[297] 1845.
Composed 1845.—Published 1845
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”—Ed.
[299] To William Penn, son of Admiral Sir W. Penn, a printer and Quaker, Charles II. granted lands in America, to which he gave the name of Pennsylvania.—Ed.
[300] Mr. Ellis Yarnall wrote to me, April 27, 1885: “The three last lines of the Sonnet To the Pennsylvanians, in regard to which you inquire, I think refer to what at the time Wordsworth wrote was known as the repudiation by Pennsylvania of her State debt. The language, however, is too strong, inasmuch as there was no repudiation. For a year or two the interest on the debt was unpaid, then payment was resumed. Members of Wordsworth’s family, or his near friends, held, I believe, some of the Pennsylvania bonds. They held also, as appears from the Memoirs, Mississippi bonds, and these were repudiated, or at least five million dollars of a certain class of Mississippi bonds. No such wrong-doing is chargeable to Pennsylvania. I remember the delight with which Professor Reed showed me the note on the fly-leaf at the end of the fifth volume of the edition of 1850—words written at his request, and the last sentences ever composed by the Poet for the press.”—Ed.
Composed 1845.—Published 1845
One of the “Sonnets dedicated to Liberty and Order.”—Ed.
The poems written in 1846 were six sonnets, the lines beginning, “I know an aged man constrained to dwell,” an “Evening Voluntary,” and other two short pieces.—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
This was placed among the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Poems.”—Ed.
[301] This sonnet refers to the poet’s grandchild, who died at Rome in the beginning of 1846. Wordsworth wrote of it thus to Professor Henry Reed, “Jan. 23, 1846. … Our daughter-in-law fell into bad health between three and four years ago. She went with her husband to Madeira, where they remained nearly a year; she was then advised to go to Italy. After a prolonged residence there, her six children (whom her husband returned to England for), went, at her earnest request, to that country, under their father’s guidance; then he was obliged, on account of his duty as a clergyman, to leave them. Four of the number resided with their mother at Rome, three of whom took a fever there, of which the youngest—as noble a boy of five years as ever was seen—died, being seized with convulsions when the fever was somewhat subdued.”—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”—Ed.
[302] 1850.
[303] 1850.
[304] This sonnet was suggested by the death of Wordsworth’s grandson commemorated in the previous sonnet, and by the alarming illness of his brother, the Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the expected death of a nephew (John Wordsworth), at Ambleside, the only son of his eldest brother, Richard.—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”—Ed.
[305] Lucca Giordano was born at Naples, in 1629. He was at first a disciple of Spagnaletto, next of Pietro da Cortona; but after coming under the influence of Correggio, he went to Venice, where Titian was his inspiring master. In his own work the influence of all of these predecessors may be traced, but chiefly that of Titian, whose style of colouring and composition he followed so closely that many of his works might be mistaken for those of his greatest master. The picture referred to in this sonnet was brought from Italy by the poet’s eldest son.—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
One of the “Evening Voluntaries.”—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”—Ed.
[306] The Illustrated London News—the pioneer of illustrated newspapers—was first issued on 14th May 1842. The painter and artist may differ from the poet, in the judgment here pronounced; but had Wordsworth known the degradation to which many newspapers would sink in this direction, his censure would have been more severe.—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
[307] Compare Tennyson’s Lines to J.S.—
Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”—Ed.
[308] So all the editions have it; but, as Principal Greenwood suggested to me, the true reading should be “in that one.”—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
One of the “Poems of Sentiment and Reflection.”—Ed.
[309] Hamlet, act III. scene i. l. 56.—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
One of the “Miscellaneous Poems.”—Ed.
Composed 1846.—Published 1850
Composed 1803-6.—Published 1807
[This was composed during my residence at Town-end, Grasmere. Two years at least passed between the writing of the four first stanzas and the remaining part. To the attentive and competent reader the whole sufficiently explains itself; but there may be no harm in adverting here to particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests. Nothing was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. I have said elsewhere—
But it was not so much from feelings of animal vivacity that my difficulty came as from a sense of the indomitableness of the Spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost to persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated, in something of the same way, to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this, I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times while going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. At that time I was afraid of such processes. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines—
To that dream-like vividness and splendour which invest objects of sight in childhood, every one, I believe, if he would look back, could bear testimony, and I need not dwell upon it here; but having in the poem regarded it as presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence, I think it right to protest against a conclusion, which has given pain to some good and pious persons, that I meant to inculcate such a belief. It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith, as more than an element in our instincts of immortality. But let us bear in mind that, though the idea is not advanced in revelation, there is nothing there to contradict it, and the fall of man presents an analogy in its favour. Accordingly, a pre-existent state has entered into the popular creeds of many nations; and, among all persons acquainted with classic literature, is known as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy. Archimedes said that he could move the world if he had a point whereon to rest his machine. Who has not felt the same aspirations as regards the world of his own mind?[310] Having to wield some of its elements when I was impelled to write this poem on the “Immortality of the Soul,” I took hold of the notion of pre-existence as having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorizing me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet.—I.F.]
This great Ode was first printed as the last poem in the second volume of the edition of 1807. At that date Wordsworth gave it the simple title Ode, prefixing to it the motto, “Paulò majora canamus.” In 1815, when he revised the poem throughout, he named it—in the characteristic manner of many of his titles—diffuse and yet precise, Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood; and he then prefixed to it the lines of his own earlier poem on the Rainbow (March 1802):—