5, 6. A stanza, judiciously omitted in all editions after 1807, originally followed stanza 1, and the present ll. 5, 6 stood differently: Whence the Voice? from air or earth? This the Cuckoo cannot tell; But a startling sound had birth, As the Bird must know full well. Like the voice through earth and sky By the restless Cuckoo sent; The change was made in 1815. 17-19. This stanza attained its present form in 1836. In 1807: Such within ourselves we hear Oft-times, ours though sent from far; Listen, ponder, hold them dear; In 1827 the idea that the echoes are heard within us was dropped, and the lines became : Such rebounds our inward ear Often catches from afar ; Giddy Mortals! hold them dear; In 1832 "Listen, ponder, hold them dear was happily restored, and the two other lines were changed from a statement to a warning: Often as thy inward ear "The word rebounds," Wordsworth wrote to Barron Field, "I wish much to introduce here; for the imaginative warning turns upon the echo, which ought to be revived as near the conclusion as possible." ee The word too " in 1. 13 occurring after "two" in l. 12 is a fault which it is strange that Wordsworth did not remove; to the ear it comes with a momentary ambiguity. PERSONAL TALK. The date of this poem is uncertain; it lies between 1802 and 1807, the date of publication. The stanzas are in fact sonnets, and from 1820 to 1843 "Personal Talk was placed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets"; afterwards, as in 1815, among "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." 3. Of friends: in 1807 (only), "About friends," which was metrically a fault. 7. Forms with chalk, i.e., to guide the dancers. 12. Wordsworth says (Fenwick note): "The last line but two stood, at first [i.e., in 1807, only], better and more characteristically thus: 'By my half-kitchen my half-parlour fire.' My Sister and I were in the habit of having the tea-kettle in our little sitting-room [i.e., in Dove Cottage, Grasmere where this poem was written], and we toasted the bread ourselves." 37-40. Before 1827: There do I find a never-failing store Of personal themes, and such as I love best; Two will I mention, dearer than the rest; 41. Wordsworth pronounced "Othello," Plato's record of the last scenes of the career of Socrates (the "Apology"), and Walton's "Life of George Herbert "the most pathetic of human compositions. 42. Spenser's "Faerie Queene," Bk. i. 51-54. These lines were inscribed, at the suggestion of Principal Shairp to Dean Stanley, under the statue of Wordsworth in Westminster Abbey. LINES, etc. ("Loud is the Vale !"). Written in 1806 and published in 1807. Fox, the eminent statesman, died on Sept. 13, 1806. The text is unchanged except 1. 19, which before 1837 was But when the Mighty pass away." Wordsworth ardently admired Fox, though at a later date (1812), in conversation, he denied to Fox the higher qualities of mind, — philosophy and religion (H. Crabb Robinson's "Diary"). In January, 1801, Wordsworth sent Fox a copy of "Lyrical Ballads," calling his attention in particular to "Michael' and "The Brothers." "In common with the whole of the English people," he wrote, "I have observed in your public character a constant predominance of sensibility of heart.” Fox's habit of regarding men not merely in classes but as individuals made him, says Wordsworth, dear to poets; "and I am sure that if, since your first entrance into public life, there has been a single true poet living in England, he must have loved you." Fox's reply is not very discriminating as regards the "Lyrical Ballads." He did not care for "Michael" or "The Brothers" because he was no great friend to blank verse for subjects which are to be treated of with simplicity." The poems which gave him greatest pleasure were "Harry Gill," " We are Seven," "The Mad Mother," and " The Idiot Boy." Compare Scott's eulogy of Fox in the poetical Introduction to the first Canto of Marmion." १९ ODE: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. Composed at Town-end, Grasmere, and dated by Wordsworth 1803-6; published in 1807. Perhaps the date should be 1802-6. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal, Mar. 27, 1802 : “A divine morning. At breakfast William wrote part of an Ode"; on the preceding day he had written "The Rainbow" ("My heart leaps up "), and worked at "The Cuckoo," which are in idea so closely connected with the "Ode." On June 17, 1802: "William added a little to the Ode he is writing." In arranging his poems (1815) Wordsworth placed "My heart leaps up " first and the "Ode" last, thus rounding his work with the thought of the "celestial light " present in childhood, and the hope of immortality. In 1815 he replaced the earlier motto of the "Ode," Paulo majora canamus," by words of his own from "My heart leaps up." "Two years at least," Wordsworth says, "passed between the writing of the four first stanzas and the remaining part." Before the poem was