The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Ii Part 136

[Variant 3:

1845.

While thus before my eyes he gleams, A Brother of the Leaves he seems; When in a moment forth he teems His little song in gushes: 1807.

My sight he dazzles, half deceives, A Bird so like the dancing Leaves; Then flits, and from the Cottage eaves Pours forth his song in gushes; 1827.

My dazzled sight the Bird deceives, A Brother of the dancing Leaves; 1832.

The Bird my dazzled sight deceives, 1840.

The Bird my dazzling sight deceives C.]

[Variant 4:

1827.

As if it pleas'd him to disdain And mock the Form which he did feign, While he was dancing with the train Of Leaves among the bushes. 1807.

The voiceless Form he chose to feign, 1820.]

Of all Wordsworth's poems this is the one most distinctively a.s.sociated with the Orchard, at Town-end, Grasmere. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal under date May 28th, 1802:

"We sat in the orchard. The young bull-finches in their pretty coloured raiment, bustle about among the blossoms, and poise themselves like wire-dancers or tumblers, shaking the twigs and dashing off the blossoms."

Ed.

YEW-TREES

Composed 1803.--Published 1815

[Written at Grasmere. These Yew-trees are still standing, but the spread of that at Lorton is much diminished by mutilation. I will here mention that a little way up the hill, on the road leading from Rosthwaite to Stonethwaite (in Borrowdale) lay the trunk of a Yew-tree, which appeared as you approached, so vast was its diameter, like the entrance of a cave, and not a small one. Calculating upon what I have observed of the slow growth of this tree in rocky situations, and of its durability, I have often thought that the one I am describing must have been as old as the Christian era. The Tree lay in the line of a fence. Great ma.s.ses of its ruins were strewn about, and some had been rolled down the hillside and lay near the road at the bottom. As you approached the tree, you were struck with the number of shrubs and young plants, ashes, etc., which had found a bed upon the decayed trunk and grew to no inconsiderable height, forming, as it were, a part of the hedgerow. In no part of England, or of Europe, have I ever seen a yew-tree at all approaching this in magnitude, as it must have stood. By the bye, Hutton, the old guide, of Keswick, had been so impressed with the remains of this tree, that he used gravely to tell strangers that there could be no doubt of its having been in existence before the flood.--I.F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--Ed.

There is a Yew-tree, pride of Lorton Vale, Which to this day stands single, in the midst Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore: Not loth to furnish weapons for the bands Of Umfraville or Percy ere they marched 5 To Scotland's heaths; or those that crossed the sea And drew their sounding bows at Azincour, Perhaps at earlier Crecy, or Poictiers.

Of vast circ.u.mference and gloom profound This solitary Tree! a living thing 10 Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed. But worthier still of note Are those fraternal Four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; 15 Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved; Nor uninformed with Phantasy, and looks That threaten the profane;--a pillared shade, 20 Upon whose gra.s.sless floor of red-brown hue, By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged Perennially--beneath whose sable roof Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked With unrejoicing berries--ghostly Shapes 25 May meet at noontide; Fear and trembling Hope, Silence and Foresight; Death the Skeleton And Time the Shadow;--there to celebrate, As in a natural temple scattered o'er With altars undisturbed of mossy stone, 30 United worship; or in mute repose To lie, and listen to the mountain flood Murmuring from Glaramara's inmost caves.

The text of this poem was never altered. The Lorton Yew-tree--which, in 1803, was "of vast circ.u.mference," the "pride of Lorton Vale," and described as:

'a living thing Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed--'

does not now verify its poet's prediction of the future. Mr. Wilson Robinson of Whinfell Hall, c.o.c.kermouth, wrote to me of it in May 1880:

"The tree in outline expanded towards the root considerably: then, at about two feet from the ground, the trunk began to separate into huge limbs, spreading in all directions. I once measured this trunk at its least circ.u.mference, and found it 23 feet 10 inches. For the last 50 or 60 years the branches have been gradually dying on the S. E. side, and about 25 years ago a strong S. E. gale, coming with acc.u.mulated force down Hope Gill, and--owing to the tree being so open on that side--taking it laterally at a disadvantage, wrenched off one of the great side branches down to the ground, carrying away nearly a third of the tree. This event led to farther peril; for, the second portion having been sold to a cabinetmaker at Whitehaven for 15, this gave the impression that the wood was very valuable (owing to the celebrity of the tree); and a local woodmonger bought the remainder. Two men worked half a day to grub it up; but a c.o.c.kermouth medical gentleman, hearing what was going on, made representations to the owner, and it ended in the woodmen sparing the remainder of the tree, which was not much the worse for what had been done. Many large dead branches have also been cut off, and now we have to regret that the 'pride of Lorton Vale,' shorn of its ancient dignity, is but a ruin, much more venerable than picturesque."

