UPON THE SAME OCCASION

Composed 1819.—Published 1820

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.

Departing summer hath assumed

An aspect tenderly illumed,

The gentlest look of spring;

That calls from yonder leafy shade

Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,

A timely carolling.

No faint and hesitating trill,

Such tribute as to winter chill

The lonely redbreast pays!

Clear, loud, and lively is the din,

From social warblers gathering in

Their harvest of sweet lays.

Nor doth the example fail to cheer

Me, conscious that my leaf is sere,[DY]

And yellow on the bough:—

Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!

Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed

Around a younger brow!

Yet will I temperately rejoice;

Wide is the range, and free the choice

Of undiscordant themes;

Which, haply, kindred souls may prize

Not less than vernal ecstasies,

And passion's feverish dreams.

For deathless powers to verse belong,

And they like Demi-gods are strong

On whom the Muses smile;

But some their function have disclaimed,

Best pleased with what is aptliest framed

To enervate and defile.[DZ]

Not such the initiatory strains

Committed to the silent plains

In Britain's earliest dawn:

Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale,

While all-too-daringly the veil

Of nature was withdrawn![EA]

Nor such the spirit-stirring note

When the live chords Alcæus smote,[EB]

Inflamed by sense of wrong;

Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre

Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire

Of fierce vindictive song.[EC]

And not unhallowed was the page

By wingèd Love inscribed, to assuage

The pangs of vain pursuit;

Love listening while the Lesbian Maid [ED]

With finest touch of passion swayed [394]

Her own Æolian lute.

O ye, who patiently explore

The wreck of Herculanean lore,[EE]

What rapture! could ye seize

Some Theban fragment, or unroll

One precious, tender-hearted, scroll

Of pure Simonides.[EF]

That were, indeed, a genuine birth

Of poesy; a bursting forth

Of genius from the dust:

What Horace gloried to behold,[395][EG]

What Maro loved [EH] shall we enfold?

Can haughty Time be just!

VARIANTS:

[394] 1827.

1820.

With passion's finest finger swayed

[395] 1820.
(4 vol. edition.)

1820.

. . . boasted to behold,

(1 vol. edition.)

FOOTNOTES:

[DY] Compare Macbeth, act V. scene iii. l. 23—

my way of life

Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf.

[DZ] The reference may be to some of the poets of the Restoration.—Ed.

[EA] Here the reference may be to Cædmon's Paraphrase.—Ed.

[EB] Alcæus of Mytilene, in Lesbos, the first of the Æolian lyric poets, flourished in the 42nd Olympiad, about 600 B.C. He wrote odes, songs, and epigrams, and was the inventor of the Alcaic metre, called after his name. "During the civil war Alcæus engaged actively on the side of the nobles, whose spirits he endeavoured to cheer by a number of most animated odes, full of invectives against the tyrant; and after the defeat of his party, he, with his brother Antimenidas, led them again in an attempt to regain their country." (Mr. Philip Smith in the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography.)—Ed.

[EC] I am indebted to Mr. H. T. Rhoades, Rugby, for the following note on Alcæus:—"There is nothing exactly corresponding to 'Woe, woe, to Tyrants' in the fragments of Alcæus which have come down to us—which are chiefly drinking songs—the nearest is an exultation over a dead tyrant, νυν χρη μεθυσθην ... επειδη κατθανε Μυρσιλος—but he wrote verses which Pittacus thought dangerous, and for which he was banished. Horace, Od. IV. ix. 7, has 'Alcæi minaces camenæ,' and Wordsworth has perhaps had this in his mind."—Ed.

[ED] Sappho. Her ode to Aphrodite—of which Longinus said it was "not one passion, but a congress of passions"—is the most perfect in Greek literature. It is to it that Wordsworth refers; and as there has been much controversy as to the character of this magnificent erotic ode—compare the discussion by Welcher (Rheinisches Museum, 1857); by Mure (Critical History of the Language and Literature of Ancient Greece, vol. iii. chap. V. 11); by Müller (Literature of Ancient Greece, pp. 175, 178); and by J. A. Symonds (Studies of the Greek Poets, 1st Series, p. 129), Wordsworth's verdict—

Not unhallowed was the page

With finest touch of passion swayed,

is noteworthy.—Ed.

[EE] In 1752, during the excavations at Herculaneum, the villa of an Epicurean philosopher was discovered, in which were 1800 rolls of papyri, containing fragments of Epicurus' work On Nature. Only about 350 of these charred MSS. have as yet been unwound. When the discovery was first made that a library of ancient literature had been unearthed, European scholars everywhere anticipated

a bursting forth

Of genius from the dust.

Hence Wordsworth's allusion to the possible discovery of the long buried fragments of classical antiquity, such as the poems of Simonides, or the lost books of Livy and Tacitus, for which others longed.—Ed.

