The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Ii Part 155

[Variant 15:

1827.

... in his arms. 1815.]

[Variant 16:

1827.

Close to the water he had found This Vessel, push'd it from dry ground, Went into it; and, without dread, Following the fancies in his head, He paddled up and down. 1807.

And with the happy burthen hied, And pushed it from Loch Levin's side,-- Stepped into it; and, without dread, 1815.]

[Variant 17:

1827.

And dallied thus, till from the sh.o.r.e The tide retreating more and more Had suck'd, and suck'd him in. 1807.]

[Variant 18: The two previous stanzas were added in the edition of 1815.]

[Variant 19:

1837.

... then did he cry ... most eagerly; 1807.]

[Variant 20:

1807.

... read ... MS.]

[Variant 21:

1837.

Had ... 1807.]

[Variant 22:

1832.

She could not blame him, or chastise; 1807.]

[Variant 23: This stanza was added in the edition of 1815.]

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: The t.i.tle in the editions of 1807 to 1820 was 'The Blind Highland Boy. (A Tale told by the Fireside.)'

This poem gave its t.i.tle to a separate division in the second volume of the edition of 1807, viz. "The Blind Highland Boy; with other Poems."--Ed.]

[Footnote B: This reading occurs in all the editions. But Wordsworth, whose MS. was not specially clear, may have written, or meant to write "petty," (a much better word), and not perceived the mistake when revising the sheets. If he really wrote "petty," he may have meant either small rills (rillets), or used the word as Shakespeare used it, for "pelting" rills.--Ed.]

[Footnote C: Compare Tennyson's 'In Memoriam', stanza xix.:

'There twice a day the Severn fills; The salt sea-water pa.s.ses by, And hushes half the babbling Wye, And makes a silence in the hills, etc.'

Ed.]

[Footnote D: This and the following six stanzas were added in 1815.--Ed.]

[Footnote E: Writing to Walter Scott, from Coleorton, on Jan. 20, 1807, Wordsworth sent him this stanza of the poem, and asked

"Could you furnish me, by application to any of your Gaelic friends, a phrase in that language which could take its place in the following verse of eight syllables, and have the following meaning."

He adds,

"The above is part of a little poem which I have written on a Highland story told me by an eye-witness ..."

This is the nearest clue we have to the date of the composition of the poem.--Ed.]

It is recorded in Dampier's Voyages that a Boy, the Son of a Captain of a Man of War, seated himself in a Turtle-sh.e.l.l and floated in it from the sh.o.r.e to his Father's Ship, which lay at anchor at the distance of half a mile. Upon the suggestion of a Friend, I have subst.i.tuted such a Sh.e.l.l for that less elegant vessel in which my blind voyager did actually intrust himself to the dangerous current of Loch Levin, as was related to me by an Eye-witness.--W. W. 1815.

This note varies slightly in later editions.

The Loch Leven referred to is a sea-loch in Argyllshire, into which the tidal water flows with some force from Loch Linnhe at Ballachulish.

'By night and day The great Sea-water finds its way Through long, long windings of the hills.'