P. 161. III. TO A BUTTERFLY. April 20, 1802 :-The Fenwick note gives 1801 as the date of this poem; but we know from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal that it was written on April 20, 1802. Dorothy Wordsworth speaks of it, apparently, as a 'conclusion' to the poem To a Butterfly, beginning, 'Stay near me,' etc. Cp. above, p. 115. P. 162. IV. A FAREWELL:- For Dove Cottage, the 'little Nook of mountain-ground,' and for Wordsworth's marriage with Mary Hutchinson, to which reference is made in this poem, cp. Introd. p. xliv. L. 22. Gowan:-Usually, as e.g. in Auld Lang Syne (and pu'd the gowans fine'), translated 'daisy,' but obviously not to be so translated here. Wordsworth almost certainly means the Globe-flower (Trollius Europaus), known in Scotland as the Lucken-gowan. See Jamieson's Scottish Dictionary, sub voc. Gowan, where any obstinate persuasion that gowan must mean daisy will be dispelled. Of Globe-flowers Robinson (English Flower-Garden) says: "They may be grown in beds or borders, or naturalised by ponds, streams, or in any wet place.' The corn-marigold, which might equally well or even more appropriately have been called 6 gowan' by Wordsworth (see Jamieson, loc. cit.), cannot here be meant, because it is too dark to be called 'saffron,' it does not grow in such a locality as Wordsworth describes, and it does not flower at the same time of year as the marsh-marigold. In writing this note, for Selected Poems of William Wordsworth, I was much indebted to my friend Mr. A. P. P. Keep, of the Inner Temple, Barrister-at-law. P. 163, l. 56. Of which I sang one song that will not die :-The Sparrow's Nest, see above, p. 116. P. 163. V. STANZAS. Written in my Pocket-copy of Thomson's Castle of Indolence :-The subject of the first four stanzas is Wordsworth himself, that of the next three, Coleridge. Matthew Arnold, misled, probably, by some careless quotations of De Quincey, as well as by a certain superficial appropriateness of some of the phrases in the earlier stanzas to the much-suffering Coleridge, has helped to popularise the error of supposing that Coleridge is the subject of the first four, Wordsworth of the next three stanzas. In a letter to Prof. Knight, however, he avows the correct belief. Cp. Knight's Wordsworth (Eversley Series), vol. ii. p. 310; Dowden's Wordsworth (Aldine), vol. i. p. 383. This poem, apart from its intrinsic beauty, is of importance as correcting a widespread illusion, that Wordsworth was of a somewhat dispassionate or phlegmatic temperament. Cp. the early part of Resolution and Independence, above, p. 328, and Dorothy Wordsworth's frequent references in her Journal to the poet's excitability in, and nervous prostration after, composition. The poem should be read in connection with The Castle of Indolence. Mr. Hutchinson well remarks (Athenæum, Dec. 15, 1894, quoted by Knight, loc. cit.) that the stanzas are meant to be read as though they were an afterthought of James Thomson's. Their author, therefore, has rightly imparted to them the curiously-blended flavour of "romantic melancholy and slippered mirth," of dreamlike vagueness and smiling hyperbole, which forms the distinctive mark of Thomson's poem.' Mr. Hutchinson and the late Canon Ainger have also pointed out the resemblance between Wordsworth's description of himself and Beattie's Minstrel. Prof. Knight adds: 'It is somewhat curious that Dorothy Wordsworth, writing to Miss Pollard from Forncett in 1793, quotes the line from The Minstrel, bk. 1. st. 22: “In truth he was a strange and wayward wight," and adds, "That verse of Beattie's Minstrel always reminds me of him, and indeed the whole character of Edwin resembles much what William was when I first knew him after leaving Halifax."' P. 165, 1. 