XLVII AT FURNESS ABBEY HEME, where, of havoc tired and rash undoing, Man left this Structure to become Time's prey, A soothing spirit follows in the way That Nature takes, her counter-work pursuing. Fall to prevent or beautify decay; And, on the mouldered walls, how bright, how gay, Gleams on the grass-crowned top of yon tall Tower, Where, Cavendish, thine seems nothing but a name ! W XLVIII AT FURNESS ABBEY ELL have yon Railway Labourers to THIS ground Withdrawn for noontide rest. They sit, they walk Among the Ruins, but no idle talk Is heard; to grave demeanour all are bound; That wide-spanned arch, wondering how it was raised, While thus these simple-hearted men are moved? June 21, 1845 NOTES POEMS WRITTEN IN YOUTH P. 1. I. EXTRACT. From the Conclusion of a Poem composed in anticipation of leaving School:-'I wrote, while yet a schoolboy, a long poem running upon my own adventures and the scenery of the county in which I was brought up. The only part of that poem which has been preserved is the conclusion of it, which stands at the beginning of my collected poems.' Autobiographical Memoranda in the Memoirs of W. W., by Christopher Wordsworth, vol. i. p. 12. The poem of which it [the Extract] was the conclusion, was of many hundred lines, and contained thoughts and images, most of which have been dispersed through my other writings.'— I. F. Cp. The Prelude, viii., 468 foll. 6 P. 2. II. WRITTEN IN VERY EARLY YOUTH :-Dated 1786 by W. in ed. 1837. Published originally in The Morning Post, Feb. 13, 1802. From 1807 to 1843 included among Miscellaneous Sonnets. P. 2. III. AN EVENING WALK. Addressed to a Young Lady:-The poet's sister Dorothy. For the original form of this poem cp. vol. iii. p. 450. L. 9. In ed. 1793, 1. 9 ran: Where, bosom'd deep, the shy Winander peeps. In 1827, partly for euphony, partly no doubt to avoid the strained use of 'bosom'd': Where, deep embosom'd, shy Winander peeps. The final text (1836) follows the severer style characteristic of Wordsworth. P. 3, 1. 32. The following lines, which appeared only in ed. 1793, are a good illustration of the faults which Wordsworth grew out of, and at the same time of his characteristic realism: While, Memory at my side, I wander here, Starts at the simplest sight th' unbidden tear, A spot, that angles at the riv'let's feet, The ray the cot of morning trav'ling nigh, And sail that glides the well-known alders by. L. 48. Still-twinkling:-i.e. twinkling continually. Cp. the use of 'still' in The Prelude, 1. 455. L. 54. I have added a comma after 'ghyll,' because I believe that 11. 55, 56, which were added to the poem in ed. 1820, refer entirely to what follows. It is the suddenness of the appearance of the obscure retreat' which seems like the effect of enchantment.' P. 4, 1. 73. Alluding to Horace's well-known lyric 0 fons Bandusice (Od. II. 13.). Wordsworth wrote Blandusia, a reading of the name with some slight authority, and found in a few printed edd. of Horace. L. 85. Ll. 70-85 were added in ed. 1820. P. 5, l. 127. Ll. 98-127 represent only twelve lines (97-108) in the original ed.; the passage was entirely rewritten for ed. 1820. L. 133. The poem referred to is: A poem written during a shooting excursion on the moors: by the Rev. William Greenwood, Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, and Rector of Bignor, in Sussex, MDCCLXXXVII. p. 18: ... the broom In scattered plots by vivid rings of green Encircled... L. 135. Down the rough slope the pondrous waggon rings.' Beattie.-W. 1793.—The Minstrel, Bk. 1. stanza 39. L. 141. Blasted:-Wordsworth italicised this word presumably because it was not in his day familiarly used in this sense. The earliest occurrence of it noted in N. E. D. is in 1758, Borlase's Nat. Hist. Cornwall, xv. § i. 161. P. 6, l. 170. I.e. A bar divides the sun's orb as a bar might divide an ægis, like the shield of ægis-bearing Zeus. L. 175. Prospect all on fire :-This phrase, hitherto untraced, is from a forgotten poem called Sunday Thoughts, by Moses Browne. Wordsworth took it no doubt from Scott's Critical Essays (pp. 349 and 351, where Scott highly praises the phrase itself). The passage quoted by Scott runs: Look how the rapid journeyer seems to bait His slackening steeds, and loos'd to evening sports That kindle on opposing hills the blaze Of glittering turrets and illumined domes, For Scott, see next note. P. 7, 1. 191. The Seasons:- Summer,' ll. 1627-29 (Aldine edition, 1862): : Now half-immers'd; and now a golden curve Gives one bright glance, then total disappears. In the note of 1793, Wordsworth added, 'See Scott's Critical Essays.' The reference is to the Critical Essays (pp. 346-48) of John Scott of Amwell, the Quaker poet (1730-1783). As the book is very rare, and so little known, that Prof. Knight apparently mistook Wordsworth's reference for one to Sir Walter Scott (his only note is, 'It is difficult to know to what Wordsworth here alludes '), I append the passage in question, The which is very characteristic of the volume in which it occurs. volume contains nine essays, on nine poetical works, viz.