The Poem
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| Calm is all nature as a resting wheel. The kine are couched upon the dewy grass; The horse alone, seen dimly as I pass, Is cropping audibly his later meal: Dark is the ground; a slumber seems to steal O'er vale, and mountain, and the starless sky. Now, in this blank of things, a harmony, Home-felt, and home-created, comes to heal That grief for which the senses still supply Fresh food; for only then, when memory Is hushed, am I at rest. My Friends! restrain Those busy cares that would allay my pain; Oh! leave me to myself, nor let me feel The officious touch that makes me droop again. | [1] [2] | [C] | 5 10 |
The date of the composition of this fragment is quite unknown.—Ed.
But previously, in
The Morning Post
, Feb. 13, 1802.—Ed.
Canon Ainger calls attention to the fact that there is here a parallel, possibly a reminiscence, from the 'Nocturnal Reverie' of the Countess of Winchelsea.
Whose stealing pace and lengthened shade we fear,
Till torn-up forage in his teeth we hear.
Ed.
| 1827 | |
| Is up, and cropping yet ... | 1807 |
Is up, and cropping yet ...
| 1838 | |
| ... seems ... | 1807 |
... seems ...
[An Evening Walk]
Addressed to a Young Lady
Composed 1787-9A—Published 1793
The young Lady to whom this was addressed was my Sister. It was composed at School, and during my first two College vacations. There is not an image in it which I have not observed; and, now in my seventy-third year, I recollect the time and place, when most of them were noticed. I will confine myself to one instance:
I was an eye-witness of this for the first time while crossing the Pass of Dunmail Raise. Upon second thought, I will mention another image:Waving his hat, the shepherd, from the vale,
Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale,—
The dog, loud barking, 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where his master points, the intercepted flocks.This is feebly and imperfectly expressed, but I recollect distinctly the very spot where this first struck me. It was on the way between Hawkshead and Ambleside, and gave me extreme pleasure. The moment was important in my poetical history; for I date from it my consciousness of the infinite variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed by the poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them; and I made a resolution to supply in some degree the deficiency. I could not have been at that time above fourteen years of age. The description of the swans, that follows, was taken from the daily opportunities I had of observing their habits, not as confined to the gentleman's park, but in a state of nature. There were two pairs of them that divided the lake of Esthwaite, and its in-and-out flowing streams, between them, never trespassing a single yard upon each other's separate domain. They were of the old magnificent species, bearing in beauty and majesty about the same relation to the Thames swan which that does to the goose. [It] was from the remembrance of those noble creatures, I took, thirty years after, the picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of 'Dion'. While I was a schoolboy, the late Mr. Curwen introduced a little fleet of these birds, but of the inferior species, to the lake of Windermere. Their principal home was about his own island; but they sailed about into remote parts of the lake, and either from real or imagined injury done to the adjoining fields, they were got rid of at the request of the farmers and proprietors, but to the great regret of all who had become attached to them from noticing their beauty and quiet habits. I will conclude my notice of this poem by observing that the plan of it has not been confined to a particular walk, or an individual place; a proof (of which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to submit the poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance. The country is idealised rather than described in any one of its local aspects.—I. F.And, fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines
Its darkening boughs and leaves, in stronger lines.
[cross-reference: return to Footnote A of The Idiot Boy]
Waving his hat, the shepherd, from the vale,
Directs his winding dog the cliffs to scale,—
The dog, loud barking, 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where his master points, the intercepted flocks.
And, fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines
Its darkening boughs and leaves, in stronger lines.
The title of this poem, as first published in 1793, was An Evening Walk. An epistle; in verse. Addressed to a Young Lady, from the Lakes of the North of England. By W. Wordsworth, B.A., of St. John's, Cambridge. Extracts from it were published in all the collected editions of the poems under the general title of "Juvenile Pieces," from 1815 to 1843; and, in 1845 and 1849, of "Poems written in Youth." The following prefatory note to the "Juvenile Pieces" occurs in the editions 1820 to 1832.
"They are reprinted with some unimportant alterations that were chiefly made very soon after their publication. It would have been easy to amend them, in many passages, both as to sentiment and expression, and I have not been altogether able to resist the temptation: but attempts of this kind are made at the risk of injuring those characteristic features, which, after all, will be regarded as the principal recommendation of juvenile poems."
To this, Wordsworth added, in 1836,
"The above, which was written some time ago, scarcely applies to the Poem, Descriptive Sketches, as it now stands. The corrections, though numerous, are not, however, such as to prevent its retaining with propriety a place in the class of 'Juvenile Pieces.'"
In May 1794 Wordsworth wrote to his friend Mathews,
"It was with great reluctance that I sent these two little works into the world in so imperfect a state. But as I had done nothing at the University, I thought these little things might show that I could do something."
Wordsworth's notes to this poem are printed from the edition of 1793. Slight variations in the text of these notes in subsequent editions, in the spelling of proper names, and in punctuation, are not noted.—Ed.
'General Sketch of the Lakes—
Author's regret of his Youth which was passed amongst them—
Short description of Noon—
Cascade—
Noon-tide Retreat—
Precipice and sloping Lights—
Face of Nature as the Sun declines—
Mountain-farm, and the Cock—
Slate-quarry—
Sunset—
Superstition of the Country connected with that moment—
Swans—
Female Beggar—
Twilight-sounds—
Western Lights—
Spirits—
Night—
Moonlight—
Hope—
Night-sounds—
Conclusion'.