Wordsworth's marriage (see note on p. 125 above). To a Highland Girl contains the following lines: But, O fair Creature! in the light I bless thee with a human heart. The stanzas should be compared with Prelude, XIV, 266–75, in which, at the conclusion of lines addressed to his sister, Wordsworth pays a tribute to the influence of his wife (see 11. 35-44, p. 90 above). 22. The very pulse of the machine] The image is bold and not very graceful. What Wordsworth means is that he discerns the animating spirit which directs his wife in the common tasks of daily life. Such tasks, mechanical in themselves are ennobled by a conscious and contented obedience to duty, the 'stern Daughter of the Voice of God.' I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD. Wordsworth dated this poem, published in 1807 (without the second stanza) and classified afterwards among Poems of the Imagination (No. XII), as composed in 1804. His note is: 'Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The Daffodils grew and still grow on the margin of Ullswater, and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March, nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves.' Dorothy Wordsworth (Journals, 1, 106) shews that the idea of the stanzas must have taken root as early as 15 April, 1802, when she and her brother were walking along the left bank of Ullswater. 21. that inward eye] See note on Tintern Abbey, 47 (p. 110 above). Coleridge (Biog. Literaria, ed. Ashe, p. 221) thought that 11. 23, 24, following upon this description of the association of visual images with the memory, had an effect of bathos, and cited the passage as a case in which there was 'a disproportion of thought to the circumstance and occasion,' adding 'This, by-the-by, is a fault of which none but a man of genius is capable.' Wordsworth attributed the suggestion of ll. 21, 22, 'the two best lines' in the poem, to his wife. Written in 1805. ODE TO DUTY. Published 1807. Classified among Poems of Sentiment and Reflection (No. xx). 'This ode is on the model of Gray's Ode to Adversity, which is copied from Horace's Ode to Fortune' (i.e. Horace, Carm. I, xxxv). Wordsworth prefixed a Latin motto to the ode: 'Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eò perductus, ut non tantum rectè facere possim, sed nisi rectè facere non possim,' i.e. 'Good no longer of deliberate intent, but brought by the guidance of habit to such a point, that not only can I act rightly, but cannot act otherwise than rightly.' I. The opening directly recalls the first line of Gray's ode, which addresses Adversity as 'Daughter of Jove, relentless power.' Duty is the offspring of conscience, the voice of God speaking to man. Wordsworth (Excursion, IV, 226) speaks of the reverence due to conscience 'as God's most intimate presence in the soul.' 3. a light to guide] Cf. Ps. cxix, 105. The same psalm provides several parallels to the first stanza of this ode: cf., e.g., 11. 5, 6 with v. 107, and 1. 7 with vv. 113, 176. 19, 20. Love and joy are strengthened and purified by duty. Love leaves vain desires for steady and permanent objects: joy finds its security in its consciousness of right motive. 28. my trust] I.e. in my own direction. He has tried to do what is right and resist casual inclinations, but, depending upon his own counsel, has not always acted in harmony with duty. 33. no disturbance of my soul] Cf. Laodamia, 74, 75: the Gods approve The depth, and not the tumult, of the soul. 37. unchartered] Without the charter or privilege which duty confers. 38. chance-desires] The casual longings which tempt the soul to restlessness when in a condition of uncontrolled freedom. Devotion to duty (ll. 39, 40) controls the temptation to random fancies and gives the mind settled repose. 45-8. Outward nature and the solar system, in their unchanging obedience to law, preserve an eternal freshness and recuperative power which contrast with the wavering obedience of man. Cf. Ps. cxlviii, 6. 53. lowly wise] Wise with humility. The phrase is borrowed from Milton, P.L. VIII, 173. 55. The confidence of reason] The ultimate conviction of the blessedness of obedience to duty lies in the acquiescence of the human reason to her commands. Without this intellectual assent such obedience, if it were actually possible, would be purely mechanical, and consciousness of love and joy (11. 19, 20) would be absent. In The Happy Warrior, 27, reason is the law upon which Wordsworth's ideal character, a model of obedience to duty, relies: 'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends Upon that law as on the best of friends. COMPOSED BY THE SIDE OF GRASMERE LAKE. Wordsworth added the date 1806 to the title of this sonnet. It was published in 1819, and was afterwards classified among Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty (Part II, No. v), where it follows the sonnet 'High deeds, O Germans, are to come from you,' written in February, 1807. 8. incessant wars] 1806 was the year of the victory of Napoleon over Prussia at Jena, followed by his winter campaign against Russia. 9-11. Is it actually a reflection, or is it a vision of the fires in the centre of the earth? 12. Great Pan] The personification of Nature. Cf. the sonnet (1809) beginning O'er the wide earth, on mountain and on plain, A Godhead, like the universal PAN. See also Milton, P.L. iv, 266: 'Universal Pan.' the reeds] The nymph Syrinx, pursued by Pan, was changed into a reed, out of which he made his pipe, the musical instrument with which he is represented. Cf. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's poem: What was he doing, the great god Pan, WITH SHIPS THE SEA WAS SPRINKLED. Dated by Wordsworth 1806. Published 1807. Classified among Miscellaneous sonnets (1, xxxii), where it follows the kindred sonnet, 'Where lies the Land to which yon Ship must go?' The sonnet is analysed in a letter from Wordsworth to lady Beaumont, written at Coleorton, 21 May, 1807 (Memorials of Coleorton, II, 12 sqq.), in which he defines its point as the selection of a single object from a crowd of similar things, and instances Milton's Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest (Par. Lost, IV, 605, 606) as an example of the influence of such single objects in calling forth the poetic faculty. Robert Bridges' poem, A Passer-by, has a somewhat similar subject to this and its companion sonnet: Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, ODE. INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY FROM RECOLLECTIONS This famous ode, published in 1807, appears to have been begun in June, 1802, to judge from entries in Dorothy Wordsworth's journals (see, e.g., 17 June, 1, 132). Wordsworth, who dated it 1803-6, says: 'Two years at least passed between the writing of the four first stanzas and the remaining part.' In his preface to the poem, he touches upon the 'particular feelings or experiences of my own mind on which the structure of the poem partly rests'—his incredulity during childhood of death as a state applicable to my own being,' his confidence of 'the indomitableness of the Spirit within me,' his early conviction that visible things had no external existence but were projections from his own 'immaterial nature,' and the growth of the opposite spirit of materialism in his later life, which made him look back to the illusions of childhood with the wistful desire to recover them. He further explains his view that the 'dream-like vividness and splendour which invest objects of sight in childhood' are 'presumptive evidence of a prior state of existence.' It is not advanced as a belief, but merely as an element in our instincts of immortality,' common to many religious creeds, familiar especially 'as an ingredient in Platonic philosophy,’ and 'having sufficient foundation in humanity for authorising me to make for my purpose the best use of it I could as a poet.' |