Stopford Brooke says of this passage: "It is one of the finest specimens of Wordsworth's grand style. It is as sustained and stately as Milton, but differs from Milton's style in the greater simplicity of diction." THE SIMPLON PASS. Probably written in 1804, the date of "The Prelude," Bk. vi, from which it is an extract, but dated by Wordsworth 1799, as the year in which "The Prelude" was begun; first published in 1845. Wordsworth crossed the Alps, with his friend Jones, in the University summer vacation of 1790. 2. "The Prelude" for "Pass" reads "strait," and in 1. 4 reads "pace" for "step." 18. Characters, etc., the letters of that revelation of the spirit which works in and through nature. MIST OPENING IN THE HILLS. [From "The Excursion," Bk. ii.] The date at which the second book of "The Excursion was written cannot be certainly determined; but in December, 1804, Wordsworth wrote to Sir George Beaumont of 2000 lines of "The Pedler" as in existence. These probably formed the first two books of "The Excursion." The Solitary has related how an old man, lost by night among the mountains, was found by the peasants amid the ruins of a mountain chapel. The title for the extract I have accepted from Dean Church (Ward's "The English Poets," vol. IV, p. 77). FRENCH REVOLUTION. This extract from "The Prelude,” Bk. xi, was probably written in December, 1804, or early in 1805; it was given in The Friend, Oct. 26, 1809, and was reprinted in Wordsworth's Poems, 1815. II. Enchantress in The Friend, 1809, "Enchanter." Lines 9 II are very well applicable to Godwin's treatise "Political Justice," in which all professes to be based on reason, while it puts forth the most visionary views of future social progress. 13. The French Revolution spoke of the rights, not of any particular country, but of man as man. 15, 16. Before 1832: (To take an image which was felt no doubt The reading "Guesses at It was hardly correct to speak of an "image" as "felt." was found fault with as prosaic and self-conscious in Truth" by the brothers Hare; and Wordsworth, before altering it, had probably heard the criticism. See "Guesses at Truth," second series, p. 108, ed. 1848. 36. Subterranean in 1832 replaced "subterraneous." 37. Some secreted island, such as Plato's Atlantis or Bacon's New Atlantis. 39, 40. The opposition is not between this life and a future life, but between the real world and a world of the imagination. ODE TO DUTY. Written in 1805; published in 1807. "The ode," says Wordsworth, "is on the model of Gray's 'Ode to Adversity,' which is copied from Horace's 'Ode to Fortune.'" The stanza is the same as that of Gray; and as Gray does honour to the benign character of Adversity, so Wordsworth shows the "benignant grace" of the "stern Lawgiver," Duty. The Ode exists in two states, differing considerably from its final form; one of these is the published text of 1807; the other is a version of the Ode printed for the poems of 1807, but cancelled while those volumes were going through the press. It was discovered by Mr. Tutin of Hull. The published text of 1807 gives a stanza retained in no subsequent edition which came between the present fifth and sixth stanzas; it dwells on the gain of uniting choice with duty and freedom with law : Yet not the less would I throughout No farther than they breed a second Will more wise. The cancelled version agrees in its last four stanzas with the published text of 1807. The first four stanzas are the following: There are who tread a blameless way In purity, and love, and truth, And may a genial sense remain when youth is past. Serene would be our days and bright; And happy would our nature be; If Love were an unerring light; And Joy its own security. And bless'd are they who in the main This creed, even now, do entertain, Do in this spirit live; yet know That Man hath other hopes; strength which elsewhere must grow. I, loving freedom, and untried; No sport of every random gust, Too blindly have reposed my trust; Upon my present happiness, I shov'd unwelcome tasks away: But henceforth I would serve; and strictly if I may. O Power of DUTY! sent from God To enforce on earth his high behest, And keep us faithful to the road Which Conscience hath pronounc'd the best: Thou, who art Victory and Law When empty terrors overawe; From vain temptations dost set free, From Strife, and from Despair, a glorious Ministry! The last of these stanzas became first, with a greatly ennobled text, in the published version. 8. In 1807 (only) the last line was retained from stanza 4 of the cancelled version: "From strife and from despair; a glorious ministry." 15, 16. The final text- 1837 · was preceded by two earlier readings; in 1807-20: In 1827-32: May joy be theirs while life shall last! And Thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast! Long may the kindly impulse last! But Thou, etc. Wordsworth's sense of the dangers attending the impulsive temperament had grown stronger with his maturer experience. To "entertain" pression. a faith "in the main" was not a happy form of ex 24. The text is of 1845. In 1807-32: "Yet find that other strength, according to their need." In 1837: "Yet find thy firm support." 29-31. The text is of 1827. In 1807 the three lines of the cancelled version, given above, were retained: "Resolv'd that nothing," etc. In 1815: Full oft when in my heart was heard The task imposed, from day to day; 40. In 1827 "that" replaced "which," to avoid the misunderstanding "which ever." Compare with the idea of this ode the sonnet 'Nuns fret not," and the poem on The Pass of Kirkstone." TO A SKY-LARK ("Up with me!"). Written in 1805; published in 1807. Wordsworth, after Miss Fenwick's "Rydal Mount," added a MS. note: "Where there are no skylarks; but the poet is everywhere." The poem reached its final form in 1832. In 1807, after 1. 25 came the following close: Hearing thee, or else some other, As merry a Brother, I on the earth will go plodding on, By myself, chearfully, till the day is done. These lines in 1820 were replaced by the following: What though my course be rugged and uneven, Yet hearing thee, or others of thy kind, By myself chearfully, till the day is done. In 1827 the last six lines of the present text were substituted; but they followed immediately 1. 7, "The spot which seems so to thy mind," the intermediate lines, 8-25, being omitted. Finally in 1832 these were restored. 5. Before 1827 this line was "With all the heav'ns about thee ringing." Altered, perhaps, because "all the heavens " suggests a cloudless sky. ΙΟ. Wings in 1815 replaced "soul." Has a fairy a soul? It is certainly with wings that it flies. 12. There is madness about thee. Compare the last stanza of Shelley's "Skylark": 14. Teach me half the gladness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now. Before 1832: "Up with me, up with me, high and high." Wordsworth told Barron Field that having succeeded so well in the second "Skylark" (p. 280), and in the stanzas of "A Morning Exercise," which notice the bird (p. 281), he became indifferent to this poem, which Coleridge used severely to condemn and to treat contemptuously: "I like, however, the beginning of it so well, that for the sake of that I tacked to it the respectably-tame conclusion." Coleridge in "Biographia Literaria " notes the two noble lines With a soul as strong as a mountain river as placed amid incongruous surroundings. FIDELITY. Written in 1805 and published in 1807. In the spring of 1805 a young man named Charles Gough came to Patterdale for the sake of angling. While attempting, early in April, to cross over Helvellyn to Grasmere, he slipped from a rock on which the ice had not thawed, and he perished. The body was found July 22, still watched by his |