A JEWISH FAMILY
(IN A SMALL VALLEY OPPOSITE ST. GOAR, UPON THE RHINE)
Composed 1828.—Published 1835
[Coleridge, my daughter, and I, in 1828, passed a fortnight upon the banks of the Rhine, principally under the hospitable roof of Mr. Aders of Gotesburg, but two days of the time we spent at St. Goar in rambles among the neighbouring valleys. It was at St. Goar that I saw the Jewish family here described. Though exceedingly poor, and in rags, they were not less beautiful than I have endeavoured to make them appear. We had taken a little dinner with us in a basket, and invited them to partake of it, which the mother refused to do, both for herself and children, saying it was with them a fast-day; adding, diffidently, that whether such observances were right or wrong, she felt it her duty to keep them strictly. The Jews, who are numerous on this part of the Rhine, greatly surpass the German peasantry in the beauty of their features and in the intelligence of their countenances. But the lower classes of the German peasantry have, here at least, the air of people grievously opprest. Nursing mothers, at the age of seven or eight-and-twenty, often look haggard and far more decayed and withered than women of Cumberland and Westmoreland twice their age. This comes from being under-fed and over-worked in their vineyards in a hot and glaring sun.—I. F.]
One of the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
Genius of Raphael! if thy wings
Might bear thee to this glen,
With faithful memory left of things[550]
To pencil dear and pen,
Thou would'st forego the neighbouring Rhine, 5
And all his majesty—
A studious forehead to incline
O'er[551] this poor family.
The Mother—her thou must have seen,
In spirit, ere she came 10
To dwell these rifted rocks between,
Or found on earth a name;
An image, too, of that sweet Boy,[552]
Thy inspirations give—
Of playfulness,[553] and love, and joy, 15
Predestined here to live.
Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,
That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies! 20
I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.
I see the dark-brown curls, the brow, 25
The smooth transparent skin,
Refined, as with intent to show
The holiness within;[554]
The grace of parting Infancy
By blushes yet untamed; 30
Age faithful to the mother's knee,
Nor of her arms ashamed.
Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet
As flowers, stand side by side;
Their soul-subduing looks[555] might cheat 35
The Christian of his pride:
Such beauty hath the Eternal poured
Upon them not forlorn,[556]
Though of a lineage once abhorred,
Nor yet redeemed from scorn. 40
Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite
Of poverty and wrong,
Doth here preserve a living light,
From Hebrew fountains sprung;
That gives this ragged group to cast 45
Around the dell a gleam
Of Palestine, of glory past,
And proud Jerusalem!
The title given to this poem by Dorothy Wordsworth, in the letter to Lady Beaumont in which the different MS. readings occur, is "A Jewish Family, met with in a Dingle near the Rhine." During the Continental Tour of 1820,—in which Wordsworth was accompanied by his wife and sister and other friends,—they went up the Rhine (see the notes to the poems recording that Tour). An extract from Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal, referring to the road from St. Goar to Bingen, may illustrate this poem, written in 1828. "From St. Goar to Bingen, castles commanding innumerable small fortified villages. Nothing could exceed the delightful variety, and at first the postilions whisked us too fast through these scenes; and afterwards, the same variety so often repeated, we became quite exhausted, at least D. and I were; and, beautiful as the road continued to be, we could scarcely keep our eyes open; but, on my being roused from one of these slumbers, no eye wide-awake ever beheld such celestial pictures as gleamed before mine, like visions belonging to dreams. The castles seemed now almost stationary, a continued succession always in sight, rarely without two or three before us at once. There they rose from the craggy cliffs, out of the centre of the stately river, from a green island, or a craggy rock, etc., etc."
In Dorothy Wordsworth's record of the same Tour, the following occurs:—"July 24.—We looked down into one of the vales tributary to the Rhine, which, in memory of the mountain recesses of Ullswater, I named Deep-dale, a green quiet place, spotted with villages and single houses, and enlivened by a sinuous brook." ... "A lovely dell runs behind one of these hills. At its opening, where it pours out its stream into the Rhine, we espied a one-arched Borrowdale bridge; and, behind the bridge, a village almost buried between the abruptly rising steeps."—Ed.
FOOTNOTES:
[550] 1835.
With memory left of shapes and things
MS. written by Dorothy Wordsworth.
[551] 1835.
On ...
MS. by Dorothy Wordsworth.
[552] 1835.
... this sweet Boy,
MS. by Dorothy Wordsworth.
[553] 1835.
In playfulness, ...
MS. by Dorothy Wordsworth.
[554] Compare The Russian Fugitive, ll. 1-4.—Ed.
[555] 1835.
Fair Creatures, in this lone retreat
By happy chance espied,
Your soul-subduing looks ...
MS. by Dorothy Wordsworth.
[556] 1835.
Upon you—not forlorn,
MS. by Dorothy Wordsworth.