The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Ii Part 109

... did ... 1815.]

[Variant 2:

1827.

The beetle with his radiance manifold, 1815.]

[Variant 3:

1827.

And cups of flowers, and herbage green and gold; 1815.]

[Variant 4:

1836.

And, sooth, these two did love each other dear, As far as love in such a place could be; 1815.]

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Compare

'And oft he traced the uplands to survey, When o'er the sky advanced the kindling dawn, The crimson cloud.'

Beattie's 'Minstrel', book I, st. 20.

'And oft the craggy cliff he loved to climb When all in mist the world below was lost.'

Book I. st. 21.

'And of each gentle, and each dreadful scene In darkness, and in storm, he found delight.'

Book I. st. 22. Ed.]

[Footnote B: Compare the stanza in 'A Poet's Epitaph' (p. 77), beginning

'He is retired as noontide dew.'

Ed.]

[Footnote C: Many years ago Canon Ainger pointed out to me a parallel between Beattie's description of 'The Minstrel' and Wordsworth's account of himself in this poem. It is somewhat curious that Dorothy Wordsworth, writing to Miss Pollard from Forncett in 1793, quotes the line from 'The Minstrel', book I. stanza 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."

Mr. T. Hutchinson called the attention of Professor Dowden to the same resemblance between the two pictures. With lines 35, 36, compare in Sh.e.l.ley's 'Adonais', stanza x.x.xi.:

'And his own thoughts, along that rugged way, Pursued, like raging hounds, their father and their prey.'

Ed.]

There can now be no doubt that, in the first four of these 'Stanzas', Wordsworth refers to himself; and that, in the last four, he refers to Coleridge. For a time it was uncertain whether in the earlier stanzas he had Coleridge, or himself, in view; and whether, in the later ones, some one else was, or was not, described. De Quincey, quoting (as he often did) in random fas.h.i.+on, mixes up extracts from each set of the stanzas, and applies them both to Coleridge; and Dorothy Wordsworth, in her Journal, gives apparent (though only apparent) sanction to a reverse order of allusion, by writing of "the stanzas about C. and himself" (her brother). The following are her references to the poem in that Journal:

"9th May (1802).-After tea he (W.) wrote two stanzas in the manner of Thomson's 'Castle of Indolence', and was tired out.

"10th May.--William still at work, though it is past ten o'clock ...

William did not sleep till three o'clock."

"11th May.--William finished the stanzas about C. and himself. He did not go out to-day. ... He completely finished his poem. He went to bed at twelve o'clock."

From these extracts two things are evident,

(1) who the persons are described in the stanzas, and

(2) the immense labour bestowed upon the poem.

In the 'Memoirs of Wordsworth', by the late Bishop of Lincoln, there is a pa.s.sage (vol. ii. chap. li. p. 309) amongst the "Personal Reminiscences, 1836," in which the Hon. Mr. Justice Coleridge virtually decides the question of the ident.i.ty of the two persons referred to, in his record of a conversation with the poet. It is as follows:

"October 10th.--I have pa.s.sed a great many hours to-day with Wordsworth in his home. I stumbled on him with proof sheets before him. He read me nearly all the sweet stanzas written in his copy of the 'Castle of Indolence', describing himself and my uncle; and he and Mrs. W. both a.s.sured me the description of the latter at that time was perfectly accurate; and he was almost as a great boy in feelings, and had all the tricks and fancies there described. Mrs. W. seemed to look back on him, and those times, with the fondest affection."

I think "the neighbouring height" referred to is the height of White Moss Common, behind the Fir-Grove, where Wordsworth was often heard murmuring out his verses," booing" as the country folks said: and the

'driving full in view At midday when the sun was s.h.i.+ning bright,'

aptly describes his habits as recorded in his sister's Journal, and elsewhere. The "withered flower," the "creature pale and wan," are significant of those terrible reactions of spirit, which followed his joyous hours of insight and inspiration. Stanzas IV. to VII. of 'Resolution and Independence' (p. 314), in which Wordsworth undoubtedly described himself, may be compared with stanza III. of this poem. The lines

'Down would he sit; and without strength or power Look at the common gra.s.s from hour to hour,'

are aptly ill.u.s.trated by such pa.s.sages in his sister's Journal, as the following, of 29th April 1802:

"We went to John's Grove, sate a while at first; afterwards William lay, and I lay in the trench, under the fence--he with his eyes closed, and listening to the waterfalls and the birds. There was no one waterfall above another--it was a kind of water in the air--the voice of the air. We were unseen by one another."

Again, April 23rd,

"Coleridge and I pushed on before. We left William sitting on the stones, feasting with silence."