—Denham's Cooper's Hill, Milton's Lycidas, Pope's Windsor Forest, Dyer's Grongar Hill and Ruins of Rome, Collins' Oriental Eclogues, Gray's Churchyard Elegy, Goldsmith's Deserted Village, Thomson's Seasons. The author's whole conception of poetry is as tame as anything in the eighteenth century. What attracted Wordsworth was no doubt his sensible, if somewhat pedantic, objection to meaningless 'poetic diction.' Here is the passage. Our author's [Thomson's] description of the sun setting is another remarkable instance of his peculiar manner : Low walks the sun, and broadens by degrees, Just o'er the verge of day. The shifting clouds In all their pomp attend his setting throne. 66 The passage is truly poetical, but very incorrect. The painting is strong, but careless; it is a group of beautiful, but inconsistent imagery. The "sun's walking" is an act that infers the supposition of an imaginary person; its 'broadening" is an act that can relate only to the real visible globe of fire; the mention of the "setting throne" again indicates a prosopopoeia, and the " dipping" of "the orb" again implies a reference to the natural object. This would have been a most masterly piece of composition if the verb "walks" had been exchanged for some other not incongruous to the verb "broaden"; if the "setting throne," the unmeaning phrase, "just o'er the verge of day," and the bombastick "immense smile of air," etc., had been all omitted; the gradual descent and enlargement of the sun, its immersion within the horizon, reduction to a curve and total disappearance (all fine, natural and picturesque circumstances), been regularly connected; and the romantick idea of "Phœbus's" chariot seeking the bowers of Amphitrite, been kept intirely (sic) distinct, and introduced last as an illustrative illusion.' L. 205. This and the next six lines took the place, in 1836, of the following four lines-an interesting instance of an improvement effected after many years: Lost gradual o'er the heights in pomp they go, Till, but the lonely beacon, all is fled, That tips with eve's last gleam his spiry head. The expression 'visionary horsemen' is used in the passage in Clarke's Survey referred to in Wordsworth's note. L. 207. James Clarke (not Clark), Survey, etc., p. 55. Part of the passage is quoted with other illustrative matter by Prof. Knight (Eversley Wordsworth, vol. i. p. 19). L. 215. This couplet, which originally ran : And, fronting the bright west in stronger lines, The oak its dark'ning boughs and foliage twines, was omitted in ed. 1815, but restored in its final form in 1820. In the Fenwick note Wordsworth says of it: "This is feebly and imperfectly expressed, but I recollect distinctly the very spot where this first struck me. It was on the way between Hawkshead and Ambleside, and gave me extreme pleasure. The moment was important in my poetical history; for I date from it my consciousness of the infinite variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed by the poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them; and I made a resolution to supply in some degree the deficiency. I could not have been at that time above fourteen years of age.' Ll. 216-221. A comparison of these lines, reached in 1836, with the text of 1793 (vol. iii. p. 455), well illustrates the importance of the 1836 revision and the progress in severity of Wordsworth's style. P. 8, 1. 231. This is a fact of which I have been an eye-witness.— W. (1793). Mantling here probably means 'covering'; but cp. Paradise Lost, vii. 439, and note below, p. 537. L. 235. The lily of the valley is found in great abundance in the smaller islands of Winandermere.-W. (1793). L. 237. Collins, Ode to the Passions, 1. 60. L. 249. The following lines occur only in ed. 1793: the inappropriate sentiment of the last two, and the typically 'poetic diction' of the expression rocking shades' when used for trees in connection with the 'sound' made by their rocking branches, sufficiently explain the excision : No ruder sound your desart haunts invades, Ll. 252-278 should be compared with the longer passage of ed. 1793 with its accumulation of horrors, inartistic perhaps, and often expressed in strained language, but very impressive in its vivid realism. The description was gradually pruned, in edd. 1820, 1827, 1836, 1845. L. 286. A passage of twenty lines followed here in ed. 1793 and was omitted in ed. 1820. After 1. 294 six lines stood in 1793, the last four of which were cancelled in 1815, the first two in 1827. P. 9, 1. 291. Alluding to this passage of Spenser Her angel face As the great eye of Heaven shined bright, W. (1793). |