WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS 1804 THE poems written in 1804 were not numerous; and, with the exception of The Small Celandine, the stanzas beginning "I wandered lonely as a cloud," and "She was a Phantom of delight," they were less remarkable than those of the two preceding, and the three following years. Wordsworth's poetical activity in 1804 is not recorded, however, in Lyrical Ballads or Sonnets, but in The Prelude, much of which was thought out, and afterwards dictated to Dorothy or Mary Wordsworth, on the terrace walk of Lancrigg during that year; while the Ode, Intimations of Immortality was altered and added to, although it did not receive its final form till 1806. In the sixth book of The Prelude, p. 222, the lines occur Four years and thirty, told this very week, Have I been now a sojourner on earth. That part of the great autobiographical poem must therefore have been composed in April, 1804.-ED. "SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT" Composed 1804.-Published 1807 [Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The germ of this poem was four lines composed as a part of the verses on the Highland Girl. Though beginning in this way, it was written from my heart, as is sufficiently obvious.—I. F.] One of the "Poems of the Imagination."-ED. SHE was a Phantom of delight When first she gleamed upon my sight; * A lovely Apparition, sent To be a moment's ornament; Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair; Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; 1 From May-time and the cheerful Dawn ;1 I saw her upon nearer view, A Spirit, yet a Woman too! Her household motions light and free, A countenance in which did meet Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles. And now I see with eye serene 15 20 The very pulse of the machine; 1 1807. From May-time's brightest, liveliest dawn; 1836. The text of 1840 returns to that of 1807. * Compare two references to Mary Wordsworth in The Prelude Another maid there was, who also shed (book vi. 1. 224). (book xiv. 1. 268).—ED. A Being breathing thoughtful breath, 25 30 It is not easy to say what were the "four lines composed as a part of the verses on the Highland Girl" which the Fenwick note tells us was "the germ of this poem." They may be lines now incorporated in those To a Highland Girl, vol. ii. p. 389, or they may be lines in the present poem, which Wordsworth wrote at first for the Highland Girl, but afterwards transferred to this one. They may have been the first four lines of the later poem. The two should be read consecutively, and compared. After Wordsworth's death, a writer in the Daily News, January 1859-then understood to be Miss Harriet Martineau -wrote thus :-" In the Memoirs, by the nephew of the poet, it is said that these verses refer to Mrs. Wordsworth; but for half of Wordsworth's life it was always understood that they referred to some other phantom which 'gleamed upon his sight' before Mary Hutchinson." This statement is much more than improbable; it is, I think, disproved by the Fenwick note. They cannot refer to the "Lucy" of the Goslar poems; and Wordsworth indicates, as plainly as he chose, to whom they actually do refer. Compare the Hon. Justice Coleridge's account of a conversation with Wordsworth (Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 306), in which the poet expressly said that the lines were written on his wife. The question was, however, set at rest in a conversation of Wordsworth with Henry Crabb Robinson, who wrote in his Diary on "May 12 (1842).—Wordsworth said that the poems 'Our walk was far among the ancient trees' [vol. ii. p. 167], then She was a Phantom of delight,'* and finally the two sonnets To a Painter, should be read in succession as exhibiting the different phases of his affection to his wife.”—(Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson, vol. iii. p. 197.) The use of the word "machine," in the third stanza of the poem, has been much criticised, but for a similar use of the term, see the sequel to The Waggoner (p. 107)— Forgive me, then; for I had been On friendly terms with this Machine. See also Hamlet (act II. scene ii. 1. 124)— Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him. The progress of mechanical industry in Britain since the beginning of the present century has given a more limited, and purely technical, meaning to the word, than it bore when Wordsworth used it in these two instances.-ED. "I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD" Composed 1804.-Published 1807 [Town-end, 1804. The two best lines in it are by Mary. The daffodils grew, and still grow, on the margin of Ullswater, and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March, nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves.-I. F.] This was No. VII. in the series of Poems, entitled, in the edition of 1807, "Moods of my own Mind." In 1815, and afterwards, it was classed by Wordsworth among his "Poems of the Imagination."-ED. 1 1815. I WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden 1 daffodils ; * The poet expressly told me that these verses were on his wife.-H. C. R. Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Continuous as the stars that shine Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.2 The waves beside them danced; but they In such a jocund 4 company : I gazed and gazed-but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought : For oft, when on my couch I lie And then my heart with pleasure fills, The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, under date, Thursday, April 15, 1802 "When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the sea had floated the seeds ashore, and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more, and yet more; and, at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of 1 1815. Along the Lake, beneath the trees, 2 This stanza was added in the edition of 1815. 3 1807. be but gay, 1807. 1836. The 1840 edition returns to the text of 1807. 4 1815. laughing 1807. |