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Doe of Rylstone (see p. 191), I have assigned that poem to the year 1808. The Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle forms as natural a preface to The White Doe, as The Force of Prayer, a Tradition of Bolton Abbey, is its natural appendix. The latter was written, however, before The White Doe of Rylstone was finished.

It would be easier to fix the date of some of the poems written between the years 1806 and 1808, if we knew the exact month in which the two volumes of 1807 were published; but this, I fear, it is impossible to discover now.

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On November 10th, 1806, Wordsworth wrote to Sir George Beaumont from Coleorton, “In a day or two I mean to send a sheet or two of my intended volume to the press" (evidently referring to the “ Poems” of 1807). On the following day-1 Ith November 1806-Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to Lady Beaumont, "William has written two other poems, which you will see when they are printed. He composes frequently in the grove. We have not yet received a sheet from the printer." On the 15th November 1806 she again wrote to Lady Beaumont (from Coleorton), "My brother works very hard at his poems, preparing them for the press. Miss Hutchinson is the transcriber." In a subsequent letter from Coleorton, undated, but bearing the post-mark February 18, 1807, she is speaking of her brother's poetical labour, and says, "He must go on, when he begins: and any interruptions (such as attending to the progress of the workmen and planning the garden) are of the greatest use to him; for, after a certain time, the progress is by no means proportioned to the labour in composition; and if he is called from it by other thoughts, he returns to it with ten times the pleasure, and the work goes on proportionately the more rapidly." From this we may infer that the years 1806-7 were productive ones, but it is disappointing that the dates of the composition of the poems are so difficult to determine.-ED.

TO LADY BEAUMONT

Composed 1807. - Published 1807

[The winter garden of Coleorton, fashioned out of an old quarry, under the superintendence and direction of Mrs. Words

worth and my sister Dorothy, during the winter and spring we resided there. I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."-ED.

LADY! the songs of Spring were in the grove
While I was shaping beds for1 winter flowers ;
While I was planting green unfading bowers,
And shrubs-to hang upon the warm alcove,
And sheltering wall; and still, as Fancy wove
The dream, to time and nature's blended powers
I gave this paradise for winter hours,

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A labyrinth, Lady! which your feet shall rove.
Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines,
Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom
Or of high gladness you shall hither bring;
And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines
Be gracious as the music and the bloom

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And all the mighty ravishment of spring.

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The title, To Lady Beaumont, was first given in 1845. In 1807 it was To the ; in 1815, To the Lady from 1820 to 1843, To the Lady Beaumont.

This winter garden, fashioned by the Wordsworths out of the old quarry at Coleorton, during Sir George and Lady Beaumont's absence in 1807, exists very much as it was at the beginning of the century. The "perennial bowers and murmuring pines" may still be seen, little altered since 1807. The late Sir George Beaumont (whose grandfather was first-cousin to the artist Sir George, Wordsworth's friend), with strong reverence for the past, and for the traditions of literary men which have made the district famous since the days of his ancestor Beaumont the dramatist, and especially for the memorials of Wordsworth's ten months' residence at Coleorton, -took a pleasure in preserving these memorials, very much as they were when he entered in possession of the estates of his ancestors. Such a reverence for the past is not only consistent

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framing beds of
for.

1807.

1815.

with the "improvement" of an estate, and its belongings; it is a part of it. Wordsworth, and his wife and sister, were adepts in the laying out of grounds. (See the reference to the poet's joint labour with Wilkinson at Yanwath, p. 2.) It was the Wordsworths also, I believe, who designed the grounds of Fox How-Dr. Arnold's residence, near Ambleside. Similar memorials of the poet survive at Hallsteads, Ullswater. The following is an extract from the letter of Dorothy Wordsworth to Lady Beaumont above referred to, and having the post-mark of February 18, 1807. "For more than a week we have had the most delightful weather. If William had but waited a few days, it would have been no anticipation when he said to you, 'the songs of Spring were in the grove;' for all this week the birds have chanted from morn till evening, larks, blackbirds, thrushes, and far more than I can name, and the busy rooks have joined their happy voices."

