35-37. In 1820 (only) these lines stood:

And, wheresoe'er the great Deliverer passed,
Fruits were strewn before his eye,

And flowers upon his person cast.

At the same time in 1. 39" doth" replaced "did.”

42. Ilissus, one of the principal rivers of Attica.

50, 51. In a celebrated utterance Kant, in like manner, brings together the sublimities of the starry heavens without and the moral law within.

52. Sublime delight. The word "sublime" was added in 1837. 65-70. "He happened," writes Plutarch, "to be sitting late in the evening in a corridor of the house in solitary meditation: suddenly a sound was heard in the further end of the portico, and, looking up, he saw in the lingering light the form of a majestic woman, in dress and face like the Fury as she appears in tragedy — sweeping the house with a brush." Mr. Heard notes that in Plutarch the apparition is simply ominous of coming evil; the moral significance is Wordsworth's interpretation.

71. Auster, the south wind; Boreas, in 1. 73, the north wind. 75. Mænalus, a mountain in Arcadia.

82. Exclaimed the Chieftain in 1827 replaced the earlier " Intrusive Presence!"

106. Matchless perfidy. Callippus, the friend of Dion, had taken a solemn oath that he had no thought of treason.

IIO. Marble city. A marble quarry, near Syracuse, added to the magnificence of the city.

115-117. Dion declared that he was willing to die a thousand deaths . . . if life were only to be had by guarding against friends as well as foes." - Plutarch, quoted by Heard.

The moral of "Dion," that our means should be as spotless as our ends, is enforced also in "The Happy Warrior":

He labours good on good to fix, and owes

To virtue every triumph that he knows.

Lamb wrote to Mrs. Wordsworth (May 25, 1820): "The story of Dion is divine—the genius of Plato falling on him like moonlight — the finest thing ever expressed."

ODE TO LYCORIS.

Composed in front of Rydal Mount in May, 1817; published in 1820. The poem originated, Wordsworth says, in the last four lines of stanza

I:

'Those specks of snow, reflected in the lake [the lake was Ullswater] and so transferred, as it were, to the subaqueous sky, reminded me of the swans which the fancy of the ancient classic poets yoked to the car of Venus." Wordsworth's note goes on to tell of his youthful delight in Greek and Roman poetry. In deference, he says, to the disgust of the general reader caused by the hackneyed and lifeless use into which mythology fell towards the close of the 17th and during the 18th century, he abstained in his earliest writings from all introduction of pagan fable; but surely, even in its humble form, it may ally itself with real sentiment, as I can truly affirm it did in the present case."

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The quantity of the second vowel is long - Lycō'ris. This was the name under which C. Cornelius Gallus celebrated in his lost poems his mistress Cytharis. See Virgil, Eclogue x, 42. In Wordsworth's "Poetical Works," the "Ode" is followed by a poem in blank verse "To the Same," of which the closing lines seem to show that by Lycoris he meant either his sister or his wife :

Dearest Friend!

We too have known such happy hours together
That, were power granted to replace them (fetched
From out the pensive shadows where they lie)
In the first warmth of their original sunshine,
Loth should I be to use it: passing sweet
Are the domains of tender memory!

"Thee, thee my life's celestial sign" (1. 28) seems to belong of right to Mary Wordsworth.

14. Halcyon, the kingfisher. The plumage of the bird is blue, white, and purple; it darts along the water "like a meteor." In the next line Wordsworth in 1827 changed "its" to "her."

31, 32. In 1827 Wordsworth made these lines more special to early autumn. Previously :

Pleased with the soil's requited cares;
Pleased with the blue that ether wears;

On the art of growing old, compare Emerson's admirable poem

37. "Terminus."

45-48. Before 1837:

Frank greeting, then, to that blithe Guest

Diffusing smiles o'er land and sea

To aid the vernal Deity

Whose home is in the breast!

In the later text Wordsworth admits that the "Deity of youth" is no longer in the breast.

The reader should complete the impression made by this poem by reading in the " Poetical Works” its companion piece," To the Same "; he will find in this selection two poems placed near "Lycoris" by Wordsworth," September, 1819,” in which the poet does honour to the autumn of the year and of human life.

THE LONGEST DAY.

Written in 1817; published in 1820. It was suggested by the sight of Wordsworth's daughter Dora playing in front of Rydal Mount, and in great part was composed on the same afternoon. Wordsworth often thought of writing a companion poem on the shortest day. After his daughter's death her name was given in 1. 13, displacing the "Laura " of edd. previous to 1849. (So also in The Kitten and the Fallen Leaves.")

