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, One morn we strolled on our dry walk, And held such intermitted talk My thoughts on former pleasures ran; A day it was when I could bear The green earth echoed to the feet Of lambs that bounded through the glade, Birds warbled round me--and each trace Of inward sadness had its charm ; 20 15 IO 1 My boy beside me tripped, so slim "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, "Now, little Edward, say why so: 'For, here are woods, hills smooth and warm 1836. My boy was by my side, so slim These two stanzas were compressed into one in 1827. 3 1836. For, here are woods and green-hills warm ; 1798. Why you would change sweet Liswyn farm At this, my boy hung down his head, His head he raised-there was in sight, Then did the boy his tongue unlock, O dearest, dearest boy! my heart 1 1800. At this, my boy, so fair and slim, 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.] 1 Classed among the "Poems of the Fancy."-Ed. 1820. A WHIRL-BLAST from behind the hill I sat within an undergrove Of tallest hollies, tall and green; You could not lay a hair between : Inserted in the editions 1800-1815. 5 IO 15 * 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. |