58. Mr. Hutchinson has called my attention to the fact that the word 'deftly' is glossed in north-country dialect dictionaries as 'softly, gently.' The word 'lightly' would form a bridge between this and the more universal use of the word. P. 165. VI. LOUISA. After accompanying her on a Mountain Excursion:— There is room for doubt with regard to both the date of this poem and the identity of the person named. It was dated by Wordsworth 1805, but he told Miss Fenwick that the poem To a Young Lady (above, p. 368), which was published in Feb. 1802, was written at the same time' as this one. It seems probable that the two were written between Dec. 1800 and Oct. 1801, during which time we have no Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth. The date, however, is not likely to be fixed, unless we can fix the identity of the person named Louisa. The most plausible conjecture on the latter point is that of Mr. Hutchinson (in his reprint (1897) of the Poems in Two Volumes of 1807; cp., too, Mr. W. Hale White, Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS., p. 46), based on Wordsworth's practice of choosing pseudonyms metrically equivalent to the real name thus veiled. He thinks that Louisa stands for Joanna Hutchinson, who in 1801 was twenty-one years of age. Prof. Knight thinks that Dorothy Wordsworth is meant, Mr. Ernest Coleridge, Mary Hutchinson, afterwards the poet's wife. L. 12. I follow Mr. Hutchinson's example in printing this stanza in the text, though for some strange and unexplained reason, it was omitted in ed. 1845 and subsequent editions. P. 167. IX. 1799:-So dated by Wordsworth, but perhaps not written The first till after the publication, in 1800, of the other Lucy poems. notice that we have of this poem is in the printer's copy of the 1802 ed. of Lyrical Ballads, from which edition, however, it was omitted, apparently by accident. It was first published in 1807. Cp. A description of the Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS. in the possession of Mr. T. Norton Longman, by W. Hale White, p. 45. P. 168. XI. To :-Prompted by the undue importance attached to personal beauty by some dear friends of mine.—(I. F.) 'No doubt addressed to the poet's daughter Dora. See The Longest Day, stanza xvi.' Mr. Hutchinson. Cp. above, p. 137. P. 169, 1. 20. To draw, out of the object of his eyes':-Prof. Knight refers to Lyly's Endymion, v. 3: To have him in the object of mine eyes. But Wordsworth is probably quoting here and two lines below from some source at present unknown. The common juxtaposition of 'object' and 'eye' might be illustrated by many quotations from Shakespeare: cp. e.g. Midsummer's Night's Dream, iv. i. 175 : The object and the pleasure of mine eye P. 169. XII. THE FORSAKEN. Published 1842:-This was an overflow, as Wordsworth tells us in the Fenwick note, from The Affliction of Margaret For the date see note to that poem below, p. 506. P. 171. XIV. A COMPLAINT :-Written at Town-End, Grasmere. Suggested by a change in the manner of a friend.-I. F. The friend was doubtless Coleridge, who returned from Malta in 1806. This was the period when the old complete union between Coleridge and Wordsworth became subjected to many slight and some grave shocks, and passed into a friendship, always deep and sincere, as the friendship of two men of such high ideals could not fail to remain, but shadowed by much trouble and anxiety. The best account of the relations between Wordsworth and Coleridge is given in the Life of Coleridge by the late Mr. Dykes Campbell. Coleridge's MS. notebooks (cp. the extracts printed by Mr. E. H. Coleridge under the title Anima Poeta, pp. 131, 169, quoted by Mr. Hutchinson in Poems in Two Volumes, 11. 217), Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals, and the recently published letters of D. W. to Mrs. Clarkson (Athenæum, 1904, Jan. etc.) are the principal sources of our information on the subject. P. 171. XV. To -:-Mrs. Wordsworth.-I. F. P. 172. XVI. Published 1845:-The date of composition is unknown; but it seems probable that the poem was suggested by the preceding one, and in particular by the second stanza, excised in the ed. of 1845, which ran as follows: Such if thou wert in all men's view, A universal show, What would my Fancy have to do, My Feelings to bestow? P. 172. XVII., 1. 1. How rich that forehead's calm expanse :-Suggested by a print at Coleorton Hall.-I. F. L. 8. An Angel from his station:-Wordsworth obviously alludes to Dryden's line in Alexander's Feast: She drew an angel down. P. 173. XIX. To -:-To Mrs. Wordsworth.-I. F. L. 8. 'Sober certainties':-Cp. Comus, 1. 263, 'Such sober certainty of waking bliss.' 6 P. 175. XX. LAMENT OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS on the Eve of a New Year, 1. 