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; To be a moment's ornament; * Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair ; 5 Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair; From May-time and the cheerful Dawn ;1 To haunt, to startle, and way-lay. I saw her upon nearer view, ΙΟ 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 " Máy 12 (1842).—Wordsworth said that the poems 'Our walk was far among the ancient trees' * and [vol. ii. p. 167], then She was a Phantom of delight,' 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. I WANDERED lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, 1807. * The poet expressly told me that these verses were on his wife.-H. C. R. 1815 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 In vacant or in pensive mood, And then my heart with pleasure fills, . 5 10 - 15 20 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. R. laughing 1807. them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones, about and above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake. They looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot, and a few stragglers higher up; but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity, unity, and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances, and in the middle of the water, like the sea. دو In the edition of 1815 there is a footnote to the lines They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude * to the following effect :-"The subject of these Stanzas is rather an elementary feeling and simple impression (approaching to the nature of an ocular spectrum) upon the imaginative faculty, than an exertion of it. The one which follows is strictly a Reverie; and neither that, nor the next after it in succession, Power of Music, would have been placed here except for the reason given in the foregoing note." The being "placed here" refers to its being included among the "Poems of the Imagination." The "foregoing note is the note appended to The Horn of Egremont Castle; and the "reason given" in it is "to avoid a needless multiplication of the Classes" into which Wordsworth divided his poems. This note of 1815 is reprinted mainly to show the difficulties to which Wordsworth was reduced by the artificial method of arrangement referred to. The following letter to Mr. Wrangham is a more appropriate illustration of the poem of "The Daffodils." It was written, the late Bishop of Lincoln says, "sometime afterwards." (See Memoirs of Wordsworth, vol. i. pp. 183, 184); and, for the whole of the letter, see a subsequent volume of this edition. "GRASMERE, Nov. 4. "MY DEAR WRANGHAM,--I am indeed much pleased that Mrs. Wrangham and yourself have been gratified by these breathings of simple nature. You mention Butler, Montagu's * It was The Reverie of Poor Susan.--ED. |