Part 6

We told o'er all that we had done,-- Our rambles by the swift brook's side Far as the willow-skirted pool, 35 Where two fair swans together glide.

We talked of change, of winter gone, Of green leaves on the hawthorn spray, Of birds that build their nests and sing, And all "since Mother went away!" 40

To her these tales they will repeat, To her our new-born tribes will show, The goslings green, the ass's colt, The lambs that in the meadow go.

--But, see, the evening star comes forth! 45 To bed the children must depart; A moment's heaviness they feel, A sadness at the heart:

'Tis gone--and in a merry fit They run up stairs in gamesome race; 50 I, too, infected by their mood, I could have joined the wanton chase.

Five minutes past--and, O the change! Asleep upon their beds they lie; Their busy limbs in perfect rest, 55 And closed the sparkling eye.

The Fenwick note is inaccurate. These lines were written by Dorothy Wordsworth at Coleorton, on the eve of her brother and sister's return from London, in the spring of 1807, whither they had gone for a month--Dorothy remaining at Coleorton, in charge of the children. Previous to 1845, the poem was attributed to "a female Friend of the Author."--ED.

GIPSIES

Composed 1807.--Published 1807

[Composed at Coleorton. I had observed them, as here described, near Castle Donnington, on my way to and from Derby.--I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--ED.

Yet are they here the same unbroken knot Of human Beings, in the self-same spot! Men, women, children, yea the frame Of the whole spectacle the same! Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light, 5 Now deep and red, the colouring of night; That on their Gipsy-faces falls, Their bed of straw and blanket-walls. --Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone, while I Have been a traveller under open sky, 10 Much witnessing of change and cheer, Yet as I left I find them here! The weary Sun betook himself to rest;-- Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west, Outshining like a visible God 15 The glorious path in which he trod. And now, ascending, after one dark hour And one night's diminution of her power, Behold the mighty Moon! this way She looks as if at them--but they 20 Regard not her:--oh better wrong and strife (By nature transient) than this torpid life; Life which the very stars reprove[A] As on their silent tasks they move![1][B] Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or[2] earth! 25 In scorn I speak not;--they are what their birth And breeding suffer[3] them to be; Wild outcasts of society![4]

See S. T. Coleridge's criticism of this poem in his _Biographia Literaria_, vol. ii. p. 156 (edition 1847).--ED.

VARIANTS:

[1] 1836.

Regard not her:--oh better wrong and strife Better vain deeds or evil than such life! The silent Heavens have goings on;[C] The stars have tasks--but these have none. 1807.

... wrong and strife, (By nature transient) than such torpid life! The silent Heavens have goings-on; The stars have tasks--but these have none! 1820.

(By nature transient) than such torpid life; Life which the very stars reprove As on their silent tasks they move! 1827.

[2] 1827.

... and ... 1820.

[3] 1836.

... suffers ... 1820.

[4] The last four lines were added in 1820.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Compare the _Ode to Duty_, l. 47 (vol. iii. p. 41).--ED.

[B] Compare, in the _Ode to Duty_, l. 48--

And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong.-- ED.

[C] Compare, in the Fragment, vol. viii., beginning "No doubt if you in terms direct had asked," the phrase--

... the goings on Of earth and sky. ED.

"O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART"

Composed 1807 (probably).--Published 1807

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. (Mrs. W. says, in a note,--"At Coleorton.")--I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--ED.

O Nightingale! thou surely art A creature of a "fiery heart:"--[A][1] These notes of thine--they pierce and pierce; Tumultuous harmony and fierce! Thou sing'st as if the God of wine 5 Had helped thee to a Valentine;[B] A song in mockery and despite Of shades, and dews, and silent night; And steady bliss, and all the loves Now sleeping in these peaceful groves. 10

I heard a Stock-dove sing or say His homely tale, this very day; His voice was buried among trees, Yet to be come-at by the breeze: He did not cease; but cooed--and cooed; 15 And somewhat pensively he wooed: He sang of love, with quiet blending, Slow to begin, and never ending; Of serious faith, and inward glee; That was the song--the song for me! 20

Mrs. Wordsworth corrected her husband's note to Miss Fenwick, by adding in the MS., "at Coleorton"; and at Coleorton the Wordsworths certainly spent the winter of 1806, the Town-end Cottage at Grasmere being too small for their increasing household. It is more likely that Wordsworth wrote the poem at Coleorton than at Grasmere, and it looks as if it had been an evening impromptu, after hearing both the nightingale and the stock-dove. There are no nightingales at Grasmere,--they are not heard further north than the Trent valley,--while they used to abound in the "peaceful groves" of Coleorton. If the locality was--as Mrs. Wordsworth states--Coleorton, and if the lines were written after hearing the nightingale, the year would be 1807, and not 1806 (the poet's own date). The nightingale is a summer visitor in this country, and could not have been heard by Wordsworth at Coleorton in 1806, as he did not go south to Leicestershire till November in that year. But it is quite possible that it was "the stock-dove's voice" that alone suggested the lines, and that they were written either in 1806, or (as I think more likely), very early in 1807. In the month of January Wordsworth was corresponding with Scott about the poems in this edition of 1807.--ED.

