III
IV
VARIANTS:
[328] 1820.
[329] 1820.
[330] 1832.
[331] 1820.
[332] 1820.
[333] 1820.
[334] 1820.
[335] 1820.
[336] 1820.
[337] 1820.
[338] 1837.
[339] 1820.
[340] 1820.
[341] 1820.
[342] 1820.
[343] 1837.
[344] 1820.
[345] 1820.
[346] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[DD] The title, in the first edition of 1820, was "Ode, composed upon an evening of extraordinary splendor and beauty." In the four-volume edition of that year it was "Evening Ode, composed upon an evening of extraordinary Splendor and Beauty." In a MS. copy I have found the following, "Composed during a sunset of transcendent Beauty, in the summer of 1817."—Ed.
[DE] There used to be fallow deer in the park at Rydal Hall. Compare The Triad (where the local allusions all refer to the Rydal district)—
and The Excursion, book ix. l. 563 (vol. v. p. 373).—Ed.
[DF] Compare Gray's Progress of Poesy, ll. 119, 120—
[DG] The multiplication of mountain-ridges, described at the commencement of the third Stanza of this Ode, as a kind of Jacob's Ladder, leading to Heaven, is produced either by watery vapours, or sunny haze;—in the present instance by the latter cause. Allusions to the Ode, entitled Intimations of Immortality, pervade the last Stanza of the foregoing Poem.—W. W. 1820.
The "hazy ridges" referred to in the text are probably those to the west, behind Silver How.—Ed.
[DH] In the lines "Wings at my shoulders seem to play," etc., I am under obligation to the exquisite picture by Mr. Alstone, now in America. It is pleasant to make this public acknowledgment to men of genius, whom I have the honour to rank among my friends.—W. W. 1820.
The phrase "men of genius" includes Haydon. The first part of this note of 1820, being one on Peter Bell, referring to Haydon's Bible picture of Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. (See note to Peter Bell, l. 979.)
The American painter was Mr. Washington Allston. Wordsworth sent him a MS. copy of the poem, transcribed "in gratitude for the pleasure he had received from the sight of Mr. Allston's pictures, in particular 'Jacob's Dream,'" and at the end of the MS. of his poem, Wordsworth wrote, "The Author does not know how far he was indebted to Mr. Allston for part of the 3rd stanza. The multiplication of ridges in a mountainous country, as Mr. A. has probably observed, arises from two causes, sunny or watery vapour—the former is here meant. When does Mr. A. return to England?" In a letter on "Wordsworth and Allston," in The Athenæum, Mr. J. Dykes Campbell refers to "something in the picture having given definite form to observations of natural phenomena the significance of which the poet had not immediately noted." "Wordsworth," he adds, "was a close and untiring rather than a quick or keen observer, and his mind was at all times stored with a wealth of notes which sometimes had to wait long before they could either be worked out or worked in. Sometimes—as in this instance, perhaps—they were revivified by the suggestions of some kindred observer who happened to anticipate the poet in giving them form."—See The Athenæum, August 7, 1894.—Ed.
[DI] Compare the reference in the Ode, Intimations of Immortality, ll. 178, 179, to—
With the exception of The Haunted Tree, and the lines entitled September 1819, all the poems composed during the year 1819 were sonnets. Four of the latter were published along with Peter Bell, in the first edition of that poem; and other twelve, along with The Waggoner, which was first published in the same year. One of the twelve refers to the Old Hall of Donnerdale, and belongs to the series of Sonnets on the River Duddon, where it will be found (No. XXVII.) It was first published, along with those referring to Rydal, in the volume of 1819, and probably detached from the rest of the series, because originally it had no particular reference to the Old Hall in the Duddon Valley; but was (as Wordsworth indicates in the third of the Fenwick notes to the Duddon) "taken from a tradition belonging to Rydal Hall, which once stood, as is believed, upon a rocky and woody hill on the right hand as you go from Rydal to Ambleside, and was deserted from the superstitious fear here described, and the present site fortunately chosen instead."—Ed.
This, and the two following sonnets, were first published in Blackwood's Magazine, vol. iv., January 1819, p. 471. They were reprinted in The Poetical Album, edited by Alaric Watts, in 1829 (Second Series, vol. i. pp. 332, 333) under the title, "The Caves of Yorkshire." The same volume of the Album contains (p. 43) the sonnet beginning—
In the 1819 edition of Peter Bell, p. 84, a note, prefatory to the four following sonnets, occurs to this effect: "The following Sonnets having lately appeared in Periodical Publications are here reprinted."—Ed.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[347] 1820.
[348] 1820.
FOOTNOTES:
[DJ] Wordsworth visited these caves with Edward Quillinan in 1821.—Ed.
[DK] Waters (as Mr. Westall informs us in the letterpress prefixed to his admirable views) are invariably found to flow through these caverns.—W. W. 1819.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Malham Cove is a noble amphitheatre of perpendicular limestone rock, lying in regular strata, the height being 300 feet in the centre. The Aire issues from the rock at the base of the cliff, a considerable stream. Possibly Westall's picture of Malham Cove suggested to Wordsworth the Giant's Causeway in Ireland, and its legend. They have the same columnar appearance; although the former is limestone, and the latter basalt.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[349] 1820.
[350] 1837.
FOOTNOTES:
[DL] Compare the Fenwick note to The Excursion.—Ed.
[DM] Compare the Fenwick note to The Excursion.—Ed.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
There are many legendary stories connected with the Yorkshire caves, particularly in the Giggleswick district; but I have been unable to trace any legend about the "local Deity" of Gordale. There is nothing in the letterpress of Westall's views, or in the "addenda" to West's Guide to the Lakes in Cumberland, about these legends. The chasm is a very remarkable cleft in the limestone rock, near Malham. Gray's description of Gordale, in his Journal (1796), may be referred to.—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[351] 1819.
[352] 1819.
[353] 1819.
[354] 1819.
[355] 1827.
[356] 1819.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
[Written in Rydal Woods, by the side of a torrent.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[357] 1827.
[358] 1827.
[359] 1840.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
[A projecting point of Loughrigg, nearly in front of Rydal Mount. Thence looking at it, you are struck with the boldness of its aspect; but walking under it, you admire the beauty of its details. It is vulgarly called Holme-scar, probably from the insulated pasture by the waterside below it.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Compare the sonnet No. XXVII. of the Duddon Series, beginning "Fallen, and diffused into a shapeless heap," as it was evidently written with reference to the old (traditional) Hall of Rydal. If an
stood in "the sinuous vale" of Rydal, there was no "neglect of hoar Antiquity."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[360] 1827.
[361] 1837.
[362] 1827.
Composed 1819.—Published 1819
[I observed this beautiful nest on the largest island of Rydal Water.—I. F.]
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
VARIANTS: