Wordsworth, in which he said of this poem, that "he purposely made the narrative as prosaic as possible, in order that no discredit might be thrown on the truth of the incident."—Ed.

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Incident characteristic of a Favourite Dog^A

Composed 1805.—Published 1807

The Poem

[This dog I knew well. It belonged to Mrs. Wordsworth's brother, Mr. Thomas Hutchinson, who then lived at Sockburn-on-the-Tees, a beautiful retired situation, where I used to visit him and his sisters before my marriage. My sister and I spent many months there after my return from Germany in 1799— I. F.]

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

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Footnote A:   In 1807 and 1815 the title was Incident, Characteristic of a favourite Dog, which belonged to a Friend of the Author.—Ed.
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Tribute to the Memory of the same Dog

The Poem

[Was written at the same time, 1805. The Dog Music died, aged and blind, by falling into a draw-well at Gallow] Hill, to the great grief of the family of the Hutchinsons, who, as has been before mentioned, had removed to that place from Sockburn.—I. F.]

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

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To the Daisy (4)

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Variant 4:   In the edition of 1827 and subsequent ones, Wordsworth here inserted a footnote, asking the reader to refer to No. VI. of the "Poems on the Naming of Places," beginning "When, to the attractions of the busy world," p. 66. His note of 1837 refers also to the poem which there precedes the present one, viz. the Elegiac Stanzas.—Ed.
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