William Wordsworth

“ With conscious sight, as he swept along—
It was the Banner in his hand!
He felt—and made a sudden stand.
He looked about like one betrayed: 30
What hath he done? what promise made?
Oh weak, weak moment! to what end
Can such a vain oblation tend,
And he the Bearer?—Can he go
Carrying this instrument of woe, 35
And find, find any where, a right
To excuse him in his Country's sight?
No; will not all men deem the change
A downward course, perverse and strange?
Here is it;—but how? when? must she, 40
The unoffending Emily,
Again this piteous object see? ”

“ This might have been done by some modern poets, but it was not Wordsworth's way of exhibiting character, reflective though he was. When he analyses feelings they are generally his own, not those of his characters. To shadow forth that which is invisible, the sanctity of Emily's chastened soul, he lays hold of this sensible image—a creature, the purest, most innocent, most beautiful in the whole realm of nature—and makes her the vehicle in which he embodies the saintliness which is a thing invisible. It is the hardest of all tasks to make spiritual things sensuous, without degrading them. ”

“ After a while it emerges from those depths of sorrow—gradually rises into a strain of elevated tranquillity and contemplative rapture; through the power of imagination, the beautiful and impressive aspects of nature are brought into relationship with the spirit of him, whose fortunes and character form the subject of the piece, and are represented as gladdening and exalting it, whilst they keep it pure and unspotted from the world. ”

“ Is it not the imaginative use which the poet has made of the White Doe? With her appearance the poem opens, with her re-appearance it closes. And the passages in which she is introduced are radiant with the purest light of poetry. A mere floating tradition she was, which the historian of Craven had preserved. How much does the poet bring out of how little! ”

“ If William had but waited a few days, it would have been no anticipation when he said to you, 'the songs of Spring were in the grove;' for all this week the birds have chanted from morn till evening, larks, blackbirds, thrushes, and far more than I can name, and the busy rooks have joined their happy voices. ”

“ Thirty or forty years before, English poets would scarcely have shown such a lively interest in a war of independence in a foreign country. They stood under the curse of narrow-mindedness and one-sidedness both in politics and in art, so that their smooth-running verses neither sought nor found a response even in the hearts of their own fellow-countrymen. The poets who appeared before the public in the year 1798 with the famous 'Lyrical Ballads' were the first to strike out a new path. ”

“ Imagination is that sacred power,
Imagination lofty and refined:
'Tis her's to pluck the amaranthine Flower
Of Faith, and round the Sufferer's temples bind
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower,
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind.Ed.
[F] See his Essays, XVI., "Of Atheism." Wordsworth's quotation is not quite accurate.—Ed.
[G] It is to be regretted that at the present day Bolton Abbey wants this ornament: but the Poem, according to the imagination of the Poet, is composed in Queen Elizabeth's time. "Formerly," says Dr. Whitaker, "over the Transept was a tower. ”

“ The Isle of Man is right opposite our window; and though in this unsettled weather often invisible, its appearance has afforded us great amusement. One afternoon above the whole length of it was stretched a body of clouds, shaped and coloured like a magnificent grove in winter, when whitened with snow and illuminated, by the morning sun, which, having melted the snow in part, has intermingled black masses among the brightness. The whole sky was scattered over with fleecy dark clouds, such as any sunshiny day produces, and which were changing their shapes and positions every moment. ”

“ Where is no living thing to be seen;
And through yon gateway, where is found,
Beneath the arch with ivy bound,
Free entrance to the church-yard ground—
[7] Comes gliding in with lovely gleam, 55
Comes gliding in serene and slow,
Soft and silent as a dream,
A solitary Doe!
White she is as lily of June,
And beauteous as the silver moon 60
When out of sight the clouds are driven
And she is left alone in heaven ”

“ Happening both of us to be engaged a few minutes one morning when we had a young prig of a Scotch lawyer to breakfast with us, my dear Sister, with her usual simplicity, put the toasting fork with a slice of bread into the hands of this Edinburgh genius. Our little book-case stood on one side of the fire. To prevent loss of time, he took down a book, and fell to reading, to the neglect of the toast, which was burnt to a cinder. Many a time have we laughed at this circumstance, and other cottage simplicities of that day. ”

“ The anticipated beatification, if I may so say, of her mind, and the apotheosis of the companion of her solitude, are the points at which the Poem aims, and constitute its legitimate catastrophe, far too spiritual a one for instant or widely-spread sympathy, but not, therefore, the less fitted to make a deep and [Pg 102] permanent impression upon that class of minds who think and feel more independently, than the many do, of the surfaces of things and interests transitory, because belonging more to the outward and social forms of life than to its internal spirit. ”

