ANECDOTE FOR FATHERS

Composed 1798.-Published 1798

'Retine vim istam, falsa enim dicam, si coges.'-EUSEBIUS.*

[This was suggested in front of Alfoxden. The boy was a son of my friend, Basil Montagu, who had been two or three years under our care. The name of Kilve is from a village on the Bristol Channel, about a mile from Alfoxden; and the name of Liswyn Farm was taken from a beautiful spot on the Wye, where Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and I had been visiting the famous John Thelwall, who had taken refuge from politics, after a trial for high treason, with a view to bring up his family by the profits of agriculture, which proved as unfortunate a speculation as that he had fled from. Coleridge and he had both been public lecturers; Coleridge mingling, with his politics, Theology, from which the other elocutionist abstained, unless it was for the sake of a sneer. This quondam community of public employment induced Thelwall to visit Coleridge at Nether Stowey, where he fell in my way. He really was a man of extraordinary talent, an affectionate husband, and a good father. Though brought up in the city, on a tailor's board, he was truly sensible of the beauty of natural objects. I remember once, when Coleridge, he, and I were seated together upon the turf, on the brink of a stream in the most beautiful part of the most beautiful glen of Alfoxden, Coleridge exclaimed, 'This is a place to reconcile one to all the jarrings and conflicts of the wide world.' 'Nay,' said Thelwall, 'to make one forget them altogether.' The visit of this man to Coleridge was, as I believe Coleridge has related, the occasion of a spy being sent by Government to watch our proceedings; which were, I can say with truth, such as the world at large would have thought ludicrously harmless.-I. F.]

In the editions 1798 to 1843 the title of this poem is Anecdote for Fathers, showing how the practice of lying may be taught. It was placed among the "Poems referring to the

remn

His limbs are cast in beauty's mould,
And dearly he loves me.

One morn we strolled on our dry walk,
Our quiet home 1 all full in view,

And held such intermitted talk
As we are wont to do.

My thoughts on former pleasures ran;
I thought of Kilve's delightful shore,
Our 2 pleasant home when spring began,
A long, long year before.

A day it was when I could bear
Some fond regrets to entertain; 3
With so much happiness to spare,
I could not feel a pain.

The green earth echoed to the feet

Of lambs that bounded through the glade,
From shade to sunshine, and as fleet
From sunshine back to shade. 4

Birds warbled round me--and each trace

Of inward sadness had its charm ;
Kilve, thought I, was a favoured place,5
And so is Liswyn farm.

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My boy beside me tripped, so slim
And graceful in his rustic dress!
And, as we talked, I questioned him,1
In very idleness.

"Now tell me, had you rather be,"

I said, and took him by the arm,

"On Kilve's smooth shore, by the green sea, Or here at Liswyn farm?"2

In careless mood he looked at me,
While still I held him by the arm,
And said, "At Kilve I'd rather be
Than here at Liswyn farm."

"Now, little Edward, say why so:
My little Edward, tell me why."-
"I cannot tell, I do not know."-
"Why, this is strange," said I ;

'For, here are woods, hills smooth and warm
There surely must some reason be

1836.

My boy was by my side, so slim
And graceful in his rustic dress!

These two stanzas were compressed into one in 1827.

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1836.

For, here are woods and green-hills warm ;

1798.

Why you would change sweet Liswyn farm
For Kilve by the green sea."

At this, my boy hung down his head,
He blushed with shame, nor made reply ;1
And three times to the child I said,2
“Why, Edward, tell me why?"

His head he raised-there was in sight,
It caught his eye, he saw it plain-
Upon the house-top, glittering bright,
A broad and gilded vane.

Then did the boy his tongue unlock,
And eased his mind with this reply :3
"At Kilve there was no weather-cock;
And that's the reason why."

O dearest, dearest boy! my heart
For better lore would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn.*

1 1800.

At this, my boy, so fair and slim,
Hung down his head, nor made reply;

1798.

1798.

1800.

1798.

* Mr. Ernest H. Coleridge writes to me of this poen: "The Fenwick note is most puzzling. 1. If Coleridge went to visit Thelwall, with Wordsworth and Dorothy in July 1798, this is the only record; but I suppose that he did. 2. How could the poem have been suggested in front of Alfoxden? The visit to Liswyn took place after the Wordsworths had left Alfoxden never to return. If little Montagu ever did compare Kilve and Liswyn Farm, he must have done so after he left Alfoxden. The scene is laid at Liswyn, and if the poem was written at Alfoxden, before the party visited Liswyn, the supposed reply was invented to a supposed question which might be put to the child when he got to Liswyn. How unlike Wordsworth. Thelwall came to Alfoxden at the commencement of Wordsworth's tenancy; and the visit to Wales took place when the tenancy was over, July 3-10."-ED.

3.

238 A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND the hill

"A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND THE HILL"

Composed March 18, 1798.-Published 1800

[Observed in the holly-grove at Alfoxden, where these verses were written in the spring of 1799.* I had the pleasure of again seeing, with dear friends, this grove in unimpaired beauty fortyone years after.†-I. F.]

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Classed among the "Poems of the Fancy."-Ed.

1820.

A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound;
Then all at once the air was still,
And showers of hailstones pattered round.
Where leafless oaks towered high above,

I sat within an undergrove

Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er,
1 And all the year the bower is green. ‡
But see! where'er the hailstones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop;
There's not a breeze-no breath of air-
Yet here, and there, and every where
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump.and spring,
As if with pipes and music rare

You could not lay a hair between :

Inserted in the editions 1800-1815.

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* Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal gives the date 1798, and in the spring of 1799 the Wordsworths were not at Alfoxden but in Germany.-ED.

The friends were Mrs. Wordsworth, Miss Fenwick, Edward and Dora Quillinan, and William Wordsworth (the poet's son). The date was May 13, 1841.-ED.

Compare a letter from Wordsworth to Sir George Beaumont, written in November 1806, and one to Lady Beaumont in December 1806.-ED.