[Footnote A: Professor Dowden directs attention to the relation between these lines and the poem beginning "If thou indeed derive thy light from Heaven."--Ed.]
MEMORIALS OF A TOUR IN SCOTLAND
1803
These poems were first collected, under the above t.i.tle, in the edition of 1827. In 1807, nine of them--viz. "Rob Roy"s Grave", "The Solitary Reaper", "Stepping Westward", "Glen Almain, or, The Narrow Glen", "The Matron of Jedborough and her Husband", "To a Highland Girl", "Sonnet", "To the Sons of Burns after visiting the Grave of their Father", "Yarrow Unvisited",--were printed under the t.i.tle, "Poems written during a Tour in Scotland." This group begins the second volume of the edition of that year. But in 1815 and 1820--when Wordsworth began to arrange his poems in groups--they were distributed with the rest of the series in the several artificial sections. Although some were composed after the Tour was finished--and the order in which Wordsworth placed them is not the order of the Scotch Tour itself--it is advisable to keep to his own method of arrangement in dealing with this particular group, for the same reason that we retain it in such a series as the Duddon Sonnets.--Ed.
DEPARTURE FROM THE VALE OF GRASMERE. AUGUST, 1803 [A]
Composed 1811.--Published 1827
[Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself started together from Town-end to make a tour in Scotland. Poor Coleridge was at that time in bad spirits, and somewhat too much in love with his own dejection; and he departed from us, as is recorded in my Sister"s Journal, soon after we left Loch Lomond. The verses that stand foremost among these Memorials were not actually written for the occasion, but transplanted from my "Epistle to Sir George Beaumont".--I. F.]
The gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains Might sometimes covet dissoluble chains; Even for the tenants of the zone that lies Beyond the stars, celestial Paradise, Methinks "twould heighten joy, to overleap 5 At will the crystal battlements, and peep Into some other region, though less fair, To see how things are made and managed there.
Change for the worse might please, incursion bold Into the tracts of darkness and of cold; 10 O"er Limbo lake with aery flight to steer, And on the verge of Chaos hang in fear.
Such animation often do I find, Power in my breast, wings growing in my mind, Then, when some rock or hill is overpast, 15 Perchance without one look behind me cast, Some barrier with which Nature, from the birth Of things, has fenced this fairest spot on earth.
O pleasant transit, Grasmere! to resign Such happy fields, abodes so calm as thine; 20 Not like an outcast with himself at strife; The slave of business, time, or care for life, But moved by choice; or, if constrained in part, Yet still with Nature"s freedom at the heart;-- To cull contentment upon wildest sh.o.r.es, 25 And luxuries extract from bleakest moors; With prompt embrace all beauty to enfold, And having rights in all that we behold.
--Then why these lingering steps?--A bright adieu, For a brief absence, proves that love is true; 30 Ne"er can the way be irksome or forlorn That winds into itself for sweet return.
FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT
[Footnote A: This first poem referring to the Scottish Tour of 1803, was not actually written till 1811. It originally formed the opening paragraph of the "Epistle to Sir George Beaumont". Wordsworth himself dated it 1804. It is every way desirable that it should introduce the series of poems referring to the Tour of 1803.--Ed.]
The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth"s "Recollections of a Tour made in Scotland":
"William and I parted from Mary on Sunday afternoon, August 14th, 1803; and William, Coleridge, and I left Keswick on Monday morning, the 15th."
Ed.
AT THE GRAVE OF BURNS, 1803. SEVEN YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH
Composed 1803. [A]--Published 1842
[For ill.u.s.tration, see my Sister"s Journal. It may be proper to add that the second of these pieces, though _felt_ at the time, was not composed till many years after.--I. F.]
I shiver, Spirit fierce and bold, At thought of what I now behold: As vapours breathed from dungeons cold Strike pleasure dead, So sadness comes from out [1] the mould 5 Where Burns is laid.
And have I then thy bones so near, And thou forbidden to appear?
As if it were thyself that"s here I shrink with pain; 10 And both my wishes and my fear Alike are vain.
[2]
Off weight--nor press on weight!--away Dark thoughts!--they came, but not to stay; With chastened feelings would I pay 15 The tribute due To him, and aught that hides his clay From mortal view.
Fresh as the flower, whose modest worth He sang, his genius "glinted" forth, [B] 20 Rose like a star that touching earth, For so it seems, Doth glorify its humble birth With matchless beams.
The piercing eye, the thoughtful brow, 25 The struggling heart, where be they now?-- Full soon the Aspirant of the plough, The prompt, the brave, Slept, with the obscurest, in the low And silent grave. 30
I mourned with thousands, but as one More deeply grieved, for He was gone Whose light I hailed when first it shone, And showed my youth [3]
How Verse may build a princely throne 35 On humble truth.
Alas! where"er the current tends, Regret pursues and with it blends,-- Huge Criffel"s h.o.a.ry top ascends By Skiddaw seen,--40 Neighbours we were, and loving friends We might have been;
True friends though diversely inclined; But heart with heart and mind with mind, Where the main fibres are entwined, 45 Through Nature"s skill, May even by contraries be joined More closely still.
The tear will start, and let it flow; Thou "poor Inhabitant below," [C] 50 At this dread moment--even so-- Might we together Have sate and talked where gowans blow, Or on wild heather.