A fearful apprehension from the owl
Or death-watch: and as readily rejoice

If two auspicious magpies crossed my way;-
To this would rather bend than see and hear

The repetitions wearisome of sense,

Where soul is dead, and feeling hath no place.

TO SLEEP.

One of three sonnets "To Sleep," written at some time between 1802 and the date of publication, 1807.

5. This line caused Wordsworth much consideration. It dates from 1845. From 1807 to 1820: "I've thought of all by turns; and still I lie." The contraction "I 've " was disapproved, and edd. 1827 and 1832 read: "By turns have all been thought of; yet I lie." From 1837 to 1843 (except "Sonnets," 1838): "I thought of all by turns, and yet I lie." In 1838 (only): "I have thought of all by turns and yet I lie." The jingle "I lie " following “I” at the opening of the line offended Wordsworth's ear, and the present reading was substituted. 13. Between: before 1832, "betwixt."

"WHERE LIES THE LAND," etc.

The composition cannot be earlier than 1802 nor later than 1807, the date of publication.

2, 3. Before 1837:

Festively she puts forth in trim array;

As vigorous as a lark at break of day.

TO THE MEMORY OF RAISLEY CALVERT.

Date uncertain, but between 1802 and 1807, when this sonnet was published. The text is unchanged. Raisley, brother of Wordsworth's friend William Calvert, died of consumption at Penrith in 1795; during his last illness Wordsworth remained with him. In his will it was found that he had left Wordsworth £900, not merely as a token of friendship, "but because he believed that, if Wordsworth were only free from the pressure of monetary cares, he would write something in verse or prose that would benefit the world" (Knight). See "The Prelude," Bk. xiv, ll. 354–369.

"METHOUGHT I SAW THE FOOTSTEPS," etc.

The date is uncertain, but between 1802 and 1807, when it was published. Wordsworth connected with this sonnet another written many years after, with a recollection of the appearance in death of his wife's sister, Sarah Hutchinson, who died in June, 1836. The latter part of the present sonnet had been a great favourite with her.

3. Who might sit: before 1815, "him who sate."

9. Before 1837: "I seem'd to mount those steps; the vapours gave"; in 1837: "Those steps I mounted, as ['while,' 1838] the vapours gave"; in 1840: "Those steps I clomb; the opening vapours gave." The present text is of 1845. "I seem'd" detracted from the authentic character of the vision.

of uncertain date, perhaps after 1807; first published, 1815.

6.

Before 1827: "If I some type of thee did wish to view"; altered to avoid the feeble "did wish."

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13. Safer: before 1845, "better." Better" went ill with "good" as a noun, being itself the comparative of the adjective "good."

TO LADY BEAUMONT.

Written early in 1807 and published in the same year. Dorothy Wordsworth refers to the sonnet in a letter of February, 1807. The Wordsworths were residing at the farmhouse, Coleorton, and Mrs. Wordsworth, Dorothy, and the poet superintended the formation of a winter garden for Lady Beaumont.

2. In 1807: "framing beds of"; in 1815: "framing beds for." The present text is of 1827. The word "frame" had been frequently and somewhat inaccurately used by Wordsworth in early editions, and he found substitutes in a large number of passages in the later editions. See The Academy, Dec. 2, 1893, for Mr. T. Hutchinson's full discussion of Wordsworth's use of this word.

UPON THE SIGHT OF A BEAUTIFUL PICTURE.

Written in 1811 at the Parsonage, Grasmere; published in 1815. The picture is one of Bredon Hill and Cloud Hill near Coleorton; the images of the smoke and the travellers are taken from it. The rest," Wordsworth wrote to Sir G. Beaumont, "were added in order to place the thought in a clear point of view, and for the sake of variety." During the later part of Wordsworth's residence at the Parsonage he lost two children. "Our sorrow," he says, "upon these events often brought the sonnet to my mind, and cast me upon the support to which the last line of it gives expression, 'The appropriate calm of blest

eternity.""

9. Before 1838 "Art" was not personified, "which,” not “whom,” occurring in the line.

14. Appropriate calm, etc., the calm belonging, as an attribute, to Eternity.

"This sonnet was," says Wordsworth, "suggested by my daughter Catherine long after her death. Catherine Wordsworth died on June 4, 1812, in her fourth year. The sonnet was published in 1815. The poem Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old" was suggested by Catherine in 1811. Dorothy Wordsworth describes her as comical in every look and motion."