“ Wordsworth gave vent to his enthusiasm in six sonnets, which, as far as power of language and vigour of thought are concerned, form interesting companion-pieces to the poems of the contemporary Tyrolese poet Alois Weissenbach. In the first three sonnets the splendour of the Alpine world, which he knew from his journeys in Switzerland, forms the background of the picture. In the foreground he sees a band of brave and daring men, in whose hearts he thought he could find all his own moral pathos. Many of the features which he has introduced certainly show more ideal fancy than knowledge of detail ”

“ Whitaker, who says, "he retired to the solitude of Barden, where he seems to have enlarged the tower out of a common keeper's lodge, and where he found a retreat equally favourable to taste, to instruction, and to devotion. The narrow limits of his residence shew that he had learned to despise the pomp of greatness, and that a small train of servants could suffice him, who had lived to the age of thirty a servant himself. I think this nobleman resided here almost entirely when in Yorkshire, for all his charters which I have seen are dated at Barden. ”

“ Charles James Fox died September 13, 1806. He was Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time, having assumed office on the 5th February, shortly after the death of William Pitt. Wordsworth's sadness on this occasion, his recognition of Fox as great and good, and as "a Power" that was "passing from the earth," may have been due partly to personal and political sympathy, but also probably to Fox's appreciation of the better [Pg 49] side of the French Revolution, and to his welcoming the pacific proposals of Talleyrand, perhaps also to his efforts for the abolition of slavery. ”

“ On February 28, 1810, Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to Lady Beaumont, "Catherine is the only funny child in the family; the rest of the children are lively, but Catherine is comical in every look and motion. Thomas perpetually forces a tender smile by his simplicity, but Catherine makes you laugh outright, though she can hardly say a dozen words, and she joins in the laugh, as if sensible of the drollery of her appearance."—Ed. ”

“ In 1807 the whole of the Continent of Europe was prostrate under the power of Napoleon. It is impossible to say to what special incident, if to any in particular, Wordsworth refers in the phrase, "with holy glee thou fought'st against him;" but, as the sonnet was composed at Coleorton in 1807—after the battles of Austerlitz and Jena, and Napoleon's practical mastery of Europe—our knowing the particular event or events in Swiss history to which he refers, would not add much to our understanding of the poem. ”

“ In the edition of 1827, Wordsworth added the following note:—"In this and a former Sonnet, in honour of the same Sovereign, let me be understood as a Poet availing himself of the situation which the King of Sweden occupied, and of the principles avowed in his manifestos; as laying hold of these advantages for the purpose of embodying moral truths. ”

“ The following is from the Statistical History of Kirkmichael, by the Rev. John Grant. "In the autumnal season, when the moon shines from a serene sky, often is the wayfaring traveller arrested by the music of the hills. Often struck with a more sober scene, he beholds the visionary hunters engaged in the chase, and pursuing the deer of the clouds, while the hollow rocks in long [Pg 73] sounding echoes reverberate their cries." "There are several now living who assert that they have seen and heard this aërial hunting." ”

“ This Niche is in the sandstone-rock in the winter-garden at Coleorton, which garden, as has been elsewhere said, was made under our direction out of an old unsightly quarry. While the labourers were at work, Mrs. Wordsworth, my sister and I used to amuse ourselves occasionally in scooping this seat out of the soft stone. ”

“ Within the Sonnet's scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty, [B]
Should find brief [2] solace there, as I have found. ”

“ But it is to be noted that in the edition of 1837, this note does not refer to the sonnet on Saragossa, but to that beginning "O, for a kindling touch from that pure flame," belonging to the year 1816. In subsequent editions the note is reappended to this sonnet beginning "Hail, Zaragoza!"—Ed.
"SAY, WHAT IS HONOUR?—'TIS THE FINEST SENSE" Composed 1809.—Published 1815
Say, what is Honour?—'Tis the finest sense
Of justice which the human mind can frame,
Intent each lurking frailty to disclaim,
And guard the way of life from all offence
Suffered or done. ”

“ A Judge, who, as man claims by merit, gives;
To whose all-pondering mind a noble aim,
Faithfully kept, is as a noble deed;
In whose pure sight all virtue doth succeed.
Ferdinand von Schill, a distinguished Prussian officer, born 1773, entered the army 1789, was seriously wounded in the battle of Jena, but took the field again at the head of a free corps. Indignant at the subjection of his country to Buonaparte, he resolved to make a great effort for the liberation of Germany, collected a small body of troops, and commenced operations on the Elbe ”

