The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 2

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Title: The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II.

Author: William Wordsworth

Release Date: April 26, 2004 [EBook #12145]

Language: English

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Wordsworth's

Poetical Works

volume 2

edited by

William Knight

1896

Table of Contents

1798

1799

1800

Poems on the Naming of Places

1801

1802

1803

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Wordsworth's Poetical Works, Volume 2: 1803

Edited by William Knight

1896

Table of Contents

1803

The Green Linnet

Yew-Trees

Who fancied what a pretty sight

It is no Spirit who from heaven hath flown

Memorials of a Tour in Scotland

Departure from the Vale of Grasmere. (August, 1803)

At the Grave of Burns, 1803. Seven Years after his Death

Thoughts suggested the Day following, on the Banks of Nith, near the Poet's Residence

To the Sons of Burns, after Visiting the Grave of their Father

To a Highland Girl

Glen-Almain; or, The Narrow Glen

Stepping Westward

The Solitary Reaper

Address to Kilchurn Castle

Rob Roy's Grave

Sonnet composed at —— Castle

Yarrow Unvisited

The Matron of Jedborough and her Husband

Fly, some kind Harbinger, to Grasmere-dale

The Blind Highland Boy

October, 1803

There is a bondage worse, far worse, to bear

October, 1803 (2)

England! the time is come when thou should'st wean

October, 1803 (3)

To the Men of Kent. October, 1803

In the Pass of Killicranky

Anticipation. October, 1803

Lines on the Expected Invasion, 1803

1803

The poems associated with the year 1803 consist mainly of the Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, which Wordsworth and his sister took—along with Coleridge—in the autumn of that year, although many of these were not written till some time after the Tour was finished. The Green Linnet and Yew-trees were written in 1803, and some sonnets were composed in the month of October; but, on the whole, 1803 was not a fruitful year in Wordsworth's life, as regards his lyrics and smaller poems. Doubtless both The Prelude and The Excursion were revised in 1803.—Ed.

Contents 1803

Main Contents

The Green Linnet

Composed 1803.—Published 1807

The Poem

[Composed in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere, where the bird was often seen as here described.—I. F.]

One of the Poems of the Fancy.—Ed.

The Poem

Variant 1:

The text of 1815 is otherwise identical with that of 1827.

return

Variant 2:

return

Variant 3:

return

Variant 4:

return

Note:   Of all Wordsworth's poems this is the one most distinctively associated with the Orchard, at Town-end, Grasmere. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal under date May 28th, 1802:

We sat in the orchard. The young bull-finches in their pretty coloured raiment, bustle about among the blossoms, and poise themselves like wire-dancers or tumblers, shaking the twigs and dashing off the blossoms.

Ed.

Contents 1803

Main Contents

Yew-Trees

Composed 1803.—Published 1815

The Poem

[Written at Grasmere. These Yew-trees are still standing, but the spread of that at Lorton is much diminished by mutilation. I will here mention that a little way up the hill, on the road leading from Rosthwaite to Stonethwaite (in Borrowdale) lay the trunk of a Yew-tree, which appeared as you approached, so vast was its diameter, like the entrance of a cave, and not a small one. Calculating upon what I have observed of the slow growth of this tree in rocky situations, and of its durability, I have often thought that the one I am describing must have been as old as the Christian era. The Tree lay in the line of a fence. Great masses of its ruins were strewn about, and some had been rolled down the hillside and lay near the road at the bottom. As you approached the tree, you were struck with the number of shrubs and young plants, ashes, etc., which had found a bed upon the decayed trunk and grew to no inconsiderable height, forming, as it were, a part of the hedgerow. In no part of England, or of Europe, have I ever seen a yew-tree at all approaching this in magnitude, as it must have stood. By the bye, Hutton, the old guide, of Keswick, had been so impressed with the remains of this tree, that he used gravely to tell strangers that there could be no doubt of its having been in existence before the flood.—I. F.]

One of the Poems of the Imagination.—Ed.

The Poem

Note:   The text of this poem was never altered. The Lorton Yew-tree—which, in 1803, was of vast circumference, the pride of Lorton Vale, and described as:

'a living thing

Produced too slowly ever to decay;

Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed—'

does not now verify its poet's prediction of the future. Mr. Wilson Robinson of Whinfell Hall, Cockermouth, wrote to me of it in May 1880:

The tree in outline expanded towards the root considerably: then, at about two feet from the ground, the trunk began to separate into huge limbs, spreading in all directions. I once measured this trunk at its least circumference, and found it 23 feet 10 inches. For the last 50 or 60 years the branches have been gradually dying on the S. E. side, and about 25 years ago a strong S. E. gale, coming with accumulated force down Hope Gill, and—owing to the tree being so open on that side—taking it laterally at a disadvantage, wrenched off one of the great side branches down to the ground, carrying away nearly a third of the tree. This event led to farther peril; for, the second portion having been sold to a cabinetmaker at Whitehaven for #15, this gave the impression that the wood was very valuable (owing to the celebrity of the tree); and a local woodmonger bought the remainder. Two men worked half a day to grub it up; but a Cockermouth medical gentleman, hearing what was going on, made representations to the owner, and it ended in the woodmen sparing the remainder of the tree, which was not much the worse for what had been done. Many large dead branches have also been cut off, and now we have to regret that the 'pride of Lorton Vale,' shorn of its ancient dignity, is but a ruin, much more venerable than picturesque.

