The Poem
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| I grieved for Buonaparté, with a vain And an unthinking grief! The tenderest mood Of that Man's mind—what can it be? what food Fed his first hopes? what knowledge could he gain? 'Tis not in battles that from youth we train The Governor who must be wise and good, And temper with the sternness of the brain Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. Wisdom doth live with children round her knees: Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk Of the mind's business: these are the degrees By which true Sway doth mount; this is the stalk True Power doth grow on; and her rights are these. [Note] [Contents 1802] [Main Contents] | [1] | 5 10 |
| 1837 | |
| grief! the vital blood Of that man's mind, what can it be? What food Fed his first hopes? what knowledge could he gain? | 1802 |
| ... grief! for, who aspires To genuine greatness but from just desires, And knowledge such as He could never gain? | 1815 |
grief! the vital blood
Of that man's mind, what can it be? What food
Fed his first hopes? what knowledge could he gain?
... grief! for, who aspires
To genuine greatness but from just desires,
And knowledge such as He could never gain?
It had twice seen the light previously in The Morning Post, first on September 16, 1802, unsigned, and again on January 29, 1803, when it was signed W. L. D.—Ed.
Note:
Wordsworth's date 1801, in the Fenwick note, should have been 1802. His sister writes, in her Journal of 1802:
"May 21.—W. wrote two sonnets on Buonaparte, after I had read Milton's sonnets to him."
The "irregular" sonnet, written "at school," to which Wordsworth refers, is probably the one published in the European Magazine. in 1787, vol. xi. p. 202, and signed Axiologus.—Ed.
[Contents 1802]
[Main Contents]