Wear rather in thy bonds a cheerful brow: Though fallen thyself, never to rise again, Live, and take comfort.1 Thou hast left behind Powers that will work for thee; air, earth, and skies; 10 There's not a breathing of the common wind And love, and man's unconquerable mind.* Francois Dominique Toussaint (who was surnamed L'Ouverture), the child of African slaves, was born at St. Domingo in 1743. He was a Royalist in political sympathy till 1794, when the decree of the French convention, giving liberty to the slaves, brought him over to the side of the Republic. He was made a general of division by Laveux, and succeeded in taking the whole of the north of the island from the English. In 1796 he was made chief of the French army of St. Domingo, and first the British commander, and next the Spanish, surrendered everything to him. He became governor of the island, which prospered under his rule. Napoleon, however, in 1801, issued an edict re-establishing slavery in St. Domingo. Toussaint professed obedience, but showed that he meant to resist the edict. A fleet of fifty-four vessels was sent from France to enforce it. Toussaint was proclaimed an outlaw. He surrendered, and was received with military honours, but was treacherously arrested and sent to Paris in June 1802, where he died, in April 1803, after ten months' hardship in prison. He had been two months in prison when Wordsworth addressed this sonnet to him.-ED. His beams around thee, or thou rest thy head 1815. 1820. Yet die not; be thou Life to thyself in death; with chearful brow 1803. * Compare Rowe's Tamerlane, iii. 2, But to subdue the unconquerable mind. Also Gray's poem The Progress of Poesy, ii. 2, l. 10— Th' unconquerable Mind, and Freedom's holy flame. ED. COMPOSED IN THE VALLEY NEAR DOVER, ON THE DAY OF LANDING Composed August 30, 1802.-Published 1807 HERE, on our native soil, we breathe once more.1 Europe is yet in bonds; but let that pass, 3 5 ΙΟ "On Sunday, Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal,the 29th of August, we left Calais, at twelve o'clock in the morning, and landed at Dover at one on Monday the 30th. It was very pleasant to me, when we were in the harbour at 1 1827. Dear fellow Traveller! here we are once more. 1807. 2 1820. 1807. that 3 1815. In white sleev'd shirts are playing by the score, 1807. * At the beginning of Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of a Tour on the Continent in 1820, she writes (July 10, 1820):-" When within a mile of Dover saw crowds of people at a cricket match, the numerous combatants dressed in 'white-sleeved shirts;' and it was in the very same field, where, when we 'trod the grass of England once again,' twenty years ago, we had seen an assemblage of youths, engaged in the same sport, so very like the present that all might have been the same. (See my brother's sonnet.)"-ED. Dover, to breathe the fresh air, and to look up and see the stars among the ropes of the vessel. The next day was very hot, we bathed, and sat upon the Dover Cliffs, and looked upon France with many a melancholy and tender thought. We could see the shores almost as plain as if it were but an English lake. We mounted the coach, and arrived in London at six, the 30th August."—ED. SEPTEMBER 1, 1802 Composed September 1, 1802.-Published 1807 * Among the capricious acts of Tyranny that disgraced these times, was the chasing of all Negroes from France by decree of the Government: we had a Fellow-passenger who was one of the expelled.-W. W. 1827. 1 WE had a female Passenger who came 1 1845. We had a fellow-passenger that came who Driven from the soil of France, a Female came 1803. 1807. 1827. 5 The edition of 1838 returns to the text of 1807, but the edition of 1840 reverts to that of 1827. Dejected, downcast, meek, and more than tame : 1803. Dejected, meek, yea pitiably tame, 1807. *First printed in The Morning Post, February 11, 1803, under the title of The Banished Negroes, and signed W. L. D.-ED. 1 But on all proffered intercourse did lay To mock the Outcast-O ye Heavens, be kind! ΙΟ It was a natural arrangement which led Wordsworth to place this sonnet, in his edition of 1807, immediately after the one addressed To Toussaint L'Ouverture.-ED. SEPTEMBER, 1802, NEAR DOVER * Composed September, 1802.-Published 1807 INLAND, within a hollow vale, I stood; And saw, while sea was calm and air was clear, Not one of whom may now find footing there. Dishonour'd Despots, tell us if ye dare. 1803. driv'n from France, Rejected like all others of that race, Not one of whom may now find footing there; 1807. To mock the outcast-O ye Heavens, be kind! 1827. 1837. ap * From 1807 to 1843 the title was September, 1802; "near Dover' peared in the Sonnets" of 1838, but did not become a permanent part of the title until 1845.-ED. The coast of France-the coast of France how near! Drawn almost into frightful neighbourhood. I shrunk; for verily the barrier flood Was like a lake, or river bright and fair, A span of waters; yet what power is there! What mightiness for evil and for good! * Virtuous and wise. Winds blow, and waters rcll, 5 ΙΟ In The Friend (ed. 1818, vol. i. p. 107), Coleridge writes :— "The narrow seas that form our boundaries, what were they in times of old? The convenient highway for Danish and Norman pirates. What are they now? Still, but a 'Span of Waters.' Yet they roll at the base of the Ararat, on which the Ark of the Hope of Europe and of Civilization rested!" He then quotes this sonnet from the line "Even so doth God protect us if we be." The note appended to the sonnet, Composed in the Valley near Dover, on the day of Landing (p. 341), shows that this one refers to the same occasion; and that while "Inland, within a hollow vale," Wordsworth was, at the same time, on the Dover Cliffs; the "vale" being one of the hollow clefts in the headland, which front the Dover coast-line. The sonnet may, however, have been finished afterwards in London.-Ed. WRITTEN IN LONDON, SEPTEMBER, 1802 Composed September, 1802.-Published 1807 [This was written immediately after my return from France to London, when I could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and parade of our own country, especially in great towns and cities, as contrasted with the quiet, and I * Compare in S. T. Coleridge's Ode to the Departing Year, stanza vii. And Ocean 'mid his uproar wild ED. |