Wordsworth, writing to Sir George Beaumont, November 16, 1811, says, "I remember, Mr. Bowles, the poet, objected to the word 'ravishment' at the end of the sonnet to the wintergarden; yet it has the authority of all the first-rate poets, for instance, Milton :

'In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment,
Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze'

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ED.

A PROPHECY.

FEBRUARY, 1807

Composed 1807.-Published 1807

Included among the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty," re-named in 1845, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."-ED.

HIGH deeds, O Germans, are to come from you!
Thus in your books the record shall be found,
"A watchword was pronounced, a potent sound-
ARMINIUS!*- all the people quaked like dew

* Arminius, or Hermann, the liberator of Germany from the Roman power, A.D. 9-17. Tacitus says of him, "He was without doubt the deliverer of Germany; and, unlike other kings and generals, he attacked the Roman people, not at the commencement, but in the fulness of their power: in battles he was not always successful, but he was invincible in war. He still lives in the songs of the barbarians."-ED.

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Stirred by the breeze; they rose, a Nation, true,
True to herself1-the mighty Germany,
She of the Danube and the Northern Sea,
She rose, and off at once the yoke she threw.
All power was given her in the dreadful trance;
Those new-born Kings she withered like a flame."* 10
-Woe to them all! but heaviest woe and shame
To that Bavarian who could 2 first advance
His banner in accursed league with France, †
First open traitor to the German name !3

THOUGHT OF A BRITON ON THE
SUBJUGATION OF SWITZERLAND

Composed 1807. - Published 1807

[This was composed while pacing to and fro between the Hall of Coleorton, then rebuilding, and the principal Farmhouse of the Estate, in which we lived for nine or ten months. I will here mention that the Song on the Restoration of Lord

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* The "new-born Kings" were the lesser German potentates, united in the Confederation of the Rhine. By a treaty signed at Paris (July 12th, 1806), by Talleyrand, and the ministers of twelve sovereign houses of the Empire, these princes declared themselves perpetually severed from Germany, and united together as the Confederate States of the Rhine, of which the Emperor of the French was declared Protector.-ED.

On December 11, 1806, Napoleon concluded a treaty with Frederick Augustus, the Elector of Saxony-who had been secretly on the side of France for some time to whom he gave additional territories, and the title of King, admitting him into "the Confederation of the Rhine." He had fallen, as one of the Prussian statesmen put it, into "that lowest of degradations, to steal at another man's bidding."-ED.

Clifford, as well as that on the Feast of Brougham Castle, were produced on the same ground. I. F.]

This sonnet was classed among those " dedicated to Liberty," re-named in 1845, “Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."—ED.

Two Voices are there; one is of the sea,
One of the mountains; each a mighty Voice :
In both from age to age thou didst rejoice,
They were thy chosen music, Liberty!

There came a Tyrant, and with holy glee
Thou fought'st against him; but hast vainly striven :
Thou from thy Alpine holds at length art driven,

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Where not a torrent murmurs heard by thee.
Of one deep bliss thine ear hath been bereft :
Then cleave, O cleave to that which still is left;
For, high-souled Maid, what sorrow would it be
That Mountain floods should thunder as before,
And Ocean bellow from his rocky shore,
And neither awful Voice be heard by thee!

10

In 1807 the whole of the Continent of Europe was prostrate under the power of Napoleon. It is impossible to say to what special incident, if to any in particular, Wordsworth refers in the phrase, "with holy glee thou fought'st against him;" but, as the sonnet was composed at Coleorton in 1807-after the battles of Austerlitz and Jena, and Napoleon's practical mastery of Europe-our knowing the particular event or events in Swiss history to which he refers, would not add much to our understanding of the poem.

In the Fenwick note Wordsworth incorrectly separates his Song on the Restoration of Lord Clifford from the Feast of Brougham Castle. They are the same song. -ED.

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