The fraternal Four of Borrowdale are certainly worthier still of note. The trunk described in the Fenwick note, as on the road between Rosthwaite and Stonethwaite, has disappeared long ago; but the solemn and capacious grove existed till 1883 in its integrity. The description in the poem is realistic throughout, while the visible scene suggests

an ideal grove, in which the ghostly masters of mankind meet, and sleep, and offer worship to the Destiny that abides above them, while the mountain flood, as if from another world, makes music to which they dimly listen.

(Stopford A. Brooke, in Theology in the English Poets, p. 259.) With the first part of the poem Wordsworth's Sonnet composed at —— Castle during the Scotch Tour of 1803 may be compared (p. 410). For a critical estimate of the poem see Modern Painters, part III. sec. II, chap. iv. Ruskin alludes to "the real and high action of the imagination in Wordsworth's Yew-trees (perhaps the most vigorous and solemn bit of forest landscape ever painted). It is too long to quote, but the reader should refer to it: let him note especially, if painter, that pure touch of colour, 'by sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged.'" See also Coleridge's criticism in Biographia Literaria, vol. ii. p. I77, edition 1847, and his daughter Sara's comment on her father's note. There can be little doubt that, as Professor Dowden has suggested, the lines 23 to 28 were suggested to Wordsworth by Virgil's lines in the Sixth Book of the Æneid, 273-284:

'Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus Orci

Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curæ;

Pallentesque habitant Morbi, tristisque Senectus,

Et Metus, et malesuada Fames, ac turpis Egestas,

Terribiles visu formæ, Letumque, Labosque;

Tum consanguineus Leti Sopor, et mala mentis

Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine Bellum,

Ferreique Eumenidum thalami, et Discordia demens,

Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis.

In medio ramos annosaque bracchia pandit

Ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem Somnia volgo

Vana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus hærent.'

The 'Four Yew Trees,' and the mysterious company which you have assembled there, 'Death the Skeleton and Time the Shadow.' It is a sight not for every youthful poet to dream of; it is one of the last results he must have gone thinking for years for.

(Charles Lamb to Wordsworth, 1815.)

In Crabb Robinson's Diary, a reference to the Yew-trees of Lorton and Borrowdale will be found under date Sept. 16 and 20, 1816.

The pride of Lorton Vale is now a ruin, and has lost all its ancient majesty: but, until the close of 1883, the fraternal four of Borrowdale were still to be seen in grand assemblage. Every one who has felt the power of Wordsworth's poetry,—and especially those who had visited the Seathwaite valley, and read the Yew-Trees under the shade of that once solemn and capacious grove before 1884,—must have felt as if they had lost a personal friend, when they heard that the grove was gone. The great gale of December 11, 1883, smote it fiercely, uprooting one of the trees, and blowing the others to ribbands. The following is Mr. Rawnsley's account of the disaster:

'Last week the gale that ravaged England did the Lake country much harm. We could spare many of the larch plantations, and could hear (with a sigh) of the fall of the giant Scotch firs opposite the little Scafell Inn at Rosthwaite, and that Watendlath had lost its pines; but who could spare those ancient Yews, the great

"... fraternal Four of Borrowdale,

Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;

Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth

Of intertwisted fibres serpentine

Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved."

'For beneath their pillared shade since Wordsworth wrote his poem, that Yew-tree grove has suggested to many a wanderer up Borrowdale, and visitant to the Natural Temple,

an ideal grove in which the ghostly masters of mankind meet, and sleep, and offer worship to the Destiny that abides above them, while the mountain flood, as if from another world, makes music to which they dimly listen.

'These Yew-trees, seemingly

"Produced too slowly ever to decay;

Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed,"

'have been ruthlessly overthrown. One has been uprooted bodily; all the leaders and branches of the others have been wrenched from the main trunk; and the three still standing are bare poles and broken wreckage. Until one visits the spot one can have no conception of the wholesale destruction that the hurricane has wrought; until he looks on the huge rosy-hearted branches he cannot guess the tremendous force with which the tornado had fallen upon that sable roof of boughs.

