Hours of perfect gladsomeness.1 Find my wisdom in my bliss ; Even from things 2 by sorrow wrought, Spite of care, and spite of grief, To gambol with Life's falling Leaf. 120 125 THE SMALL CELANDINE * Composed 1804.-Published 1807 [Grasmere, Town-end. It is remarkable that this flower coming out so early in the spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful, and in such profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse. What adds much to the interest that attends it, is its habit of shutting itself up and opening out according to the degree of light and temperature of the air. -I. F. In pencil on opposite page "Has not Chaucer noticed it?"—W. W. This was classed by Wordsworth among his "Poems referring to the Period of Old Age.”—ED. THERE is a Flower, the lesser Celandine, That shrinks, like many more, from cold and rain ; And, the first moment that the sun may shine, When hailstones have been falling, swarm on swarm, Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm, Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest, In close self-shelter, like a Thing at rest. 6 But lately, one rough day, this Flower I passed I stopped, and said with inly-muttered voice, "The sunshine may not cheer 2 it, nor the dew; Stiff in its members, withered, changed of hue." To be a Prodigal's Favourite-then, worse truth, O Man, that from thy fair and shining youth ΙΟ 15 20 With the last stanza compare one from The Fountain, vol. ii. p. 93 Thus fares it still in our decay : And yet the wiser mind Mourns less for what age takes away Than what it leaves behind. Compare also the other two poems on the Celandine, vol. ii. pp. 300, 303, written in a previous year.-ED. AT APPLETHWAITE, NEAR KESWICK 1804 Composed 1804.-Published 1842 [This was presented to me by Sir George Beaumont, with a view to the erection of a house upon it, for the sake of being near to Coleridge, then living, and likely to remain, at Greta Hall, near Keswick. The severe necessities that prevented this arose from his domestic situation. This little property, with a considerable addition that still leaves it very small, lies beautifully upon the banks of a rill that gurgles down the side of Skiddaw; and the orchard and other parts of the grounds command a magnificent prospect of Derwent Water, the mountains of Borrowdale and Newlands. Not many years ago I gave the place to my daughter.-I. F.] In pencil on the opposite page in Dora Wordsworth's (Mrs. Quillinan's) handwriting-"Many years ago, Sir; for it was given when she was a frail feeble monthling." One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-ED. BEAUMONT! it was thy wish that I should rear A seemly Cottage in this sunny Dell, On favoured ground, thy gift, where I might dwell Might work in our high Calling—a bright hope And should these slacken, honoured BEAUMONT ! still Leave of our fate thy wishes 1 to fulfil. 1 pleasure MS. Old Skiddaw will look down upon the Spot This little property at Applethwaite now belongs to Mr. Gordon Wordsworth, the grandson of the poet. It is a 66 sunny dell" only in its upper reaches, above the spot where the cottage -which still bears Wordsworth's name-is built. This sonnet, and Sir George Beaumont's wish that Wordsworth and Coleridge should live so near each other, as to be able to carry on joint literary labour, recall the somewhat similar wish and proposal on the part of W. Calvert, unfolded in a letter from Coleridge to Sir Humphry Davy.-ED. VAUDRACOUR AND JULIA Composed 1804.-Published 1820 The following Tale was written as an Episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The facts are true; no invention as to these has been exercised, as none was needed.-W. W. 1820. [Written at Town-end, Grasmere. Faithfully narrated, though with the omission of many pathetic circumstances, from the mouth of a French lady, who had been an eye-and-ear witness of all that was done and said. Many long years after, I was told that Dupligne was then a monk in the Convent of La Trappe.-I. F.] This was included among the "Poems founded on the Affections."-ED. 1 O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus will be proud, and that same spot Be dear unto the Muses evermore. MS. *In the edition of 1842 the following footnote is given by Wordsworth, "This biographical Sonnet, if so it may be called, together with the Epistle that follows, have been long suppressed from feelings of personal delicacy." The "Epistle" was that addressed to Sir George Beaumont in 1811.-ED. The work was The Prelude. See book ix., p. 310 of this volume.--ED. Compare The Prelude, book ix. l. 548, p. 310, where Wordsworth says it was told him "by my Patriot friend."-ED. To such inheritance of blessed fancy (Fancy that sports more desperately with minds The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by years His stripling prime. A town of small repute, With answering vows. Plebeian was the stock, Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering Thus, not without concurrence of an age 1 1836. And strangers to content if long apart, 1820. 5 ΙΟ 15 20 25 339 30 35 |