There did she rest; and dwell alone 1 The engines of her pain,2 the tools That shaped her sorrow, rocks and pools, The vernal leaves-she loved them still; Which had been done to her. A Barn her winter bed supplies; But, till the warmth of summer skies (And all do in this tale agree) 3 She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree, An innocent life, yet far astray ! 215 220 225 And Ruth will, long before her day,4 5 This stanza first appeared in the edition of 1802. 230 235 (i.e. the version of 1800) "but certainly to carouse cups-that is to empty them is the genuine English."-ED. And there she begs at one steep place That oaten pipe of hers is mute, This flute, made of a hemlock stalk, I, too, have passed her on the hills By spouts and fountains wild— Ere she had wept, ere she had mourned, Farewell! and when thy days are told, Thy corpse shall buried be, For thee a funeral bell shall ring, A Christian psalm for thee. 240 245 250 255 The following extract from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal gives the date of the stanzas added to Ruth in subsequent editions:- 66 :- Sunday, March 8th, 1802.-I stitched up The Pedlar,' wrote out Ruth, read it with the alterations. William brought two new stanzas of Ruth." The transpositions of stanzas, and their omission from certain editions and their subsequent re-introduction, in altered form, in later ones, make it extremely difficult to give the textual history of Ruth in footnotes. They are even more bewildering than the changes introduced into Simon Lee.-ED. 7 1800 TOWARDS the close of December 1799, Wordsworth came to live at Dove Cottage, Town-end, Grasmere. The poems written during the following year (1800), are more particularly associated with that district of the Lakes. Two of them were fragments of a canto of The Recluse, entitled "Home at Grasmere," referring to his settlement at Dove Cottage. Others, such as Michael, and The Brothers-classed by him afterwards among the "Poems founded on the Affections,"-deal with incidents in the rural life of the dalesmen of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Most of the "Poems on the Naming of Places" were written during this year; and the "Places" are all in the neighbourhood of Grasmere. To these were added several "Pastoral Poems"-such as The Idle Shepherd Boys; or, Dungeon-Ghyll Force-sundry "Poems of the Fancy," and one or two "Inscriptions." In all, twenty-five poems were written in the year 1800; and, with the exception of the two fragments of The Recluse, they were published during the same year in the second volume of the second edition of " Lyrical Ballads." It is impossible to fix the precise date of the composition of the fragments of The Recluse; but, as they refer to the settlement at Dove Cottage-where Wordsworth went to reside with his sister, on the 21st of December 1799-they may fitly introduce the poems belonging to the year 1800. They were first published in 1851 in the Memoirs of Wordsworth (vol. i. pp. 157 and 155 respectively), by the poet's nephew, the late Bishop of Lincoln. The entire canto of The Recluse, entitled "Home at Grasmere," will be included in this edition. The first two poems which follow, as belonging to the year 1800, are parts of The Recluse, viz. "On Nature's invitation do I come," (which is 11. 71-97, and 110-125), and "Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak," (which is 11. 152-167). They are not reprinted from the Memoirs of 1851, because the text there given was, in several instances, inaccurately repro duced from the original MS., which has been re-examined. They were printed here, in The Recluse (1888), and in my Life of Wordsworth (vol. i. 1889).-ED. "ON NATURE'S INVITATION DO I COME" Composed (probably) in 1800.-Published 1851 ON Nature's invitation do I come, By Reason sanctioned. Can the choice mislead, My own, and not mine only, for with me Entrenched-say rather peacefully embowered— Aye, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir; Oh, if such silence be not thanks to God For what hath been bestowed, then where, where then Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind 10 15 20 25 30 But I would call thee beautiful; for mild, Thou art pleased, 35 Pleased with thy crags, and woody steeps, thy lake, Its one green island, and its winding shores, The multitude of little rocky hills, Thy church, and cottages of mountain-stone 40 This Grasmere cottage is identified, much more than Rydal Mount, with Wordsworth's "poetic prime." It had once been a public-house, bearing the sign of the Dove and Olive Bough-and as such is referred to in The Waggoner-from which circumstance it was for a long time, and is now usually, called "Dove Cottage." A small two storied house, it is described somewhat minutely-as it was in Wordsworth's time -by De Quincey, in his Recollections of the Lakes, and by the late Bishop of Lincoln, in the Memoirs of his uncle. "The front of it faces the lake; behind is a small plot of orchard and garden ground, in which there is a spring and rocks; the enclosure shelves upwards towards the woody sides of the mountains above it. The following is De Quincey's description of it, as he saw it in the summer of 1807. "A white cottage, with two yew trees breaking the glare of its white walls" (these yews still stand on the eastern side of the cottage). "A little semi-vestibule between two doors prefaced the entrance into what might be considered the principal room of the cottage. It was an oblong square, not above eight and a half feet high, sixteen feet long, and twelve broad; wainscoted from floor to ceiling with dark polished oak, slightly embellished with carving. One window there was a perfect and unpretending cottage window, with little diamond panes, embowered at almost every season of the year with roses; and, in the summer and autumn, with a profusion of jasmine, and other fragrant shrubs. I was ushered up a little flight of stairs, fourteen * See the Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. i. p. 156.-ED. |