The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume I Part 85

And thus to me he made reply; 1798.]

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: See Appendix IV.--Ed.]

[Footnote B: Mr. Ernest H. Coleridge writes to me of this poem:

"The Fenwick note is most puzzling.

1. If Coleridge went to visit Thelwall, with Wordsworth and Dorothy in July 1798, this is the only record; but I suppose that he did.

2. How could the poem have been suggested in front of Alfoxden? The visit to Liswyn took place after the Wordsworths had left Alfoxden never to return. If little Montagu ever did compare Kilve and Liswyn Farm, he must have done so after he left Alfoxden. The scene is laid at Liswyn, and if the poem was written at Alfoxden, before the party visited Liswyn, the supposed reply was invented to a supposed question which might be put to the child when he got to Liswyn. How unlike Wordsworth.

3. Thelwall came to Alfoxden at the commencement of Wordsworth's tenancy; and the visit to Wales took place when the tenancy was over, July 3-10."

Ed.]

"A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND THE HILL"

Composed March 18, 1798.--Published 1800.

[Observed in the holly-grove at Alfoxden, where these verses were written in the spring of 1799. [A] I had the pleasure of again seeing, with dear friends, this grove in unimpaired beauty forty-one years after. [B]--I. F.]

Cla.s.sed among the "Poems of the Fancy."--Ed.

THE POEM

A whirl-blast from behind the hill Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound; Then--all at once the air was still, And showers of hailstones pattered round.

Where leafless oaks towered high above, 5 I sat within an undergrove Of tallest hollies, tall and green; A fairer bower was never seen.

From year to year the s.p.a.cious floor With withered leaves is covered o'er, 10 [1] And all the year the bower is green. [C]

But see! where'er the hailstones drop The withered leaves all skip and hop; There's not a breeze--no breath of air-- Yet here, and there, and every where 15 Along the floor, beneath the shade By those embowering hollies made, The leaves in myriads jump and spring, As if with pipes and music rare Some Robin Good-fellow were there, 20 And all those leaves, in festive glee, Were dancing to the minstrelsy. [2] [3] [D]

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1820.

You could not lay a hair between:

Inserted in the editions 1800-1815.]

[Variant 2:

1815.

And all those leaves, that jump and spring, Were each a joyous, living thing. 1800.]

[Variant 3: The following additional lines occur in the editions 1800 to 1805:

Oh! grant me Heaven a heart at ease That I may never cease to find, Even in appearances like these Enough to nourish and to stir my mind!]

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal gives the date 1798, and in the spring of 1799 the Wordsworths were not at Alfoxden but in Germany.--Ed.]

[Footnote B: The friends were Mrs. Wordsworth, Miss Fenwick, Edward and Dora Quillinan, and William Wordsworth (the poet's son). The date was May 13, 1841.--Ed.]

[Footnote C: Compare a letter from Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, written in November 1806, and one to Lady Beaumont in December 1806.--Ed.]

[Footnote D:

"March 18, 1708. The Coleridges left us. A cold windy morning. Walked with them half-way. On our return, sheltered under the hollies during a hail shower. The withered leaves danced with the hailstones. William wrote a description of the storm"

(Dorothy Wordsworth's Alfoxden Journal).--Ed.]