66. From her sunk eyes a stagnant tear' is taken, with some loss, from a discarded poem, The Convict, in which occurred, when he was discovered lying in the cell, these lines: But now he upraises the deep-sunken eye, The motion unsettles a tear; The silence of sorrow it seems to supply And asks of me-why I am here.-I. F. The Convict is given below, vol. iii. p. 419. P. 175. XXI. THE COMPLAINT of a Forsaken Indian Woman. Hazlitt, in My First Acquaintance with Poets, says :-'. . . Coleridge read aloud, with a sonorous and musical voice, the ballad of Betty Foy. I was not critically or sceptically inclined. I saw touches of truth, and nature, and took the rest for granted. But in The Thorn, The Mad Mother, and The Complaint of a poor Indian Woman, I felt that deeper passion and pathos, which have since been acknowledged as the characteristics of the author; and the sense of a new style and a new spirit in poetry came over me. It had to me something of the effect that arises from the turning up of the fresh soil, or the first welcome breath of spring.' The Mad Mother was the earlier title of the poem Her Eyes are Wild, above, p. 230. For The Thorn, see above, p. 332. P. 181. XXIII. REPENTANCE. A Pastoral Ballad, 1. 28. Prof. Knight quotes from Wordsworth's MSS. several variations from the published text of this poem: among them the following, which avoids the somewhat artificial phrase 'if night had been sparing of sleep': When my sick, crazy body had lain without sleep, :-This was taken P. 181. XXIV. THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET from the case of a poor widow who lived in the town of Penrith.—I. F. P. 183. Published 1807:-Dated by Wordsworth 1804: but in the MS. printer's copy for the ed. of 1807, after the title The Affliction of Mary (sic) -of- is the note in brackets: Written for the Lyrical Ballads.' Then follow some prefatory verses, which were not published (cp. A Description of the Wordsworth and Coleridge MSS., etc., p. 63). From these facts Mr. Hutchinson seems to be justified in dating this poem some years earlier' than 1804. The inference applies also to The Forsaken, above, p. 169. 6 P. 186. MATERNAL GRIEF. Published 1842 :-Written probably about 1810, being, as the Fenwick note tells us, 'in part an overflow from the Solitary's description of his own and his wife's feelings upon the decease of their children.' Cp. The Excursion, bk. 111. P. 186. XXVII. THE SAILOR'S MOTHER This poem, written about the same time as Alice Fell, The Emigrant Mother, and Beggars, represents Wordsworth at the extreme of his theory of poetic realism, as the Fenwick note indicates: 'I met this woman near the Wishing-gate, on the high road that then led from Grasmere to Ambleside. Her appearance was exactly as here described, and such was her account, nearly to the letter.' Mr. Hutchinson (Poems in Two Volumes, 1. 171) calls stanzas iii. and iv. ‘a reductio ad absurdum of the fallacies propounded by Wordsworth in the famous Preface to the Lyrical Ballads of 1800.' Ll. 14-16 originally stood : With the first word I had to spare I said to her, 'Beneath your cloak What's that which on your arm you bear?' Ll. 19-21 were restored in ed. 1832 to their present, and original, form at the instigation of Barron Field (who became Wordsworth's friend through having been in the India Office with Charles Lamb, and compiled memoirs of Wordsworth which were never published). In promising the restoration, Wordsworth wrote: I suppose I had objected to the first line, which, it must be allowed, is rather flat.'-Knight, Life, III. (xi.) 152. In ed. 1820 he had substituted: I had a Son-the waves might roar, He feared them not, a Sailor gay! But he will cross the waves [deep, ed 1827] no more. Ll. 23-24 are the final form of the following original : And I have been as far as Hull, to see What clothes he might have left, or other property. P. 187. XXVIII. THE CHILDLESS FATHER, 1. 12. One Child-Prof. Knight notes that in the list of errata in ed. 1820'one' is corrected to 'a'; 'but the text remained " one child" in all subsequent editions.' This was probably an oversight. P. 189. XXIX. THE EMIGRANT MOTHER, 11. 55-64. This stanza originally stood as follows: 'Tis gone-forgotten-let me do I can remember them, I see The smiles, worth all the world to me. |