The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume I Part 39

[Sub-Variant 8:

Behind the hill ... 1836.]

[Sub-Variant 9:

Near and yet nearer, from the piny gulf Howls, by the darkness vexed, the famished wolf, 1836.]

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote A: See note to the "Juvenile Pieces" in the edition of 1836 (p. 1).--Ed.]

[Footnote B: There is something characteristic in Wordsworth's addressing an intimate travelling companion in this way. S. T. C., or Charles Lamb, would have written, as we do, "My dear Jones"; but Wordsworth addressed his friend as "Dear Sir," and described his sister as "a Young Lady," and as a "Female Friend."--Ed.]

[Footnote C: In a small pocket copy of the 'Orlando Furioso' of Ariosto--now in the possession of the poet's grandson, Mr. Gordon Wordsworth--of which the t.i.tle-page is torn away, the following is written on the first page, "My companion in the Alps with Jones. W.

Wordsworth:" also "W. W. to D. W." (He had given it to his sister Dorothy.) On the last page is written, "I carried this Book with me in my pedestrian tour in the Alps with Jones. W. Wordsworth." Dorothy Wordsworth gave this interesting relic to Miss Quillinan, from whose library it pa.s.sed to that of its present owner.--Ed.]

[Footnote D: By an evident error, corrected in the first reprint of this edition (1840). See p. 79.--Ed. [the end of the introductory text to 'Guilt and Sorrow', the next poem in this text.]]

[Footnote E: See Addison's 'Cato', Act 1. Scene i., l. 171:

Blesses his stars, and thinks it luxury.--Ed.]

[Footnote F: The lyre of Memnon is reported to have emitted melancholy or chearful tones, as it was touched by the sun's evening or morning rays.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote G: Compare Pope's 'Windsor Forest', ll. 129, 130;

He lifts the tube, and levels with his eye: Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky:

Ed.]

[Footnote H: Alluding to crosses seen on the tops of the spiry rocks of the Chartreuse, which have every appearance of being inaccessible.--W.

W. 1793.]

[Footnote J: Compare Milton's 'Ode on the Nativity', stanza xx.--Ed.]

[Footnote K: Names of rivers at the Chartreuse.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote L: Name of one of the valleys of the Chartreuse.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote M: The river along whose banks you descend in crossing the Alps by the Simplon Pa.s.s---W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote N: Most of the bridges among the Alps are of wood and covered: these bridges have a heavy appearance, and rather injure the effect of the scenery in some places.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote P: The Catholic religion prevails here; these cells are, as is well known, very common in the Catholic countries, planted, like the Roman tombs, along the roadside.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote Q: Crosses commemorative of the deaths of travellers by the fall of snow and other accidents very common along this dreadful road.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote R: The houses in the more retired Swiss valleys are all built of wood.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote S: See Burns's 'Postscript' to his 'Cry and Prayer':

And when he fa's, His latest draught o' breathin' leaves him In faint huzzas.

Ed.]

[Footnote T: For most of the images in the next sixteen verses I am indebted to M. Raymond's interesting observations annexed to his translation of c.o.xe's 'Tour in Switzerland'.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote U: The people of this Canton are supposed to be of a more melancholy disposition than the other inhabitants of the Alps: this, if true, may proceed from their living more secluded.--W. W. 1793.]

[Footnote V: This picture is from the middle region of the Alps.--W. W.

1815. _Chalets_ are summer huts for the Swiss herdsmen.--W. W. 1836.]

[Footnote W: Sugh, a Scotch word expressive of the sound of the wind through the trees.--W. W. 1793.

It may be as well to add that, in this Scotch word, the "gh" is p.r.o.nounced; so that, as used colloquially, the word could never rhyme with "blue."--Ed.]

[Footnote X: See Smollett's 'Ode to Leven Water' in 'Humphry Clinker', and compare 'The Italian Itinerant and the Swiss Goatherd', in "Memorials of a Tour on the Continent" in 1820, part ii. 1.--Ed.]

[Footnote Y: Alluding to several battles which the Swiss in very small numbers have gained over their oppressors the house of Austria; and in particular, to one fought at Naeffels near Glarus, where three hundred and thirty men defeated an army of between fifteen and twenty thousand Austrians. Scattered over the valley are to be found eleven stones, with this inscription, 1388, the year the battle was fought, marking out as I was told upon the spot, the several places where the Austrians attempting to make a stand were repulsed anew.--W. W. 1793.]