VARIANTS:

[1] 1807.

A Creature of ebullient heart:-- 1815.

The text of 1820 returns to that of 1807.[C]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] See Shakespeare's _King Henry VI._, Part III., act I. scene iv. l. 87.--ED.

[B] Compare the lines in _The Cuckoo and the Nightingale_, vol. ii. p. 255--

I heard the lusty Nightingale so sing, That her clear voice made a loud rioting, Echoing through all the green wood wide. ED.

[C] Henry Crabb Robinson, in his _Diary_ (May 9, 1815), anticipates this return to the text of 1807.--ED.

"THOUGH NARROW BE THAT OLD MAN'S CARES, AND NEAR"

Composed 1807.--Published 1807

----"gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name."

[Written at Coleorton. This old man's name was Mitchell. He was, in all his ways and conversation, a great curiosity, both individually and as a representative of past times. His chief employment was keeping watch at night by pacing round the house, at that time building, to keep off depredators. He has often told me gravely of having seen the Seven Whistlers, and the Hounds as here described. Among the groves of Coleorton, where I became familiar with the habits and notions of old Mitchell, there was also a labourer of whom, I regret, I had no personal knowledge; for, more than forty years after, when he was become an old man, I learned that while I was composing verses, which I usually did aloud, he took much pleasure, unknown to me, in following my steps that he might catch the words I uttered; and, what is not a little remarkable, several lines caught in this way kept their place in his memory. My volumes have lately been given to him by my informant, and surely he must have been gratified to meet in print his old acquaintances.--I. F.]

In 1815 this sonnet was one of the "Poems belonging to the Period of Old Age"; in 1820 it was transferred to the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

Though narrow be that old Man's cares, and near, The poor old Man is greater than he seems: For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams; An ample sovereignty of eye and ear. Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer; 5 The region of his inner spirit teems With vital sounds and monitory gleams Of high astonishment and pleasing fear. He the seven birds hath seen, that never part, Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds, 10 And counted them: and oftentimes will start-- For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS[A] Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart To chase for ever, on aërial grounds!

To bring all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as possible, this and the next sonnet are transferred from their places in the chronological list, and placed beside the Coleorton "Inscriptions."

I am indebted to Mr. William Kelly of Leicester for the following note on the Leicestershire superstition of the Seven Whistlers.

"There is an old superstition, which it is not easy to get to the bottom of, concerning a certain cry or sound heard in the night, supposed to be produced by the Seven Whistlers. What or who those whistlers are is an unsolved problem. In some districts they are popularly believed to be witches, in others ghosts, in others devils, while in the Midland Counties they are supposed to be birds, either plovers or martins--some say swifts. In Leicestershire it is deemed a bad omen to hear the Seven Whistlers, and our old writers supply many passages illustrative of the popular credulity. Spenser, in his _Faërie Queene_, book II. canto xii. stanza 36, speaks of

The whistler shrill, that whoso hears doth die.

Sir Walter Scott, in _The Lady of the Lake_, names the bird with which his character associated the cry--

And in the plover's shrilly strain The signal whistlers heard again.

"When the colliers of Leicestershire are flush of money, we are told, and indulge in a drinking bout, they sometimes hear the warning voice of the Seven Whistlers, get sobered and frightened, and will not descend the pit again till next day. Wordsworth speaks of a countryman who

... the seven birds hath seen, that never part, Seen the Seven Whistlers in their nightly rounds, And counted them.

"A few years ago, during a thunderstorm which passed over Leicestershire, and while vivid lightning was darting through the sky, immense flocks of birds were seen flying about, uttering doleful, affrighted cries as they passed, and keeping up for a long time a continual whistling like that made by some kinds of sea-birds. The number must have been immense, for the local newspapers mentioned the same phenomenon in different parts of the neighbouring counties of Northampton, Leicester, and Lincoln. A gentleman, conversing with a countryman on the following day, asked him what kind of birds he supposed them to have been. The man answered, 'They are what we call the Seven Whistlers,' and added that 'whenever they are heard it is considered a sign of some great calamity, and that the last time he had heard them was on the night before the deplorable explosion of fire damp at the Hartley Colliery.'"

In _Notes and Queries_ there are several allusions to this local superstition. In the Fifth Series (vol. ii. p. 264), Oct. 3, 1874, the editor gives a summary of several notes on the subject in vol. viii. of the Fourth Series (pp. 68, 134, 196, and 268), with additional information. He says "record was made of their having been heard in Leicestershire; and that the develin or martin, the swift, and the plover were probably of the whistling fraternity that frightened men. At p. 134 it was shown that Wordsworth had spoken of one who

... the seven birds hath seen, that never part, Seen the Seven Whistlers in their nightly rounds, And counted them.