3. In 1843 this line happily replaced the earlier " Sol has dropped into his harbour."

The idea of the poem has much in common with that of the " Ode to Duty." The sportive child, in her thoughtless joy, is one of the glad hearts, without reproach" of the second stanza of the Ode ";

but it is well that she should learn, even already, the deeper lesson of life. This poem is elevated by its imaginative power into something higher than mere didactic verse.

COMPOSED UPON AN EVENING OF EXTRAORDINARY SPLENDOUR AND BEAUTY.

Written in 1818 and published in 1820. "Felt, and in a great measure composed," Wordsworth says, "upon the little mount in front of our abode at Rydal." A copy in MS. was sent to the American painter, Washington Allston, of whose picture Wordsworth speaks in the note

on 1. 49 (see The Athenæum, July 7, 1894). It is evident that the earlier lines of stanza 3 are also connected with Allston's "Jacob's Dream."

13. Before 1832: "Or ranged like stars along some sovereign height."

49.

Before 1837 "shoulder."
:

Wordsworth writes: "In these lines

९

I am under obligation to the exquisite picture of Jacob's Dream' by Mr. Alstone [Allston], now in America. It is pleasant to make this public acknowledgment to men of genius, whom I have the honour to rank among my friends."

52. Practicable way, a ladder that may be scaled.

62. In 1837 "mine eye" replaced "my eye," to avoid the clash of

sound.

Wordsworth's footnote directs the reader to compare with stanza 4 the opening of the "Ode: Intimations of Immortality."

SEPTEMBER, 1819 ("The sylvan slopes").

Written 1819; published 1820. Text unaltered.

With this poem, imbued with the autumnal tranquillity, might be read the "Ode to Lycoris," which maintains that we should balance the calm of declining years with something of youth and springtime maintained within the soul.

UPON THE SAME OCCASION.

९९

Composed in front of Rydal Mount and during walks in the neighbourhood in 1819; published in 1820. The only change made after 1820 was in 1. 47, happily altered in 1827 from the earlier “ With passion's finest finger swayed." In the River Duddon volume of 1820, in 1. 58 we find "Horace boasted"; the better word "gloried" is found in Miscellaneous Poems" of the same year.

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In his "Description of the English Lakes," Wordsworth speaks of the peculiarly favoured days-worth whole months - which occur sometimes in springtime, more often in autumn: "But it is in autumn that days of such affecting influence most frequently intervene ; — the atmosphere seems refined, and the sky rendered more crystalline, as the vivifying heat of the year abates; the lights and shadows are more delicate; the colouring is richer and more finely harmonised; and in this season of stillness, the ear being unoccupied, the sense of vision becomes more susceptible of its appropriate enjoyments."

31-36. Wordsworth imagines the Druids as the earliest British bards.

38. Alcæus, of Mytilene, in the island of Lesbos, the earliest of the Eolian lyric poets. He thought that his lyre was best employed in animating his friends to warlike deeds, and his house is described by himself as furnished with the weapons of war rather than with the instruments of his art.". Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology.

46. The Lesbian Maid, Sappho.

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There are passages in her poems referring to her love for a beautiful youth whom she endeavoured to conciliate by her poetry"— perhaps the foundation of the legend of her passion for Phaon. Smith's Dictionary.

50. In excavating Herculaneum, a number of papyrus rolls were found containing treatises on the Epicurean philosophy.

52.

Theban fragment, some lines of Pindar, the Theban poet, whose poems have come down to us, with the exception of his "Epinicia,” or triumphal odes, in fragments.

54. Simonides, the poet of the island of Ceos, born B.C. 556. "Belonging to a people eminent for their orderly and virtuous character, Simonides himself became proverbial for that virtue which the Greeks call σwopoσúvn, temperance, order, and self-command in one's own conduct, and moderation in one's opinions and desires and views of human life; and this spirit breathes through all his poetry."-Smith's Dictionary.

59. Maro, Virgil.

TO THE REV. DR. WORDSWORTH.

(With the Sonnets to the River Duddon, etc.)

Written and published in 1820, when Wordsworth's brother Christopher, afterwards Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, was Rector of Lambeth. The text was never altered.

51. Cytherea's zone, Cytherea, a name for Venus, who was said to have sprung from the foam of the sea near Cythera, now Cerigo, an island on the southeast of the Morea. On her zone, or cestus, were represented all things tending to excite love.

65. Lambeth's venerable towers, Lambeth Palace on the banks of the Thames, the official residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury since 1197.