The Poem

textvariantfootnoteline number
'Tis said, that some have died for love:
And here and there a church-yard grave is found
In the cold north's unhallowed ground,
Because the wretched man himself had slain,
His love was such a grievous pain.
And there is one whom I five years have known;
He dwells alone
Upon Helvellyn's side:
He loved—the pretty Barbara died;
And thus he makes his moan:
Three years had Barbara in her grave been laid
When thus his moan he made:
"Oh, move, thou Cottage, from behind that oak!
Or let the aged tree uprooted lie,
That in some other way yon smoke
May mount into the sky!
The clouds pass on; they from the heavens depart:
I look—the sky is empty space;
I know not what I trace;
But when I cease to look, my hand is on my heart.
"O! what a weight is in these shades! Ye leaves,
That murmur once so dear, when will it cease?
Your sound my heart of rest bereaves,
It robs my heart of peace.
Thou Thrush, that singest loud—and loud and free,
Into yon row of willows flit,
Upon that alder sit;
Or sing another song, or choose another tree.
"Roll back, sweet Rill! back to thy mountain-bounds,
And there for ever be thy waters chained!
For thou dost haunt the air with sounds
That cannot be sustained;
If still beneath that pine-tree's ragged bough
Headlong yon waterfall must come,
Oh let it then be dumb!
Be anything, sweet Rill, but that which thou art now.
"Thou Eglantine, so bright with sunny showers,
Proud as a rainbow spanning half the vale,
Thou one fair shrub, oh! shed thy flowers,
And stir not in the gale.
For thus to see thee nodding in the air,
To see thy arch thus stretch and bend,
Thus rise and thus descend,—
Disturbs me till the sight is more than I can bear."
The Man who makes this feverish complaint
Is one of giant stature, who could dance
Equipped from head to foot in iron mail.
Ah gentle Love! if ever thought was thine
To store up kindred hours for me, thy face
Turn from me, gentle Love! nor let me walk
Within the sound of Emma's voice, nor know
Such happiness as I have known to-day.
[Note]
[Contents]



[1]

[2]
[3]

[4]

5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50

[Variant 1:]

1836
... Ye leaves,
When will that dying murmur be suppress'd?
Your sound my heart of peace bereaves,
It robs my heart of rest.


1800

... Ye leaves,
When will that dying murmur be suppress'd?
Your sound my heart of peace bereaves,
It robs my heart of rest.

[return]

[Variant 2:]

1800
... yon ...MS.

... yon ...

[return]

[Variant 3:]

1836
Thou Eglantine whose arch so proudly towers
(Even like a rainbow ...
1800
... the rainbow ...1802

Thou Eglantine whose arch so proudly towers
(Even like a rainbow ...

... the rainbow ...

The text of 1815 returns to that of 1800.

[return]

[Variant 4:]

1836
... or ...1800

... or ...

[return]

Note:

If the second, third, and fourth stanzas of this poem had been published without the first, the fifth, and the last, it would have been deemed an exquisite fragment by those who object to the explanatory preamble, and to the moralising sequel. The intermediate stanzas suggest Burns's

'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair!
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
An' I sae weary, fu' o' care!'

and Browning's May and Death:

'I wish that when you died last May,
Charles, there had died along with you
Three parts of spring's delightful things;
Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.'

This mood of mind Wordsworth appreciated as fully as the opposite, or complementary one, which finds expression in the great Ode, Intimations of Immortality (vol. viii.), l. 26.

'No more shall grief of mine the season wrong,'

and which Browning expresses in other verses of his lyric, and repeatedly elsewhere. The allusion in the last stanza of this poem is to Wordsworth's sister Dorothy.—Ed.

[Contents: Poems on the Naming of Places]
[Main Contents]

The Childless Father

Composed 1800.-Published 1800[A]

[The Poem]

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. When I was a child at Cockermouth, no funeral took place without a basin filled with sprigs of boxwood being placed upon a table covered with a white cloth in front of the house. The huntings on foot, in which the old man is supposed to join as here described, were of common, almost habitual, occurrence in our vales when I was a boy, and the people took much delight in them. They are now less frequent.—I. F.]

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."—Ed.