ADDRESS TO KILCHURN CASTLE. ་་ The first three lines, Wordsworth says, were thrown off at the moment I first caught sight of the Ruin," ie., on Aug. 31, 1803; "the rest was added many years after." The poem was first published in 1827. "We were very lucky," writes Dorothy Wordsworth, "in seeing it after a great flood; for its enchanting effect was chiefly owing to its situation in the lake, a decayed palace rising out of the plain of waters! 10. Thy rugged Sire, War (as in 1. 1). 19. Holds before 1836, "has." 35. Infant years in 1845 replaced " infancy." The idea of the poem — the majesty of nature yielding to a venerable memorial of humanity—is not of frequent occurrence in the writings of Wordsworth. YARROW UNVISITED (" From Stirling Castle"). Written in 1803 and published in 1807. The text is unchanged. On September 17 Wordsworth and his sister walked through the Glen of Roslin, past Hawthornden, to Scott's house at Lasswade. Scott promised to meet them two days afterwards at Melrose. Next day they walked from Peebles by the Tweed, and Wordsworth wrote the fine sonnet "Degenerate Douglas!" (p. 317). "We left the Tweed," writes Dorothy, "when we were within about a mile and a half or two miles of Clovenford. . . . At Clovenford, being so near to the Yarrow, we could not but think of the possibility of going thither, but came to the conclusion of reserving the pleasure for some future time, in consequence of which, after our return [i.e., to Grasmere], William wrote the poem." १९ When Wordsworth refers to the 'various poems the scene of which is laid upon the banks of Yarrow," he doubtless had in his mind Logan's pathetic ballad "The Braes of Yarrow" (of which each stanza, as with Wordsworth's poem and others, closes with the word "Yarrow") and probably" Willie's Drowned in Yarrow," "The Douglas Tragedy," "The Lament of the Border Widow," and "The Dowie Dens of Yarrow." See Veitch's "History and Poetry of the Scottish Border." 6. Winsome Marrow. "Marrow," a partner; perhaps a corruption of French mari. 17. shiels. The Gala flows into the Tweed near Abbotsford, below Gala- to Lauder-Dale, and joins the Tweed near Melrose. Haughs means holms, low-lying lands, which may be occasionally overflowed. 20. Lintwhites, linnets. 35. Fair hangs the apple frae the rock, from "The Braes of Yarrow," by Hamilton of Bangour. The "apple" is probably the red berry of the rowan or mountain-ash. 37. Strath, a valley through which a river runs. 43. St. Mary's Lake, the reservoir from which the Yarrow takes its rise. In the Introduction to Canto II of " Marmion,” Scott describes "lone St. Mary's silent lake." See "The Feeling for Nature in Scottish Poetry" by Professor Veitch, vol. II, p. 196. "In the winter," writes Scott, "it is still frequented by flights of wild swans; hence my friend Mr. Wordsworth's lines: The swan on sweet St. Mary's lake Floats double, swan and shadow. (Notes to "Marmion.") Wordsworth said to Aubrey de Vere: "Scott misquoted in one of his novels my lines on Yarrow. He makes me write — The swans on sweet St. Mary's lake Never could I have But I wrote 'The swan on still St. Mary's lake.' written 'swans' in the plural. The scene, when I saw it, with its still and dim lake, under the dusky hills, was one of utter loneliness; there was one swan, and one only, stemming the water, and the pathetic loneliness of the region gave importance to the one companion of that swan - its own white image in the water." De Vere's "Essays,” vol. II, p. 277. This poem -a plea for preserving the ideal Yarrow of imagination rather than looking on the real Yarrow- should be read with "Yarrow Visited" and "Yarrow Revisited." When in 1814 Wordsworth saw the romantic stream, the real was, as he says, "won," and yet the ideal was not lost. LINES ON THE EXPECTED INVASION. Written in 1803, but not published until 1842. The text is unchanged. Compare the sonnets "To the Men of Kent" and "In the Pass of Killicranky, an Invasion being expected." 3. Falkland, Lucius Cary, second Viscount Falkland, who died fighting for King Charles I at the battle of Newbury, Sept. 20, 1643. 4. Montrose, James Graham, fifth Earl and first Marquis of Montrose, who fought on the Royalist side, and was hanged in the Grassmarket, Edinburgh, May 21, 1650. 7. Pym, John Pym, who was conspicuous in the proceedings against Strafford and Land. He died Dec. 8, 1643. "SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT." Written in 1804 at Town-end, Grasmere, and published in 1807. Wordsworth stated that the germ of the poem was four lines composed as a part of the verses on the Highland girl. See as to similarity of plan in both poems the note on " To a Highland Girl," p. 424. "Though beginning in this way," said Wordsworth, "it was written from my leart, as is sufficiently obvious "— meaning that it has reference to his vife. In "The Prelude," Bk. vi, Mary Hutchinson is described in a lile way: By her exulting outside look of youth And placid under-countenance first endeared. For closer parallel, see The Prelude," Bk. xiv, 1. 268. In the last line of the poem "angelic light " replaced in 1845 the earlier "an angel light." 