[EF] Simonides, of Ceos, perfected Greek elegy and epigram, a "brilliant representative not only of Greek choral poetry in its prime, but of the whole literary life of Hellas during the period which immediately preceded and followed the Persian war." We find in him "a Dorian solemnity of thought and feeling, which qualified him for commemorating in elegy and epigram and funereal ode the achievements of Hellas against Persia.... The genius of Simonides is unique in this branch of monumental poetry (epigram). His couplets—calm, simple, terse, strong as the deeds they celebrate, enduring as the brass or stone which they adorned—animated succeeding generations of Greek patriots." (Symonds, Studies of the Greek Poets, 1st Series, pp. 146-149.) The phrase "pure Simonides" probably refers to his reputation—which was proverbial—for σωφροσύνη, that temperance and restraint, that moderation and self-control which are seen both in his poems and in his reputed sayings as a philosopher.—Ed.

[EG] Horace refers to Simonides, Carmina IV. ix. 5-8—

Non, si priores Mæonius tenet

Sedes Homerus, Pindaricæ latent

Ceæque et Alcæi minaces

Stesichorique graves camenæ;

and again, Carmina II. i. 37-40—

Sed ne relictis, Musa, procax iocis

Ceæ retractes munera neniæ:

Mecum Dionæo sub antro

Quære modos leviore plectro.

Ed.

[EH] I have been unable to find any allusion to Simonides in Virgil. But probably Wordsworth merely refers to the numerous lost books of Greek and Latin literature; and wonders if these treasures (of all kinds), which Horace and Virgil knew and prized, would ever be recovered by us. Some of Horace's most significant references to the literature of Greece, and of the past, occur in Odes III. 3; iv. 2 and 3.

Since the above was written, the late Professor William Sellar wrote to me:—"I do not find any special reference to Simonides in Virgil. Besides the passages you refer to in Horace, there are two or three lines in the Odes, which he has translated from Simonides, e.g.

Est et fideli tuta silentio

Merces: (Carmina III. ii. 25)

but I think Wordsworth's reference is quite vague. It is quite appropriate so far, that it was only in the Augustan age that the Romans got back to the great sources of Greek poetry, and one cause of the superiority of Virgil and Horace to all their contemporaries was that they did this much more thoroughly than the others, and appreciated the purest and oldest of these sources. Horace's special study was of course the whole range of Greek lyric poetry. He no doubt acknowledges his relation to Sappho and Alcæus more than to Simonides, but he recognises him as well as Pindar among the Masters of lyrical poetry. So far as one can judge by the fragments of Simonides' lyrical poetry, I should say that his characteristics were tenderness, piety, and purity; and, in these respects, he has a strong affinity with Virgil, which may explain their association together by Wordsworth. The passage quoted by you is very interesting, as showing how Wordsworth—the most essentially modern and least conventional of poets—regarded Virgil and Horace, who have often been disparaged as types of conventionalism.... It would be very interesting to bring together the various passages in which Wordsworth draws from the sources of classical poetry. His reminiscences of Latin poetry seem to me to have a peculiar freshness, different from the more direct reproduction of Milton, Gray, etc."—Ed.

1820

The following poems may be assigned to the year 1820. The River Duddon, a series of Sonnets, the Ode To Enterprise, some of the Memorials of a Tour on the Continent, and a number of Miscellaneous Sonnets. Several of the Duddon Sonnets were composed in previous years, and one of them was published as early as 1807; but, as the volume containing the entire series was published in 1820—and the dedication was written on Christmas Eve of that year—the whole has been assigned to 1820. In localising the allusions in these sonnets, I have been greatly indebted to Mr. Herbert Rix, whose paper contributed to the "Transactions of the Wordsworth Society" was only the first of a Series of admirable studies of the Duddon. I have also been greatly indebted to Canon Rawnsley. Most of the "Memorials" of the Continental Tour were written during the journey; and, although they were not finished till 1822—the year of publication—I think their chronological place should be in the year 1820. In connection with these poems, I have had the advantage of perusing the two singularly interesting Journals of the Tour, written by Mrs. Wordsworth, and by the poet's sister Dorothy. Both of these were written, in the form of notes or "memoranda," during the journey. Miss Wordsworth's was expanded from these earlier jottings, two months after her return to Rydal Mount; and added to, as late as December 1821. In the case of each poem, illustrative extracts are given from these two Journals; and it will be seen that they cast much light on the incidents which gave rise to the Memorial Verses, and the circumstances under which they were composed. The poet's wish that these journals should be published, at least in part, is expressed in the Fenwick note, which precedes the sonnet beginning, "What lovelier home could gentle Fancy choose?" p. 294; and Mrs. Wordsworth, in a letter to Mr. John Kenyon—dated 28th December 1821—after referring to her husband's being "busily engaged upon subjects connected with our Continental Journey," says, "Miss W. is going on with her Journal, which will be ready to go to press interspersed with her brother's Poems I hope before your return." She adds, however, "I do not say this seriously, but we sometimes jestingly talk of raising a fund by such means, for a second and a farther trip into Italy." The diary and correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson is also of use in determining some points connected with this Continental Journey, in which he accompanied the Wordsworths.—Ed.