complete he had lost his brother John. "Nothing," he says, I was more difficult for me in childhood than to admit the notion of death as a state applicable to my own being. . . It was not so much from feelings of animal vivacity that my difficulty came as from a sense of the indomitableness of the Spirit within me. I used to brood over the stories of Enoch and Elijah, and almost to persuade myself that, whatever might become of others, I should be translated, in something of the same way, to heaven. With a feeling congenial to this I was often unable to think of external things as having external existence, and I communed with all that I saw as something not apart from, but inherent in, my own immaterial nature. Many times when going to school have I grasped at a wall or tree to recall myself from this abyss of idealism to the reality. In later periods of life I have deplored, as we have all reason to do, a subjugation of an opposite character, and have rejoiced over the remembrances, as is expressed in the lines Obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, As to the doctrine of a prenatal state, Wordsworth protests against it being supposed that he would inculcate such a belief: "It is far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith, as more than an element in our instincts of immortality." He maintains, however, that the notion has sufficient ground in humanity to authorise a poet to make use of it for his own purpose. The "Essay on Epitaphs," given in Wordsworth's notes to "The Excursion," should be compared with this " Ode." Forlorn," he there writes, "and cut off from communication with the best part of his nature, must that man be, who should derive the sense of immortality, as it exists in the mind of a child, from the same unthinking gaiety or liveliness of animal spirits with which the lamb in the meadow, or any other irrational creature, is endowed. . . . We may be justified in asserting that the sense of immortality, if not a coexistent and twin birth with Reason, is among the earliest of her offspring; and we may further assert that from these conjoined, and under their countenance, the human affections are gradually formed and opened out." Compare also "The Excursion," Bk. ix: Ah! why in age Do we revert so fondly to the walks Of childhood- but that there the soul discerns The dear memorial footsteps unimpaired Of her own native vigours - thence can hear Commingling with the incense that ascends And "The Prelude," Bk. v: Our childhood sits, Our simple childhood, sits upon a throne An interesting parallel to the " Ode" will be found in "The Retreat," by Henry Vaughan, a religious poet of the 17th century. Wordsworth || refers to the fact that a doctrine of preexistence was an ingredient in Platonic philosophy." Wordsworth's poem should be regarded not as an argument for immortality, but as a record of feelings which support the belief. His line, "We feel that we are greater than we know," expresses part of the drift of this poem. It asserts our essential detachment from what is merely material; it declares the dignity of the spirit of man from early childhood onward, until years bring "a faith that looks through death." And at the same time it expresses the deep regard of a spirit for the material universe, which has cultivated its affections and called forth its powers. "Alone in his time," says Emerson," Wordsworth treated the human mind well, and with an absolute trust. His adherence to his poetic creed rested on real inspirations. The Ode on Immortality is the highwater mark which the intellect has reached in this age." See on this poem Ruskin's 'Modern Painters," part III, chap. v, "Of Typical Beauty." 6. Hath in 1820 replaced " had." 28. The fields of sleep, Professor Hales explains : "The yet reposeful slumbering country side." But perhaps it merely means that a west wind blows; the west, where the sun sets, being emblematic of sleep. Or are "the fields of sleep "those deep and shadowy parts of our own souls which lie out of the view of consciousness? 43. Before 1837: "While the Earth." 45. Culling: before 1837, "pulling." 66. This line is not rhymed. 86. An interesting alteration :" Six years' Darling" in 1815 replaced 'four years' Darling" of 1807. 103. Wordsworth had in his mind the speech of Jacques in "As You Like It," II, 7, beginning "All the world's a stage." 117. This line was introduced in 1820. 120, 121. In connection with the change last noted, another, the most important in the "Ode," was made (in deference to Coleridge's opinion) in 1820. The following lines occurring between 120 and 121 were omitted: To whom the grave Is but a lonely bed without the sense or sight Of day or the warm light, A place of thought where we in waiting lie; 122. In 1815 this reading replaced that of 1807: "Of untam'd pleasures, on thy Being's height." 134. Before 1827: "benedictions." 137, 138. In 1815 the text replaced the reading of 1807: |