The "fraternal Four of Borrowdale" are certainly "worthier still of note." The "trunk" described in the Fenwick note, as on the road between Rosthwaite and Stonethwaite, has disappeared long ago; but the "solemn and capacious grove" existed till 1883 in its integrity. The description in the poem is realistic throughout, while the visible scene suggests

"an ideal grove, in which the ghostly masters of mankind meet, and sleep, and offer worship to the Destiny that abides above them, while the mountain flood, as if from another world, makes music to which they dimly listen."

(Stopford A. Brooke, in 'Theology in the English Poets', p. 259.) With the first part of the poem Wordsworth's 'Sonnet composed at----Castle'

during the Scotch Tour of 1803 may be compared (p. 410). For a critical estimate of the poem see 'Modern Painters', part III. sec. II, chap. iv.

Ruskin alludes to "the real and high action of the imagination in Wordsworth's 'Yew-trees' (perhaps the most vigorous and solemn bit of forest landscape ever painted). It is too long to quote, but the reader should refer to it: let him note especially, if painter, that pure touch of colour, 'by sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged.'" See also Coleridge's criticism in 'Biographia Literaria', vol. ii. p. 177, edition 1847, and his daughter Sara's comment on her father's note.

There can be little doubt that, as Professor Dowden has suggested, the lines 23 to 28 were suggested to Wordsworth by Virgil's lines in the Sixth Book of the 'aeneid', 273-284--

'Vestibulum ante ipsum primisque in faucibus Orci Luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Pallentesque habitant Morbi, tristisque Senectus, Et Metus, et malesuada Fames, ac turpis Egestas, Terribiles visu formae, Letumque, Labosque; Tum consanguineus Leti Sopor, et mala mentis Gaudia, mortiferumque adverso in limine Bellum, Ferreique Eumenidum thalami, et Discordia demens, Vipereum crinem vittis innexa cruentis.

In medio ramos annosaque bracchia pandit Ulmus opaca, ingens, quam sedem Somnia volgo Vana tenere ferunt, foliisque sub omnibus haerent.'

"The 'Four Yew Trees,' and the mysterious company which you have a.s.sembled there, 'Death the Skeleton and Time the Shadow.' It is a sight not for every youthful poet to dream of; it is one of the last results he must have gone thinking for years for."

(Charles Lamb to Wordsworth, 1815.)

In Crabb Robinson's 'Diary', a reference to the Yew-trees of Lorton and Borrowdale will be found under date Sept. 16 and 20, 1816.

"The pride of Lorton Vale" is now a ruin, and has lost all its ancient majesty: but, until the close of 1883, the "fraternal four" of Borrowdale were still to be seen "in grand a.s.semblage." Every one who has felt the power of Wordsworth's poetry,--and especially those who had visited the Seathwaite valley, and read the 'Yew-Trees' under the shade of that once "solemn and capacious grove" before 1884,--must have felt as if they had lost a personal friend, when they heard that the "grove" was gone. The great gale of December 11, 1883, smote it fiercely, uprooting one of the trees, and blowing the others to ribbands. The following is Mr. Rawnsley's account of the disaster:

'Last week the gale that ravaged England did the Lake country much harm. We could spare many of the larch plantations, and could hear (with a sigh) of the fall of the giant Scotch firs opposite the little Scafell Inn at Rosthwaite, and that Watendlath had lost its pines; but who could spare those ancient Yews, the great

"... fraternal Four of Borrowdale, Joined in one solemn and capacious grove; Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth Of intertwisted fibres serpentine Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved."

'For beneath their pillared shade since Wordsworth wrote his poem, that Yew-tree grove has suggested to many a wanderer up Borrowdale, and visitant to the Natural Temple,

"an ideal grove in which the ghostly masters of mankind meet, and sleep, and offer worship to the Destiny that abides above them, while the mountain flood, as if from another world, makes music to which they dimly listen."

'These Yew-trees, seemingly

"Produced too slowly ever to decay; Of form and aspect too magnificent To be destroyed,"