2. Turned an improvement—like the next of 1820. In 1815, "wished."

3. Deep buried: in 1815, "long buried." II, 12.

Wordsworth was away from home when Catherine died.

"HAIL, TWILIGHT," etc.

This sonnet is of uncertain date; first published, 1815. It is probably later than 1807. The text is unchanged, except that "flood" in 1. 13 replaced in 1837 "floods."

"I WATCH AND LONG HAVE WATCHED," etc.

Written probably between 1815 and the date of publication, 1819. This sonnet was omitted from one edition—that of 1827-possibly because Wordsworth then believed that its desponding close was alien

from the higher spirit of poetry; but he knew that it was the true expression of a mood of his mind and restored it in 1832. "Suggested," he says, "in front of Rydal Mount, the rocky parapet being the summit of Longhrigg Fell opposite. Not once only, but a hundred times, have the feelings of the sonnet been awakened by the same objects seen from the same place."

7-9. Before 1837 :

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He burns, transmuted to a sullen fire

That droops and dwindles; and, the appointed debt

To the flying moments paid, is seen no more.

The words sullen fire are of interest to the student of Wordsworth in connection with another sonnet, that beginning "Even as a dragon's eye," - where a cottage taper amid the mountains is compared to a sepulchral lamp "sullenly glaring”; in all editions (except 1838) from 1827 to 1849 this is printed "suddenly glaring," and so in posthumous editions except that in the Aldine Series; but "sullenly" is right and may be compared with a “sullen star" in "The Excursion," Bk. iv, and the expression "sullen light," of a blown-out candle with smouldering wick, which is found in Wordsworth's prose.

II. Before 1837: "glory, pitiably decline."

See the sonnet "After-Thought," p. 332, as showing one of Wordsworth's thoughts of resistance to such despondency as is expressed here.

TO B. R. HAYDON.

This sonnet was written in December, 1815, and was published by Haydon (with two other sonnets) in Leigh Hunt's Journal, The Examiner, March 31, 1816; again published by Wordsworth in the same year. The text is unchanged. Benjamin Robert Haydon, the painter, born in 1786, painted the portrait of Wordsworth on Helvellyn, and introduced his portrait among the figures of "Christ's Entry into Jerusalem." His want of success caused Haydon's mind to give way, and on June 20, 1846, he shot himself in his studio before an unfinished picture. In a letter to Wordsworth of Nov. 27, 1815, he expressed the "highest enthusiasm " for Wordsworth's genius, and wrote of himself: "I will bear want, pain, misery, and blindness, but I will never yield one step I have gained on the road I am determined to travel over."

NOVEMBER 1.

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Written in December, 1815; published, 1816. Suggested," says Wordsworth, on the banks of the Brathay by the sight of Langdale Pikes."

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3. In 1816: "Which, strewn with snow as pure as Heaven can shed"; in 1832: snow smooth as the heaven can shed." The final text is that of 1837.

A characteristic of the snow-clad mountains, not brought out in this sonnet, is dealt with in Wordsworth's "Guide to the Lakes," — the varieties of colour in various lights and shadows, which takes away from the monotony of snow.

This series was written

No. V of "The River Duddon" sonnets. at intervals during many years and was published in 1820. The text is unchanged. "The Duddon rises on Wrynose Fell, near to the 'Three-Shire Stone,' where Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Lancashire meet" (H. Rix, in Knight's "Wordsworth "). This sonnet is "generally taken to be descriptive of Cockley Beck. Here, as we emerge from Wrynose Bottom, the first trees meet the eye, after a full two miles of monotony and stones, and here, too, is the first cottage." The cottage is not now surrounded by "sheltering pines," but Mr. Rix, from whom I quote, ascertained (The Athenæum, July 18, 1891, p. 98) from natives of the valley that the pines had been there within living memory.

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On the Duddon sonnets, see Wordsworth and the Duddon," in Holiday Studies of Wordsworth," by Rev. F. A. Malleson (Cassell & Co., 1890).

THE PLAIN OF DONNERDALE.

This is No. XX of "The River Duddon" series. The text is unchanged. Donnerdale, says Mr. Rix (in Knight's "Wordsworth ") is strictly "the district on the east bank of the Duddon from Broughton up to Ulpha Bridge, and extending thence parallel by Seathwaite, from which it is divided by fells."

14. Thyrsus: Gr. Oúpoos, a staff or spear wrapped with ivy and vine branches. The Bacchanals bore thyrsi when celebrating the orgies of Bacchus.