is ruddy, fleet and strong,
And down the rocks can leap along
Like rivulets in May.
Or again—
She shall be sportive as the fawn,
That wild with glee across the lawn
Or up the mountain springs.
In 1802 the poet married his cousin, Mary Hutchinson, and nothing is more characteristic of Dorothy’s sweet and generous nature than the warm, loving welcome which she gave to her brother’s wife. She did not know jealousy in love; her love was so perfect that she rejoiced in every addition to her brother’s happiness, and did not, as a meaner woman might have done, wish his heart to be vacant of all affection save what he felt for herself. The poet’s wife was worthy of such a husband and sister-in-law, and the family life went on in perfect love and harmony, that were only strengthened by the new ties and interests that marriage brought. Wordsworth’s children became as dear to Dorothy as if they had been her own, and she devoted herself to them so that they learnt to feel that they had in her almost a second mother.
In 1832, Wordsworth then being sixty-two years old and his sister over sixty, Dorothy’s health seriously broke down. So much has been said in some of the books about the poet and his sister of the harm resulting to Miss Wordsworth’s health from her long walks, that it might have been imagined that she had been the victim of a very premature decline of physical powers. Considering, however, that she was descended from parents both of whom had died young, it is at least doubtful whether her failure of health at the age of sixty can be fairly attributed to her pedestrian feats. Her illness in 1832 culminated in a dangerous attack of brain fever, from which she recovered, but with mental and physical powers permanently enfeebled. Her memory was darkened, and her spirits, once so blithe and gay, became clouded and dull. Wordsworth and his wife tended her with unceasing devotion. One who knew them well wrote of Wordsworth at this time that “There is always something very touching in his way of speaking of his sister. The tones of his voice become very gentle and solemn, and he ceases to have that flow of expression which is so remarkable in him on all other subjects.” The same friend wrote, “Those who know what they (William and Dorothy Wordsworth) were to each other can well understand what it must have been to him to see that soul of life and light obscured.”
Notwithstanding the delicate health from which she suffered before the close of her life, she outlived her brother for five years. He died on 23d April 1850, the anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth and death. His sister at first could hardly comprehend her loss; but when at last she understood that her heart’s best treasure was no more, she exclaimed that there was nothing left worth living for. It was hardly life to live without him to whom her own life had been devoted. The friends surrounding her dreaded the shock which this great loss would be to her, but she bore it with unexpected calmness. A friend wrote, “She is drawn about as usual in her chair. She was heard to say as she passed the door where the body lay, ‘O Death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?’” She died in January 1855, and was buried by her brother’s side in Grasmere Churchyard.