The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 33

NOTES ON THE TEXT

(Added in the edition of 1836)

I

Several years after the event that forms the subject of the foregoing poem, in company with my friend, the late Mr. Coleridge, I happened to fall in with the person to whom the name of Benjamin is given. Upon our expressing regret that we had not, for a long time, seen upon the road either him or his waggon, he said:--"They could not do without me; and as to the man who was put in my place, no good could come out of him; he was a man of no _ideas_."

The fact of my discarded hero's getting the horses out of a great difficulty with a word, as related in the poem, was told me by an eye-witness.

II

'The Dor-hawk, solitary bird.'

When the Poem was first written the note of the bird was thus described:

'The Night-hawk is singing his frog-like tune, Twirling his watchman's rattle about--'

but from unwillingness to startle the reader at the outset by so bold a mode of expression, the pa.s.sage was altered as it now stands.

III

After the line, 'Can any mortal clog come to her', followed in the MS.

an incident which has been kept back. Part of the suppressed verses shall here be given as a gratification of private feeling, which the well-disposed reader will find no difficulty in excusing. They are now printed for the first time.

Can any mortal clog come to her?

It can: ...

But Benjamin, in his vexation, Possesses inward consolation; He knows his ground, and hopes to find A spot with all things to his mind, An upright mural block of stone, Moist with pure water trickling down.

A slender spring; but kind to man It is, a true Samaritan; Close to the highway, pouring out Its offering from a c.h.i.n.k or spout; Whence all, howe'er athirst, or drooping With toil, may drink, and without stooping.

Cries Benjamin, "Where is it, where?

Voice it hath none, but must be near."

--A star, declining towards the west, Upon the watery surface threw Its image tremulously imprest, That just marked out the object and withdrew: Right welcome service! ...

ROCK OF NAMES!

Light is the strain, but not unjust To Thee and thy memorial-trust, That once seemed only to express Love that was love in idleness; Tokens, as year hath followed year, How changed, alas, in character!

For they were graven on thy smooth breast By hands of those my soul loved best; Meek women, men as true and brave As ever went to a hopeful grave: Their hands and mine, when side by side With kindred zeal and mutual pride, We worked until the Initials took Shapes that defied a scornful look.-- Long as for us a genial feeling Survives, or one in need of healing, The power, dear Rock, around thee cast, Thy monumental power, shall last For me and mine! O thought of pain, That would impair it or profane!

Take all in kindness then, as said With a staid heart but playful head; And fail not Thou, loved Rock! to keep Thy charge when we are laid asleep.

W. W.

There is no poem more closely identified with the Grasmere district of the English Lakes--and with the road from Grasmere to Keswick--than 'The Waggoner' is, and in none are the topographical allusions more minute and faithful.

Wordsworth seemed at a loss to know in what "cla.s.s" of his poems to place 'The Waggoner;' and his frequent changes--removing it from one group to another--shew the artificial character of these cla.s.ses. Thus, in the edition of 1820, it stood first among the "Poems of the Fancy."

In 1827 it was the last of the "Poems founded on the Affections." In 1832 it was reinstated among the "Poems of the Fancy." In 1836 it had a place of its own, and was inserted between the "Poems of the Fancy" and those "Founded on the Affections;" while in 1845 it was sent back to its original place among the "Poems of the Fancy;" although in the table of contents it was printed as an independent poem, closing the series.

The original text of 'The Waggoner' underwent little change, till the year 1836, when it was carefully revised, and altered throughout. The final edition of 1845, however, reverted, in many instances--especially in the first canto--to the original text of 1819.

As this poem was dedicated to Charles Lamb, it may be of interest to note that, some six months afterwards, Lamb presented Wordsworth with a copy of the first edition of 'Paradise Regained' (the edition of 1671), writing on it the following sentence,

"Charles Lamb, to the best knower of Milton, and therefore the worthiest occupant of this pleasant edition.--Jan. 2nd, 1820."

The opening stanzas are unrivalled in their description of a sultry June evening, with a thunder-storm imminent.

' 'Tis spent--this burning day of June!

Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing; The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,-- That solitary bird Is all that can be heard In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon!

The mountains against heaven's grave weight Rise up, and grow to wondrous height.

The air, as in a lion's den, Is close and hot;--and now and then Comes a tired and sultry breeze With a haunting and a panting, Like the stifling of disease; But the dews allay the heat, And the silence makes it sweet.'

The Waggoner takes what is now the middle road, of the three leading from Rydal to Grasmere (see the note to 'The Primrose of the Rock'). The "craggy hill" referred to in the lines

'Now he leaves the lower ground, And up the craggy hill ascending ...

Steep the way and wearisome,'

is the road from Rydal Quarry up to White Moss Common, with the Glowworm rock on the right, and the "two heath-clad rocks," referred to in the last of the "Poems on the Naming of Places," on the left. He next pa.s.ses "The Wishing Gate" on the left, John's Grove on the right, and descends by Dove Cottage--where Wordsworth lived--to Grasmere.

'... at the bottom of the brow, Where once the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH Offered a greeting of good ale To all who entered Grasmere Vale; And called on him who must depart To leave it with a jovial heart; There, where the DOVE and OLIVE-BOUGH Once hung, a Poet harbours now, A simple water-drinking Bard.'

He goes through Grasmere, pa.s.ses the Swan Inn,

'He knows it to his cost, good Man!

Who does not know the famous SWAN?

Object uncouth! and yet our boast, For it was painted by the Host; His own conceit the figure planned, 'Twas coloured all by his own hand.'

As early as 1819, when the poem was first published, "this rude piece of self-taught art had been supplanted" by a more pretentious figure. The Waggoner pa.s.ses the Swan,

'And now the conqueror essays The long ascent of Dunmail-raise.'

As he proceeds, the storm gathers, and "struggles to get free." Road, hill, and sky are dark; and he barely sees the well-known rocks at the summit of Helm-crag, where two figures seem to sit, like those on the Cobbler, near Arrochar, in Argyle.

'Black is the sky--and every hill, Up to the sky, is blacker still-- Sky, hill, and dale, one dismal room, Hung round and overhung with gloom; Save that above a single height Is to be seen a lurid light, Above Helm-crag--a streak half dead, A burning of portentous red; And near that lurid light, full well The ASTROLOGER, sage Sidrophel, Where at his desk and book he sits, Puzzling aloft his curious wits; He whose domain is held in common With no one but the ANCIENT WOMAN, Cowering beside her rifted cell, As if intent on magic spell;-- Dread pair, that, spite of wind and weather, Still sit upon Helm-crag together!'

At the top of the "raise"--the water-shed between the vales of Grasmere and Wytheburn--he reaches the familiar pile of stones, at the boundary between the shires of Westmoreland and c.u.mberland.

'... that pile of stones, Heaped over brave King Dunmail's bones; ...

Green is the gra.s.s for beast to graze, Around the stones of Dunmail-raise!'

The allusion to Seat-Sandal laid bare by the flash of lightning, and the description, in the last canto, of the ascent of the Raise by the Waggoner on a summer morning, are as true to the spirit of the place as anything that Wordsworth has written. He tells his friend Lamb, fourteen years after he wrote the poem of 'The Waggoner,'