"EVEN AS A DRAGON'S EYE THAT FEELS THE STRESS"
Published 1815
One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."—Ed.
Even as a dragon's eye that feels the stress
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
Suddenly[76] glaring through sepulchral damp,
So burns yon Taper 'mid a[77] black recess
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
The lake below reflects it not; the sky
Muffled in clouds, affords no company
To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.
Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing
Which sends so far its melancholy light,
Perhaps are seated in domestic ring
A gay society with faces bright,
Conversing, reading, laughing;—or they sing,
While hearts and voices in the song unite.
The light of the "Taper" referred to shone from Allan Bank; the "black recess of mountains" described the heights of Silver Howe, and Easdale, round to Helm Crag; the "lake below," which "reflected it not" (because of the distance of Allan Bank from the side of the mere), was, of course, Grasmere. Wordsworth is looking at this "lamp suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp," however, from the eastern side of the lake, perhaps from the neighbourhood of "The Wishing Gate." I am indebted to the Rev. W. A. Harrison, Vicar of St. Anne's, Lambeth, for the following note to this sonnet:—
'In the Sonnet No. xxiv., 'Poems of the Imagination,' [i.e. 'Miscellaneous Sonnets'] these lines occur:—
Even as a dragon's eye that feels the stress
Of a bedimming sleep, or as a lamp
Suddenly glaring through sepulchral damp,
So burns yon Taper 'mid a black recess
Of mountains, silent, dreary, motionless:
etc. etc. etc.
"In line 3, all the later editions read 'Suddenly glaring.' But why 'suddenly'? There is nothing in the imagery of the poem which is at all suggestive of suddenness or unexpectedness in the appearance of the burning taper. The idea is alien from the spirit of the context. The dragon is drowsy and overborne with sleep. The taper is 'dreary' and 'motionless.' Everything is suggestive of 'sluggish stillness,' not of rapid, flashing movement.
"Yet I find the reading 'suddenly' in the one vol. ed. of 1828, which is said to be a reprint of the edition of 1827 in 5 vols.; in that of 1836-7; in that of 1840; and in all the later editions.
"In the edition of 1815, however, the reading given is one that is in strict keeping with the rest of the imagery, namely—
'Sullenly glaring.'
"Is it likely that 'sullenly' was deliberately altered by Wordsworth to 'suddenly,' or is 'suddenly' a misprint that has been perpetuated through successive editions?
"The sonnet in question is not dated, but it was probably written after 1807 and before 1815.
"Now, in a well-known and often-quoted passage in Wordsworth's letter in answer to Mathetes (Friend, vol. iii. 35, etc.), he speaks of the 'sullen light' which survives the extinguished flame of the candle that the schoolboy has blown out. 'It continues,' he says, 'to shine with an endurance which in its apparent weakness is a mystery; it protracts its existence so long ... that the observer who had lain down in his bed so easy-minded, becomes sad and melancholy,' etc. etc. etc.
"In the sonnet the same ideas occur, only the 'melancholy' is here predicated figuratively of the 'light' itself:—
the sky,
Muffled in clouds, affords no company
To mitigate and cheer its loneliness.
Yet, round the body of that joyless Thing
Which sends so far its melancholy light,
Perhaps are seated, etc. etc.
"This paper in The Friend was written in 1810; and it is possible that the sonnet was written at about the same time.—W. A. Harrison."—Ed.
VARIANTS:
[76] 1827.
1815.
Sullenly . . .
[77] 1827.
1815.
. . . 'mid its . . .