“ Herr Brandl was for some time in England investigating the traces of a German literary influence on Coleridge, Wordsworth, and their contemporaries.
"It was in the year 1809; Napoleon was at the height of his career of victory; and England alone of all his opponents held the supremacy at sea. For years the English were the only representatives of freedom in Europe. At last it seemed that two fortunate allies arose to join their cause—the insurgents in Spain and in the little land of Tyrol. ”

“ The Poem of The White Doe of Rylstone is founded on a local tradition, and on the Ballad in Percy's Collection, entitled The Rising of the North. The tradition is as follows: 'About this time,' not long after the Dissolution, 'a White Doe, say the aged people of the neighbourhood, long continued to make a weekly pilgrimage from Rylstone over the fells of Bolton, and was constantly found in the Abbey Church-yard during divine service; after the close of which she returned home as regularly as the rest of the congregation.'—Dr. ”

“ Northumberland, after a confinement of several years in Loch Leven Castle, was betrayed by the Scots to the English, and put to death. Westmoreland died an exile in Flanders, the last of the ancient house of the Nevilles, earls of Westmoreland. Norton, with his eight sons, fell into the hands of Sussex, and all suffered death at York. It is the fate of this ancient family on which Wordsworth's poem is founded. ”

“ Then, as the outward interest of the poem is in favour of the old man's religious feelings, and the filial heroism of his band of sons, it seemed to require something in order to place the two protestant malcontents of the family in a light that made them beautiful as well as virtuous. In short, to express it far more strongly than I mean or think, in order (in the present anguish of my spirits) to be able to express it at all, that three-fourths of the work is everything rather than Emily; and then, the last—almost a separate and doubtless an exquisite poem—wholly of Emily. ”

“ Some mounds near the tower are thought to have been used as butts for archers; and there are traces of a strong wall, running from the tower to the edge of a deep glen, whence a ditch runs to another ravine. This was once a pond, used by the Nortons for detaining the red deer within the township of Rylstone, which they asserted was not within the forest of Skipton, and consequently that the Cliffords had no right to hunt therein. ”

“ I have had many a good sleep in the shade among fragrant grass and refreshing breezes, and though closely engaged in what may be thought heavy work, I was sensible of the enjoyments of life with uninterrupted health. ”

“ In these circumstances, Westmoreland began so visibly to despond, that many of his men slunk away, though Northumberland still kept up his resolution, and was master of the field till December 13, when the Earl of Sussex, accompanied with Lord Hunsden and others, having marched out of York at the head of a large body of forces, and being followed by a still larger army under the command of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick, the insurgents retreated northward towards the borders, and there dismissing their followers, made their escape into Scotland. ”

“ The events of the year 1813 would probably induce Wordsworth to view them in a more favourable light. Similarly the sixth sonnet is not quite [Pg 220] just to Austria; in particular Wordsworth has made decidedly too little allowance for the fact that the Emperor Franz I. ceded the Tyrol quite against his own will under the pressure of circumstances. But in this case we must not simply impute all the blame to the poet; for as we see from the diary of his friend Southey, his information as to the doings of Austria was of a most vague and unfavourable character. ”

“ They that deny a God, destroy Man's nobility: for certainly Man is of kinn to the Beast by his Body; and if he be not of kinn to God by his Spirit, he is a base ignoble Creature. It destroys likewise Magnanimity, and the raising of humane Nature: for take an example of a Dogg, and mark what a generosity and courage he will put on, when he finds himself maintained by a Man, who to him is instead of a God, or Melior Natura. Which courage is manifestly such, as that Creature without that confidence of a better Nature than his own could never attain. ”

“ The happiest season of the year with me is now commencing—I mean that in which I am at the plough; my horses pace slowly on before, the larks sing above my head, and the furrow falls at my side, and the face of Nature and my own mind seem to wear a sweet and cheerful tranquillity."
The following extract shows the interest which he took in the very implements of his industry, and may serve as an illustration of Wordsworth's stanzas on his "spade." ”

“ Night or day, at even or morn;
No one's eye had seen him enter,
No one's ear had heard the Horn. [7]
But bold Hubert lives in glee:
Months and years went smilingly; 70
With plenty was his table spread;
And bright the Lady is who shares his bed. [Pg 15]
Likewise he had sons and daughters;
And, as good men do, he sate
At his board by these surrounded, 75
Flourishing in fair estate.
And while thus in open day
Once he sate, as old books say,
A blast was uttered from the Horn,
Where by the Castle-gate it hung forlorn. 80
'Tis the breath of good Sir Eustace! ”