The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Ii Part 66

[Variant 4:

1836.

... or ... 1800.]

If the second, third, and fourth stanzas of this poem had been published without the first, the fifth, and the last, it would have been deemed an exquisite fragment by those who object to the explanatory preamble, and to the moralising sequel. The intermediate stanzas suggest Burns's

'Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair!

How can ye chant, ye little birds, An' I sae weary, fu' o' care!'

and Browning's 'May and Death':

'I wish that when you died last May, Charles, there had died along with you Three parts of spring's delightful things; Ay, and, for me, the fourth part too.'

This mood of mind Wordsworth appreciated as fully as the opposite, or complementary one, which finds expression in the great 'Ode, Intimations of Immortality' (vol. viii.), l. 26.

'No more shall grief of mine the season wrong,'

and which Browning expresses in other verses of his lyric, and repeatedly elsewhere. The allusion in the last stanza of this poem is to Wordsworth's sister Dorothy.--Ed.

THE CHILDLESS FATHER

Composed 1800.-Published 1800 [A]

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. When I was a child at c.o.c.kermouth, no funeral took place without a basin filled with sprigs of boxwood being placed upon a table covered with a white cloth in front of the house.

The huntings on foot, in which the old man is supposed to join as here described, were of common, almost habitual, occurrence in our vales when I was a boy, and the people took much delight in them. They are now less frequent.--I.F.]

One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."--Ed.

"Up, Timothy, up with your staff and away!

Not a soul in the village this morning will stay; The hare has just started from Hamilton's grounds, And Skiddaw is glad with the cry of the hounds."

--Of coats and of jackets grey, scarlet, and green, 5 On the slopes of the pastures all colours were seen; With their comely blue ap.r.o.ns, and caps white as snow, The girls on the hills made a holiday show.

Fresh sprigs of green box-wood, not six months before, Filled the funeral basin [B] at Timothy's door; [1] 10 A coffin through Timothy's threshold had past; One Child [C] did it bear, and that Child was his last.

Now fast up the dell came the noise and the fray, The horse and the horn, and the hark! hark away!

Old Timothy took up his staff, and he shut 15 With a leisurely motion the door of his hut.

Perhaps to himself at that moment he said; "The key I must take, for my Ellen is dead."

But of this in my ears not a word did he speak; And he went to the chase with a tear on his cheek. 20

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1827.

The basin of box-wood, just six months before, Had stood on the table at Timothy's door, 1800.

The basin had offered, just six months before, Fresh sprigs of green box-wood at Timothy's door; 1820.]

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Also in 'The Morning Post', Jan. 30, 1801.--Ed.]

[Footnote B: In several parts of the North of England, when a funeral takes place, a basin full of Sprigs of Box-wood is placed at the door of the house from which the Coffin is taken up, and each person who attends the funeral ordinarily takes a Sprig of this Box-wood, and throws it into the grave of the deceased.--W. W. 1800.]

[Footnote C: In the list of _errata_, in the edition of 1820 "one child"

is corrected, and made "a child"; but the text remained "one child" in all subsequent editions.--Ed.]