"IT IS A BEAUTEOUS EVENING, CALM Composed August, 1802.-Published 1807 [This was composed on the beach near Calais, in the autumn of 1802.-I. F.] One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets." In 1807 it was No. 19 of that series.-ED. It is a beauteous evening, calm and free,1 The holy time is quiet as a Nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the Sea: 2 And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thunder-everlastingly. Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,* 1 1807. Air sleeps,-from strife or stir the clouds are free; 1837. 1840. The text of 1845 returns to that of 1807. A fairer face of evening cannot be ; 2 1837. is on the Sea : 3 1807. But list! 1807. 1837. 5 The text of 1840 returns to that of 1807. * I thought, for some time, that the "girl" referred to was Dorothy Wordsworth. Her brother used to speak, and to write, of her under many names, "Emily," "Louisa," etc.; and to call her a "child " in 1802-a "child of Nature" she was to the end of her days-or a "girl," seemed quite natural. However, a more probable suggestion was made by Mr. T. Hutchinson to Professor Dowden, that it refers to the girl Caroline mentioned in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal. "We arrived at Calais at four o'clock on Sunday morning, the 3rd of July. We found out Annette and C., chez Madame Avril dans la rue de la Tête d'or. The weather was very hot. We walked by the shore almost every evening with Annette and Caroline, or William and I alone. . . . It was beautiful on the calm hot night to see the little boats row out of harbour with wings of fire, and the If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,1 ΙΟ ON THE EXTINCTION OF THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC Composed August, 1802.-Published 1807 "Poems This and the following ten sonnets were included among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"; re-named in 1845, dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."-Ed. 1 ONCE did She hold the gorgeous east in fee; 1845. 1807. Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here, 1838. The text of 1840 returns to that of 1807. 5 sail-boats with the fiery track which they cut as they went along, and which closed up after them with a hundred thousand sparkles and streams of glowworm light. Caroline was delighted." I have been unable to discover who Annette and Caroline were. Dorothy Wordsworth frequently records in her Grasmere Journal that either William, or she, "wrote to Annette," but who she was is unknown to either the Wordsworth or the Hutchinson family.-ED. * Compare The Child is father of the Man, etc. Also S. T. C. in The Friend, iii. p. 46— p. 292. The sacred light of childhood, and The Prelude, book v. 1. 507. ED. She must espouse the everlasting Sea.* "Once did she hold the gorgeous east in fee." IO The special glory of Venice dates from the conquest of Constantinople by the Latins in 1202. The fourth Crusadein which the French and Venetians alone took part-started from Venice, in October 1202, under the command of the Doge, Henry Dandolo. Its aim, however, was not the recovery of Palestine, but the conquest of Constantinople. At the close of the crusade, Venice received the Morea, part of Thessaly, the Cyclades, many of the Byzantine cities, and the coasts of the Hellespont, with three-eighths of the city of Constantinople itself, the Doge taking the curious title of Duke of three-eighths of the Roman Empire. And was the safeguard of the west." This may refer to the prominent part which Venice took in the Crusades, or to the development of her naval power, which made her mistress of the Mediterranean for many years, and an effective bulwark against invasions from the East. The origin of the Venetian State was the flight of many of the inhabitants of the mainland-on the invasion of Italy by Attila-to the chain of islands that lie at the head of the Adriatic. "In the midst of the waters, free, indigent, laborious, and inaccessible, they gradually coalesced into a republic: the first foundations of Venice were laid in the island of Rialto. On the verge of the two empires the Venetians exult in the belief of primitive and perpetual independence."Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. Ix. ... "And, when she took unto herself a Mate, In 1177, Pope Alexander III. appealed to the Venetian * Compare Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (canto iv. 11)— The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord. VOL. II ED. Ꮓ Republic for protection against the German Emperor. The Venetians were successful in a naval battle at Saboro, against Otho, the son of Frederick Barbarossa. In return, the Pope presented the Doge Liani with a ring, with which he told him to wed the Adriatic, that posterity might know that, the sea was subject to Venice, "as a bride is to her husband." In September 1796, nearly six years before this sonnet was written, the fate of the old Venetian Republic was sealed by the treaty of Campo Formio. The French army under Napoleon had subdued Italy, and, having crossed the Alps, threatened Vienna. To avert impending disaster, the Emperor Francis arranged a treaty which extinguished the Venetian Republic. He divided its territory between himself and Napoleon, Austria retaining Istria, Dalmatia, and the left bank of the Adige in the Venetian State, with the "maiden city" itself; France receiving the rest of the territory and the Ionian Islands. Since the date of that treaty the city has twice been annexed to Italy. -ED. THE KING OF SWEDEN Composed August, 1802.-Published 1807 THE Voice of song from distant lands shall call By one example hath set forth to all How they with dignity may stand; or fall, 5 If fall they must. Now, whither doth it tend? That thought is one which neither can appal Nor cheer him; for the illustrious Swede hath done The thing which ought to be; is raised above 2 All consequences: work he hath begun Of fortitude, and piety, and love, Which all his glorious ancestors approve : The heroes bless him, him their rightful son. The following is Wordsworth's note to this sonnet, added in 1837-"In this and a succeeding Sonnet on the same subject, let me be understood as a Poet availing himself of the situation which the King of Sweden occupied, and of the principles AVOWED IN HIS MANIFESTOS ; as laying hold of these advantages for the purpose of embodying moral truths. This remark might, perhaps, as well have been suppressed; for to those who may be in sympathy with the course of these Poems, it will be superfluous; and will, I fear, be thrown away upon that other class, whose besotted admiration of the intoxicated despot hereafter placed in contrast with him, is the most melancholy evidence of degradation in British feeling and intellect which the times have furnished." * The king referred to is Gustavus IV., who was born in 1778, proclaimed king in 1792, and died in 1837. His first public act after his accession was to join in the coalition against Napoleon, and dislike of Napoleon was the main-spring of his policy. It is to this that Wordsworth refers in the sonnet the illustrious Swede hath done The thing which ought to be. It made him unpopular, however, and gave rise to a conspiracy against him, and to his consequent abdication in 1809. He "died forgotten and in poverty.”—ED. 1 TO TOUSSAINT L'OUVERTURE 1827. Whether the rural milk-maid by her cow Alone in some deep dungeon's earless den, Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed 1 1803. 5 * See the sonnet beginning "Call not the royal Swede unfortunate," vol. iv. p. 224.-ED. + But previously printed in The Morning Post of February 2, 1803, under the signature W. L. D.-ED. Compare Massinger, The Bondman, act I. scene iii. 1. 8 Her man of men, Timoleon. ED. |