CHAPTER LIII. OTHER POEMS IN THE SAME VOLUME. THE first in order, among the miscellaneous poems in the volume containing the Italian Memorials, is that entitled Guilt and Sorrow; or, Incidents on Salisbury Plain;1 which was commenced in the year 1793, soon after the author's return from France. This poem is followed by a sonnet, and by a small piece entitled the Forsaken, 2 and lines beginning 'Lyre! though such power do in thy magic live.' 3 4 Concerning these the Poet said: Guilt and Sorrow. Unwilling to be unnecessarily particular, I have assigned this poem to the dates 1793 and 1794; but, in fact, much of the Female Vagrant's story was composed at least two years before. All that relates to her sufferings as a soldier's wife in America, and her condition of mind during her voyage home, were faithfully taken from the report made to me of her own case by a friend who had been subjected to the same trials, and affected in the same way. Mr. Coleridge, when I first became acquainted with him, was so much impressed with this poem, that it would have encouraged me to publish the whole as it then stood; but the Mariner's fate appeared 1 Vol. i. p. 40. See above, Vol. I. p. 81. 3 Vol. ii. p. 110. 4 MSS. I. F. 2 Vol. i. p. 218. to me so tragical, as to require a treatment more subdued, and yet more strictly applicable in expression, than I had at first given to it. This fault was corrected near fifty years afterwards, when I determined to publish the whole. It may be worth while to remark, that though the incidents in this attempt do only in a small degree produce each other, and it deviates accordingly from the general rule by which narrative pieces ought to be governed, it is not therefore wanting in continuous hold upon the mind, or in unity, which is effected by the identity of moral interest that places the two personages upon the same footing in the reader's sympathies. My ramble over many parts of Salisbury Plain put me, as mentioned in the preface, upon writing this poem, and left upon my mind imaginative impressions the force of which I have felt to this day. From that district I proceeded to Bath, Bristol, and so on to the banks of the Wye; when I took again to travelling on foot. In remembrance of that part of my journey, which was in 1793, I began the verses, "Five years have passed," &c.' The Forsaken. This was an overflow from the affliction of Margaret, and excluded as superfluous there; but preserved in the faint hope that it may turn to account, by restoring a shy lover to some forsaken damsel; my poetry having been complained of as deficient in interests of this sort, a charge which the next piece, beginning, "Lyre! though such power do in thy magic live!" will scarcely tend to obviate. The natural imagery of these verses was supplied by frequent, I might say intense, observation of the Rydal Torrent. What an animating contrast is the ever-changing aspect of that, and indeed of every one of our mountain brooks, to the monotonous tone and unmitigated fury of such streams among the Alps as are fed all the summer long by glaciers and melting snows! A traveller, observing the exquisite purity of the great rivers, such as the Rhone at Geneva, and the Rheuss at Lucerne, when they issue out of their respective lakes, might fancy for a moment that some power in nature produced this beautiful change, with a view to make amends for those Alpine sullyings which the waters exhibit near their fountain-heads; but, alas! how soon does that purity depart before the influx of tributary waters that have flowed through cultivated plains and the crowded abodes of men.' 'Next comes An Address to the Scholars of the Village School of - written at Goslar1 in 1798, which appear to have been suggested by recollections of his own master at Hawkshead, the Rev. Wm. Taylor. The occasion of the five following poems, viz. On the expected Invasion, 1803; at the Grave of Burns, 1803; On the Banks of the Nith;* Elegiac Verses in Memory of my Brother, John Wordsworth, 1805, has been before detailed. The two next refer to Sir G. Beaumont. The following notices from the lips of their author may be added to what has been said elsewhere with respect to them, and those notices will be succeeded by others from the same source.2 At Applethwaite.3-This was presented to me by 1 Vol. v. p. 124. 3 Vol. ii. p. 262. See above, Vol. I. p. 138. 2 MSS. I. F. * [The stanzas beginning, 'Too frail to keep the lofty vow,' Vol. iii. p. 5. See in the next chapter (LIV.) in the letter of Dec. 23, 1839, an account of the addition, after many years, of what is now the last stanza. — H. R.] Sir George Beaumont with a view to the erection of a house upon it, for the sake of being near to Coleridge, then living, and likely to remain, at Greta Hall, near Keswick. This little property, with a considerable addition that still leaves it very small, lies beautifully upon the banks of a rill that gurgles down the side of Skiddaw; and the orchard and other parts of the grounds command a magnificent prospect of Derwent Water, the Mountains of Borrowdale and Newlands. Not many years ago I gave the place to my daughter. A Night Thought. These verses were thrown off extempore upon leaving Mrs. Luff's house one evening at Fox Ghyll.' Farewell Lines.2. These lines were designed as a farewell to Charles Lamb and his sister, who had retired from the throngs of London to comparative solitude in the village of Enfield, Herts.' Love Lies Bleeding.3-It has been said that the English, though their country has produced so many great poets, is now the most unpoetical nation in Europe. It is probably true, for they have more temptation to become so than any other European people. Trade, commerce, and manufactures, physical science and mechanic arts, out of which so much wealth has arisen, have made our countrymen infinitely less sensible to movements of imagination and fancy than were our forefathers in their. simple state of society. How touching and beautiful were in most instances the names they gave to our indigenous flowers, or any other they were familiarly acquainted with! Every month for many years have we been importing plants and flowers from all quarters of the globe, many of which are spread through our gardens, and some, perhaps, 1 Vol. iv. p. 204. 2 Vol. i. p. 291. 3 Vol. ii. p. 58. likely to be met with on the few commons which we have left. Will their botanical names ever be displaced by plain English appellations which will bring them home to our hearts by connection with our joys and sorrows? It can never be, unless society treads back her steps towards those simplicities which have been banished by the undue influence of towns spreading and spreading in every direction, so that city life with every generation takes more and more the lead of rural. Among the ancients, villages were reckoned the seats of barbarism. Refinement, for the most part false, increases the desire to accumulate wealth; and while theories of political economy are boastfully pleading for the practice, inhumanity pervades all our dealings in buying and selling. This selfishness wars against disinterested imagination in all directions, and, evils coming round in a circle, barbarism spreads in every quarter of our island. Oh, for the reign of justice! and then the humblest man among us would have more peace and dignity in and about him than the highest have now.' Address to the Clouds.1. These verses were suggested while I was walking on the foot-road between Rydal Mount and Grasmere. The clouds were driving over the top of Nab-Scar across the vale; they set my thoughts agoing, and the rest followed almost immediately.' Suggested by a Picture of the Bird of Paradise. 2 — 'I will here only, by way of comment, direct attention to the fact, that pictures of animals and other productions of Nature, as seen in conservatories, menageries, museums, &c., would do little for the national mind, nay, they would be rather injurious to it, if the imagination were excluded 1 Vol. ii. p. 206. 2 Vol. ii. p. 209. |