The Prose Works of William Wordsworth Part 90

464. _Liberty_. [III.]

'Life's book for thee may be unclosed, till age Shall with a thankful tear bedrop its latest page.'

There is now, alas! no possibility of the antic.i.p.ation, with which the above Epistle concludes, being realised: nor were the verses ever seen by the Individual for whom they were intended. She accompanied her husband, the Rev. Wm. Fletcher, to India, and died of cholera, at the age of thirty-two or thirty-three years, on her way from Shalapore to Bombay, deeply lamented by all who knew her.

Her enthusiasm was ardent, her piety steadfast; and her great talents would have enabled her to be eminently useful in the difficult path of life to which she had been called. The opinion she entertained of her own performances, given to the world under her maiden name, Jewsbury, was modest and humble, and, indeed, far below their merits; as is often the case with those who are making trial of their powers, with a hope to discover what they are best fitted for. In one quality, viz., quickness in the motions of her mind, she had, within the range of the Author's acquaintance, no equal.

465. _Poor Robin_. [IV.]

The small wild Geranium known by that name.

466. *_Ibid._

I often ask myself what will become of Rydal Mount after our day. Will the old walls and steps remain in front of the house and about the grounds, or will they be swept away with all the beautiful mosses and ferns and wild geraniums and other flowers which their rude construction suffered and encouraged to grow among them? This little wild flower, 'Poor Robin,' is here constantly courting my attention and exciting what may be called a domestic interest with the varying aspects of its stalks and leaves and flowers. Strangely do the tastes of men differ, according to their employment and habits of life. 'What a nice well would that be,' said a labouring man to me one day, 'if all that rubbish was cleared off.' The 'rubbish' was some of the most beautiful mosses and lichens and ferns and other wild growths, as could possibly be seen.

Defend us from the tyranny of trimness and neatness, showing itself in this way! Chatterton says of Freedom, 'Upon her head wild weeds were spread,' and depend upon it, if 'the marvellous boy' had undertaken to give Flora a garland, he would have preferred what we are apt to call weeds to garden-flowers. True taste has an eye for both. Weeds have been called flowers out of place. I fear the place most people would a.s.sign to them is too limited. Let them come near to our abodes, as surely they may without impropriety or disorder.

467. *_To the Lady le Fleming_. [IX.]

After thanking in prose Lady Fleming for the service she had done to her neighbourhood by erecting this Chapel, I have nothing to say beyond the expression of regret that the architect did not furnish an elevation better suited to the site in a narrow mountain pa.s.s, and what is of more consequence, better constructed in the interior for the purposes of worship. It has no chancel. The Altar is unbecomingly confined. The Pews are so narrow as to preclude the possibility of kneeling. There is no vestry, and what ought to have been first mentioned, the Font, instead of standing at its proper place at the entrance, is thrust into the farthest end of a little pew. When these defects shall be pointed out to the munificent patroness, they will, it is hoped, be corrected. [In pencil--Have they not been corrected in part at least? 1843.]

468. *_To a Redbreast (in Sickness)_. [VI.]

Almost the only Verses composed by our lamented sister S.H. [=Miss Sarah Hutchinson, sister of Mrs. Wordsworth].

469. *_Floating Island_. [VII.]

My poor sister takes a pleasure in repeating these Verses, which she composed not long before the beginning of her sad illness.

470. *_Once I could hail, &c._ [VIII.]

'No faculty yet given me to espy the dusky shape.' Afterwards, when I could not avoid seeing it, I wondered at this, and the more so because, like most children, I had been in the habit of watching the moon thro'

all her changes, and had often continued to gaze at it while at the full, till half-blinded.

471. *_The Gleaner (suggested by a Picture)_.

This poem was first printed in the Annual called 'The Keep-sake.' The Painter's name I am not sure of, but I think it was Holmes.

472. _Nightshade_. [IX. ii. 6.]

Bekangs Ghyll--or the dell of Nightshade--in which stands St. Mary's Abbey in Low Furness.

473. _Churches--East and West_. [X.]

Our churches, invariably perhaps, stand east and west, but why is by few persons exactly known; nor that the degree of deviation from due east often noticeable in the ancient ones was determined, in each particular case, by the point on the horizon at which the sun rose upon the day of the saint to whom the church was dedicated. These observances of our ancestors, and the causes of them, are the subject of the following stanzas.

474. _The Horn of Egremont Castle_. [XI.]

This story is a c.u.mberland tradition. I have heard it also related of the Hall of Hutton John, an ancient residence of the Huddlestons, in a sequestered valley upon the river Dacor. [In the I.F. MSS. the Note runs thus: '1806. A tradition transferred from the ancient mansion of Hutton John, the seat of the Huddlestons, to Egremont Castle.']

475. *_Goody Blake and Harry Gill_. [XII.]

Written at Alfoxden, 1798. The incident from Dr. Darwin's _Zoonomia_.

476. *_To a Child: written in her Alb.u.m_. [XIV.]

This quatrain was extempore on observing this image, as I had often done, on the lawn of Rydal Mount. It was first written down in the Alb.u.m of my G.o.d-daughter, Rotha Quillinan.

477. *_Lines written in the Alb.u.m of the Countess of Lonsdale_. [XV.]

This is a faithful picture of that amiable Lady as she then was. The youthfulness of figure and demeanour and habits, which she retained in almost unprecedented degree, departed a very few years after, and she died without violent disease by gradual decay, before she reached the period of old age. [In pencil--Was she not 70? Mr. J.]

478. _The Russian Fugitive_. [XVII.]

Peter Henry Bruce, having given in his entertaining Memoirs the substance of this Tale, affirms that, besides the concurring reports of others, he had the story from the lady's own mouth. The Lady Catherine, mentioned towards the close, is the famous Catherine, then bearing that name as the acknowledged wife of Peter the Great.

479. *_Ibid._

Early in life this story had interested me; and I often thought it would make a pleasing subject for an Opera or musical drama.

XXI. INSCRIPTIONS.

480. *(I.) In the grounds of Coleorton these verses are engraved on a stone, placed near the tree, which was thriving and spreading when I saw it in the summer of 1841.

481. *(II.) This Niche is in the sandstone rock in the winter-garden at Coleorton, which garden, as has been elsewhere said, was made under our direction out of an old unsightly quarry. While the labourers were at work Mrs. Wordsworth, my sister, and I used to amuse ourselves occasionally in scooping this seat out of the soft stone. It is of the size, with something of the appearance, of a stall in a cathedral. This inscription is not engraven, as the former and the two following are, in the grounds.

482. *(VI.) The circ.u.mstance alluded to at the conclusion of these verses was told me by Dr. Satterthwaite, who was Inc.u.mbent of Boodle, a small town at the foot of Black Combe. He had the particulars from one of the engineers, who was employed in making trigonometrical surveys of that region.

483. *(VIII.) Engraven, during my absence in Italy, upon a bra.s.s plate inserted in the stone.

484. *(IX.) The walk is what we call the far-terrace, beyond the summer-house, at Rydal Mount. The lines were written when we were afraid of being obliged to quit the place to which we were so much attached.