On the same page, the swift is said to be the true whistler (but, as noted at page 196, the swifts never make nightly rounds), and the superstition is said to be common in our Midland Counties. At page 268, Mr. Pearson put on record that in Lancashire the plovers, whistling as they fly, are accounted heralds of ill, though sometimes of trivial accident, and that they are there called 'Wandering Jews,' and are said to be, or to carry with them, the ever-restless souls of those Jews who assisted at the Crucifixion. At page 336, the whistlers are chronicled as having been the harbingers of the great Hartley Colliery explosion. A correspondent, VIATOR, added, that on the Bosphorus there are flocks of birds, the size of a thrush, which fly up and down the channel, and are never seen to rest on land or water. The men who rowed Viator's caique told him that they were the souls of the damned, condemned to perpetual motion. The Seven Whistlers have not furnished chroniclers with later circumstances of their tuneful and awful progresses till a week or two ago.... The whistlers are also heard and feared in Portugal. See _The New Quarterly_ for July 1874, for a record of some travelling experience in that country."

Another extract from _Notes and Queries_ is to the following effect:--

"'Your Excellency laughs at ghosts. But there is no lie about the Seven Whistlers. Many a man besides me has heard them.'

"'Who are the Seven Whistlers? and have you seen them yourself?'

"'Not seen, thank Heaven; but I have heard them plenty of times. Some say they are the ghosts of children unbaptized, who are to know no rest till the judgment day. Once last winter I was going with donkeys and a mule to Caia. Just at the moment I stopped by the river bank to tighten the mule's girth, I heard the accursed whistlers coming down the wind along the river. I buried my head under the mule, and never moved till the danger was over; but they passed very near, for I heard the flap and rustle of their wings.'

"'What was the danger?'

"'If a man once sees them, heaven only knows what will not happen to him--death and damnation at the very least.'

"'I have seen them many times. I shot, or tried to shoot them!'

"'Holy Mother of God! you English are an awful people! You shot the Seven Whistlers?'

"'Yes; we call them marecos (teal or widgeon) in our country, and shoot them whenever we can. They are better to eat than wild ducks.'"

_Gabriel's Hounds._--"At Wednesbury in Staffordshire, the colliers going to their pits early in the morning hear the noise of a pack of hounds in the air, to which they give the name of Gabriel's Hounds, though the more sober and judicious take them only to be wild geese making this noise in their flight." Kennet MS., Lansd. 1033. (See Halliwell's _Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words_, vol. i. p. 388.) The peculiar cry or cackle, both of the Brent Goose and of the Bean or Harvest Goose (_Anser Segetum_), has often been likened to that of a pack of hounds in full cry--especially when the birds are on the wing during night. For some account of the superstition of "Gabriel's Hounds," see _Notes and Queries_, First Series, vol. v. pp. 534 and 596; and vol. xii. p. 470; Second Series, vol. i. p. 80; and Fourth Series, vol. vii. p. 299. In the last note these hounds are said to be popularly believed to be "the souls of unbaptized children wandering in the air till the day of judgment." They are also explained as "a thing in the air, that is said in these parts (Sheffield) to foretell calamity, sounding like a great pack of beagles in full cry." This quotation is from Charles Reade's _Put yourself in his place_, which contains many scraps of local folk-lore. 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 sounding echoes reverberate their cries." "There are several now living who assert that they have seen and heard this aërial hunting." See the _Statistical History of Scotland_, edited by Sir J. Sinclair, vol. xii. pp. 461, 462. Compare note to _An Evening Walk_, vol. i. p. 19.--ED.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Both these superstitions are prevalent in the midland Counties of England: that of "Gabriel's Hounds" appears to be very general over Europe; being the same as the one upon which the German Poet, Bürger, has founded his Ballad of _The Wild Huntsman_.--W. W. 1807.

COMPOSED BY THE SIDE OF GRASMERE LAKE. 1807

Composed 1806.--Published 1819

This sonnet was first published along with _The Waggoner_ in 1819. In 1820 it was classed among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets," and in 1827 it was transferred to the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty." Previous to 1837 this sonnet had no title.--ED.

Clouds, lingering yet, extend[1] in solid bars Through the grey west; and lo! these waters, steeled By breezeless air to smoothest polish, yield A vivid repetition[2] of the stars; Jove, Venus, and the ruddy crest of Mars 5 Amid his fellows beauteously revealed At happy distance from earth's groaning field, Where ruthless mortals wage incessant wars. Is it a mirror?--or the nether Sphere Opening to view the abyss in which she feeds 10 Her own calm fires?[3]--But list! a voice is near; Great Pan himself low-whispering through the reeds, "Be thankful, thou; for, if unholy deeds Ravage the world, tranquillity is here!"

