WHO FANCIED WHAT A PRETTY SIGHT. Written at Grasmere, 1803. Published in Poems, 1807. Classified among Poems of the Fancy (No. XIV). Of this and 'I wandered lonely as a cloud' (p. 38 above) Wordsworth wrote to lady Beaumont, 21 May, 1807: 'I am sure that whoever is much pleased with either of these quiet and tender delineations must be fitted to walk through the recesses of my poetry with delight and will there recognise, at every turn, something or other in which and over which, it has that property and right which knowledge and love confer' (Memorials of Coleorton, II, 16). A somewhat similar subject, of which there is a record in Dorothy Wordsworth's journal for 24 April, 1802 (1, 113), prompted The Primrose of the Rock, written in 1831: A Rock there is whose homely front Yet there the glow-worms hang their lamps, And one coy Primrose to that Rock The vernal breeze invites. THE SOLITARY REAPER. No. Ix of the series classified as Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803, the tour described with admirable fulness and picturesqueness in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals, who (11, 118, 119) quotes the poem in connexion with their visit to Loch Voil, Perthshire, 13 Sept. 1803. It was suggested, however, as both she and Wordsworth point out, less by their immediate surroundings than by 'a beautiful sentence in Thomas Wilkinson's Tour in Scotland.' In this respect, it differs from the three companion poems in the same series, which were directly suggested by incidents of the journey, viz. To a Highland Girl (28 August), 9 T. W. Stepping Westward (11 Sept.), and The Matron of Jedborough (20 and 21 Sept.). It is, however, the most beautiful of them all, combining Wordsworth's simplicity and directness of language with the charm of imaginative phrase (see, e.g. ll. 15, 16) in a degree which he nowhere surpassed. Most of the poems of the series were composed after the events which they recall. The greater number were published in 1807. II. some shady haunt] An oasis in the desert. 16. the farthest Hebrides] The effect of this beautiful couplet may be compared with that of the opening lines of Andrew Marvell's Song of the Emigrants in Bermuda: Where the remote Bermudas ride In the ocean's bosom unespied, From a small boat that row'd along The listening winds received this song. 20. battles long ago] Wordsworth was thinking of the abundance of Scottish ballad-poetry dealing with past history, the plaintive spirit of which is rendered, e.g., by Burns' Lament for Culloden and in the refrain, 'The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away,' of Jane Elliott's Lament for Flodden. Wordsworth's lines, with their burden of memory, recall, perhaps unintentionally, passages in Ford's The Lover's Melancholy, IV, 2: Sigh out a lamentable tale of things Done long ago, and ill done; and iv, 3: Parthenophil is lost, and I would see him; A great while since, a long, long time ago. 32. This line was taken directly from Thomas Wilkinson's account of the song of a solitary reaper in Ayrshire, in his Tour to the British Mountains, which Wordsworth saw in MS. It was not published till 1824. YARROW UNVISITED. No. XIII of the same series, published in 1807. Wordsworth's refusal to visit Yarrow, 18 Sept. 1803, is recorded by Dorothy Wordsworth, Journals, II, 131-3, where the text of the poem is also given. Yarrow water rises among the hills which form the watershed between the Tweed and Clyde, and, flowing through the two lakes known as the Loch of the Lowes and St Mary's loch, joins Ettrick water two miles above Selkirk and enters the Tweed between Selkirk and Abbotsford. The Scottish ballad which inspired this beautiful poem was William Hamilton of Bangour's (d. 1754) The Braes of Yarrow: Busk ye, busk ye, my bonny, bonny Bride, Busk ye, busk ye, my winsome Marrow! I-4. The tour was begun on 14 August. The Wordsworths and Coleridge travelled into Scotland by way of Carlisle and Dumfries, entered the Clyde valley near Lanark on 20 August and arrived at Glasgow on the 22nd. From Glasgow they went to Loch Lomond and Loch Katrine. Coleridge left them on 29 August at Arrochar on Loch Long, and the two Wordsworths pursued their journey into the western Highlands as far as Ballachulish at the head of Loch Linnhe. Here they turned eastwards through Glencoe, and down Strath Tay as far as Dunkeld. From this point they made a digression westwards, and, after visiting Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond again, were at Stirling on 14 Sept. They slept at Falkirk on the 14th, Edinburgh on the 15th, Rosslyn on the 16th, visited Scott at Lasswade on the 17th, slept at Peebles, and on the 18th came down the Tweed valley from Peebles to Clovenfords near Galashiels. After another week, most of which was spent in Scott's company at Melrose, Jedburgh and Hawick, they returned to Grasmere on 25 Sept. It is worth notice that this tour was undertaken before Scott's Lady of the Lake had given the Scottish lakes their fame and popularity, in regions then rarely visited by English tourists. 6. Marrow] A friend or companion. The quotation is from Hamilton's ballad: see introductory note. 8. Braes] Hill-sides. 17. Gala water has its source in the Moorfoot hills, N.E. of Peebles, and enters the Tweed south of Galashiels, between Abbotsford and Melrose. Leader water rises in the Lammermuir hills and joins the Tweed below Melrose. 'Haughs' are flat pastures beside a river. 19. Dryborough] The abbey of Dryburgh in Berwickshire, famous as the burial-place of Scott and otherwise of great interest as preserving a large portion of its monastic buildings in addition to the remains of its church, is on the left bank of the Tweed between Melrose and Kelso. It was founded for Premonstratensian canons in 1150, the first occupants being a colony of canons from Alnwick abbey in Northumberland. The situation, hidden in trees on a 'haugh' above a ford of the river, which is here of considerable breadth, running among woods and cliffs of red sandstone and forming a bold curve round the promontory on which the abbey stands, is remarkable for its peaceful beauty. chiming Tweed] Not less beautiful than this is the famous passage in Lockhart's Life of Scott, ch. lxxxiii, describing sir Walter's death, twenty-nine years, all but a day, after Wordsworth's visit to Dryburgh (20 Sept. 1803): 'It was a beautiful day-so warm that every window was wide openand so perfectly still, that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes.' 20. lintwhites] Linnets. 21. Tiviot-dale] The Teviot rises on the borders of Roxburghshire and Dumfriesshire and, flowing past Hawick, joins the Tweed on its right bank, just above Kelso bridge. 33. holms] Flat meadows by water: cf. haughs,' 1. 17 above. 43. still St Mary's Lake] Described by Scott, Marmion, introd. to canto II: Oft in my mind such thoughts awake, Thou know'st it well,-nor fen, nor sedge, Marks where the water meets the land. Bears thwart the lake the scatter'd pine. The lake, 'among the soft and melancholy wildernesses where Yarrow creeps from her fountains' (Lockhart, Life of Scott, ch. xvi), takes its name from the ruined church of St Mary, 'Mary's Chapel of the Lowes,' which stands on the eastern side of the lake. Scott notes: 'In the winter, it is still frequented by flights of wild swans,' and proceeds to quote Wordsworth's lines from memory. SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT. Written at Grasmere, 1804. Published 1807. Classified among Poems of the Imagination (No. vIII). Wordsworth says: 'The germ of this poem was four lines composed as a part of the verses on the Highland Girl. Though beginning in this way, it was written from my heart, as is sufficiently obvious.' The poem appears to have reached its present form shortly after |