'For tornado or whirlwind it must needs have been. The Yews grew under the eastern flank of the hill called Base Brown. The gale raged from the westward. One could hardly believe it possible that the trees could have been touched by it; for the barrier hill on which they grew,—and under whose shelter they have seen centuries of storm,—goes straight upwards, betwixt them and the west. It was only realizable when, standing amid the wreckage, and looking across the valley, it was seen that a larch plantation had been entirely levelled, and evidently by a wind that was coming from the east, and directly toward the Yew-trees. On enquiring at Seathwaite Farm, one found that all the slates blown from the roof of that building on the west side, had been whirled up clean over the roof: and we can only surmise that the winds rushing from the west and north-west, and meeting the bastions of Glaramara and the Sty-head slopes, were whirled round in the 'cul-de-sac' of the valley, and moved with churning motion back from east to west over the Seathwaite Farm, and so in straight line across the beck, and up the slope to the Yew-tree cluster. With what a wrenching, and with what violence, these trees were in a moment shattered, only those can guess who now witness the ruins of the pillared shade, upon the grassless floor of red-brown hue.'"

Ed.

Contents 1803

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Who fancied what a pretty sight

Composed 1803.—Published 1807

The Poem

In the edition of 1807 this poem was No. VIII. of the series entitled Moods of my own Mind. It was afterwards included among the Poems of the Fancy, and in a MS. copy it was named The Coronet of Snowdrops.—Ed.

The Poem

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It is no Spirit who from heaven hath flown

Composed 1803.—Published 1807

The Poem

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. I remember the instant my sister S. H., called me to the window of our Cottage, saying, Look how beautiful is yon star! It has the sky all to itself. I composed the verses immediately.—I. F.]

This was No. XIII. of Moods of my own Mind, in the edition of 1807. It was afterwards included among the Poems of the Imagination.—Ed.

The Poem

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The text of 1836 returns to that of 1807.

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Footnote A:   Professor Dowden directs attention to the relation between these lines and the poem beginning If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven.—Ed.

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Memorials of a Tour in Scotland

1803

These poems were first collected, under the above title, in the edition of 1827. In 1807, nine of them—viz. Rob Roy's Grave, The Solitary Reaper, Stepping Westward, Glen Almain, or, The Narrow Glen, The Matron of Jedborough and her Husband, To a Highland Girl, Sonnet, To the Sons of Burns after visiting the Grave of their Father, Yarrow Unvisited,—were printed under the title, Poems written during a Tour in Scotland. This group begins the second volume of the edition of that year. But in 1815 and 1820—when Wordsworth began to arrange his poems in groups—they were distributed with the rest of the series in the several artificial sections. Although some were composed after the Tour was finished—and the order in which Wordsworth placed them is not the order of the Scotch Tour itself—it is advisable to keep to his own method of arrangement in dealing with this particular group, for the same reason that we retain it in such a series as the Duddon Sonnets.—Ed.

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Departure from the Vale of Grasmere. (August, 1803)A

Composed 1811.—Published 1827

The Poem

[Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself started together from Town-end to make a tour in Scotland. Poor Coleridge was at that time in bad spirits, and somewhat too much in love with his own dejection; and he departed from us, as is recorded in my Sister's Journal, soon after we left Loch Lomond. The verses that stand foremost among these Memorials were not actually written for the occasion, but transplanted from my Epistle to Sir George Beaumont.—I. F.]

The Poem

Footnote A:   This first poem referring to the Scottish Tour of 1803, was not actually written till 1811. It originally formed the opening paragraph of the 'Epistle to Sir George Beaumont'. Wordsworth himself dated it 1804. It is every way desirable that it should introduce the series of poems referring to the Tour of 1803.—Ed.

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Note:   The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland:

William and I parted from Mary on Sunday afternoon, August 14th, 1803; and William, Coleridge, and I left Keswick on Monday morning, the 15th.

Ed.

Contents 1803

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At the Grave of Burns, 1803. Seven Years after his Death

Composed 1803A.—Published 1842

The Poem

[For illustration, see my Sister's Journal. It may be proper to add that the second of these pieces, though felt at the time, was not composed till many years after.—I. F.]

The Poem

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Footnote A:   It is dated thus by Wordsworth himself on three occasions, and the year of its composition is also indicated in the title of the poem.—Ed.

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Footnote B:  Compare Burns's poem To a Mountain Daisy, l. 15.—Ed.

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Footnote C:   See Burns's A Bard's Epitaph, l. 19.—Ed.

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Footnote D:  Compare The Tomb of Burns, by William Watson, 1895.—Ed.

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Footnote E:   Criffel.—Ed.

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Footnote F:  Annandale.—Ed.

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Sub-Footnote a:   See in his poem the Ode to Ruin.—Ed.

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Note:   The following is an extract from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of the Tour in Scotland:

"Thursday, August 18th.— Went to the churchyard where Burns is buried. A bookseller accompanied us. He showed us the outside of Burns's house, where he