VARIANTS:

[1] 1827.

Eve's lingering clouds extend ... MS. and 1819.

[2] 1819.

A bright re-duplication ... MS.

[3] 1837.

Opening a vast abyss, while fancy feeds On the rich show? ... MS.

Opening its vast abyss, ... 1819.

Opening to view the abyss in which it feeds Its own calm fires?-- ... 1827.

IN THE GROUNDS OF COLEORTON, THE SEAT OF SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT, BART., LEICESTERSHIRE

Composed 1808.--Published 1815

[In the grounds of Coleorton these verses are engraved on a stone placed near the Tree, which was thriving and spreading when I saw it in the summer of 1841.--I. F.]

Included among the "Inscriptions."--ED.

The embowering rose, the acacia, and the pine, Will[1] not unwillingly their place resign; If but the Cedar thrive that near them stands, Planted by Beaumont's and by Wordsworth's hands. One wooed the silent Art with studious pains: 5 These groves have heard the Other's pensive strains; Devoted thus, their spirits did unite By interchange of knowledge and delight. May Nature's kindliest powers sustain the Tree, And Love protect it from all injury! 10 And when its potent branches, wide out-thrown, Darken the brow of this memorial Stone, [2]Here may some Painter sit in future days, Some future Poet meditate his lays; Not mindless of that distant age renowned 15 When Inspiration hovered o'er this ground, The haunt of him who sang how spear and shield In civil conflict met on Bosworth-field; And of that famous Youth, full soon removed From earth, perhaps by Shakspeare's self approved, 20 Fletcher's Associate, Jonson's Friend beloved.

About twelve years after the last visit of Wordsworth to Coleorton, referred to in the Fenwick note--of which the date should, I think, be 1842, not 1841--this cedar tree fell, uprooted during a storm. It was, however, as the Coleorton gardener who was then on the estate told me, replanted with much labour, and protected with care; although, the top branches being injured, it was never quite the same as it had been. During the night of the great storm on the 13th October 1880, however, it fell a second time, and perished irretrievably. The memorial stone remains, injured a good deal by the wear and tear of time; and the inscription is more than half obliterated. It is in a situation much more exposed to the elements than the other two inscriptions at Coleorton. He

who sang how spear and shield In civil conflict met on Bosworth-field,

was Sir John Beaumont, the brother of the dramatist, who wrote a poem on the battle of Bosworth. (See one of Wordsworth's notes to the _Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle_, p. 84.) The

famous Youth, full soon removed From earth,

was Francis Beaumont, the dramatist, who wrote in conjunction with Fletcher. He died at the age of twenty-nine.

In an undated letter addressed to Sir George Beaumont, Wordsworth wrote, "I like your ancestor's verses the more, the more I see of them. They are manly, dignified, and extremely harmonious. I do not remember in any author of that age such a series of well-tuned couplets."

In another letter written from Grasmere (probably in 1811) to Sir George, he says in reference to his own poems, "These inscriptions have all one fault, they are too long; but I was unable to do justice to the thoughts in less room. The second has brought Sir John Beaumont and his brother Francis so livelily to my mind that I recur to the plan of republishing the former's poems, perhaps in connection with those of Francis."

On November 16, 1811, he wrote to him again, "I am glad that the inscriptions please you. It did always appear to me, that inscriptions, particularly those in verse, or in a dead language, were never supposed _necessarily_ to be the composition of those in whose name they appeared. If a more striking or more dramatic effect could be produced, I have always thought, that in an epitaph or memorial of any kind, a father or husband, etc., might be introduced speaking, without any absolute deception being intended; that is, the reader is understood to be at liberty to say to himself,--these verses, or this Latin, may be the composition of some unknown person, and not that of the father, widow, or friend, from whose hand or voice they profess to proceed.... I have altered the verses, and I have only to regret that the alteration is not more happily done. But I never found anything more difficult. I wished to preserve the expression _patrimonial grounds_,[A] but I found this impossible, on account of the awkwardness of the pronouns, he and his, as applied to Reynolds, and to yourself. This, even when it does not produce confusion, is always inelegant. I was, therefore, obliged to drop it; so that we must be content, I fear, with the inscription as it stands below. I hope it will do. I tried a hundred different ways, but cannot hit upon anything better...."--ED.

VARIANTS:

[1] 1815.

Shall ... 1820.

The text of 1827 returns to that of 1815.

[2] And to a favourite resting-place invite, For coolness grateful and a sober light;

Inserted only in the editions of 1815 and 1820, and in a MS. letter to Sir George Beaumont, 1811.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] See p. 79, l. 13.--ED.

IN A GARDEN OF THE SAME

Composed 1811.--Published 1815