8. Became in 1836 "From May-time's brightest, liveliest dawn," but th earlier reading was happily restored. Theidea which appears in the "Ode: Intimations of Immortality' and in te "Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle" of a visionry glory passing away or being taken up into a graver feeling for life ispresent here in another connection. 22. "The very pulse of the machine" has been an offence to some lovers of is poem. Does Wordsworth mean by machine merely the body, as Hmlet does in his signature of the letter to Ophelia : “Thine whilst his machine is to him"? I rather think the whole woman with all her ousehold routine is conceived as the organism of which the thoughtfusoul is the animating principle. In Bartram's “Travels,” a book which Wordsworth used for his "Ruth," I find the following: "At the return f the morning, by the powerful influence of light, the pulse of nature becomes more active, and the universal vibration of life insensibly antirresistibly moves the wondrous machine.” Wordsworth to Crabb Robinson that the poems "Our walk was far," etc., "She was Phantom," and the two sonnets "To a Painter " should be read in ccession "as exhibiting the different phases of affection to his wife. "I WANDERED LONELY," etc. Written in 1804 at Town-end, Grasmere. First published in 1807. The place of the poem is in Gowbarrow Park, Ullswater, where the daffodils were seen on Apr. 15, 1802. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal: "I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones, about and above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew directly over the lake to them. They looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing. . . . There was here and there a little knot, and a few stragglers higher up; but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity, unity, and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances, and in the middle of the water, like the sea." The second stanza was an afterthought, added in ed. 1815, after which date the text remained (finally) unaltered. In 1807, in 1. 4, "dancing" stood where we have "golden," and in 1. 16, "laughing" (from Dorothy's Journal) where we have "jocund." Again, in 1807, 1. 5, Along" stood in place of "Beside," and the next line was "Ten thousand dancing," etc. ee The two admirable lines 21, 22 were contributed by Mary Wordsworth, the poet's wife. In 1815 Wordsworth described the subject of the stanzas as "rather an elementary feeling and single impression (approaching to the nature of an ocular spectrum) upon the imaginative faculty than an exertion of it." The facts are idealized; Wordsworth did not wander "lonely as a cloud"; his sister accompanied him; the host of daffodils were not at first seen. "We saw," says Miss Wordsworth, "a few daffodils close to the water side"; the sense of the "jocund company" is enhanced by the preceding solitude, and the unity of the joyous impression depends partly on the completeness and suddenness of the surprise. THE AFFLICTION OF MARGARET Written in 1804 at Town-end, Grasmere; published in 1807, with the title "The Affliction of Margaret of -"; in 1820" The Affliction of Margaret "; and in 1845 the present title, perhaps to indicate that it was not a poem wholly of imaginative invention. It was taken," Wordsworth says, "from the case of a poor widow who lived in the town of Penrith. Her sorrow was well known to Mrs. Wordsworth, to ९९ my sister, and, I believe, to the whole town. She kept a shop, and when she saw a stranger passing by, she was in the habit of going into the street to enquire of him after her son. 10, II. Before 1836: To have despair'd, and have believ'd, And be for evermore beguil'd; 24. Before 1827: "What power hath even his wildest scream." 56. Incommunicable sleep. Mr. Myers interprets this (in an unusual sense of "incommunicable ") as a sleep that cannot be communicated with. Perhaps this is right; but may it not mean a sleep that can make no communication? The reference to "all thy mates" adds to the idea of the solitude and isolation of this sleep of death. Coleridge in "Biographia Literaria" speaks of this poem as "that most affecting composition, which no mother, and, if I may judge by my own experience, no parent can read without a tear." 60. As in other passages, "Between" was substituted in 1832 for "Betwixt." ADDRESS TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER DORA. Written Sept. 16, 1804, and published in 1815. Dora's birthday, August 16, was also that of her mother. The name Dora was added to the title in 1849, after her death. So in "The Kitten and the Falling Leaves," and also in "The Longest Day," in 1849 "Laura" was changed to "Dora." The text was never altered. 4. That bright star, the moon. So Dante," Paradiso," II, 30 (of the moon): Fix gratefully thy mind On God, who unto the first star has brought us - la prima stella. Cf. Hamlet, I, i, 118, "the moist star." 15. "Heaven's eternal year," from Dryden's " Ode to the Memory of Mrs. Anne Killigrew." This poem is placed by Wordsworth among " Poems of the Fancy," not those "Founded on the Affections," probably on the ground of the parallels suggested between the moon's monthly progress and the life of the infant. In the closing lines Wordsworth's favourite thought of the continuity of human life- the gladness and love of infancy passing into the maturer joy and reasonable passion of older years - is touched on. |