almost of corporeal existence; the Imagination being tempted to this exertion of her power by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is almost perpetually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom becomes an object of sight." १९ "MY HEART LEAPS UP." Written on Mar. 26, 1802, at Town-end, Grasmere; first published in 1807. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal: "While I was getting into bed he wrote 'The Rainbow""; and again on May 14, 1802: William very nervous. After he was in bed, haunted with altering 'The Rainbow.'" The printed text was never altered. In the "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood," Wordsworth tells of "the glory and the freshness of a dream" which arrayed the aspects of nature for him in childhood, and which faded in maturer years (the rainbow is especially mentioned); and he goes on to show how his early feeling for nature is not lost, but is deepened by human experiences, including the sorrow of mature years. In his own arrangement of his Poems "My heart leaps up" is placed first (if we omit the "Poems written in Youth"), and the Ode having for its motto the last three lines of this poem is placed last, kindred thoughts and feelings thus rounding his entire work. "The Cuckoo" was written on the same day as My heart leaps up," and expresses the same thought as to the "natural piety” of carrying on the feelings of childhood into later life. There is a special propriety in the word "piety," in the Latin sense of filial reverence, the child here being the father of the man, and the man feeling such reverence for his parent. This poem. WRITTEN IN MARCH, etc. —a favourite with Joanna Baillie was composed with speed ("extempore," says Wordsworth) near Brothers' Water, on Apr. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in foot of Brothers' Water I left When I returned I found William 16, 1802. The text was never altered. her Journal: "When we came to the William sitting on the bridge. writing a poem descriptive of the sights and sounds we saw and heard. There was the gentle flowing of the stream, the glittering, lively lake, green fields, without a single creature to be seen on them; behind us a flat pasture with forty-two cattle feeding. The people were at work ploughing, harrowing, and sowing; lasses working, a dog barking ... now and then; cocks crowing, birds twittering; the snow in patches at the top of the highest hill. got to the foot of Kirkstone." William finished his poem before we THE REDBREAST CHASING THE BUTTERFLY. This poem was written in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere. The date is given in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, Apr. 18, 1802: "A mild grey morning with rising vapours. We sate in the orchard. William wrote the poem on "The Robin and the Butterfly." . . . William met me at Rydal with the conclusion of the poem to the Robin. I read it to him in bed. We left out some lines." The poem was published in 1807. The reader should compare the poem of 1834, "The Redbreast (suggested in a Westmoreland Cottage)." 2. The pious bird. The pious deed, by which the bird dyed its breast in taking a thorn from the crucified Saviour's crown, is referred to in the poem of 1834. 9. The bird that: one of Wordsworth's latest corrections, in the ed. of 1849; "the bird whom," 1807-20; "the bird who," 1827-45. 20. This line remained in 1815 when one preceding and one following it were omitted: 35, 36. His little heart is throbbing: Can this be the Bird, to man so good, Our consecrated Robin? Date from 1815. In 1807, three lines: Like the hues of thy breast His beautiful wings in crimson are drest, A brother he seems of thine own: In 1832 the reading in the text, but cancelled in errata, is : His beautiful bosom is drest, In crimson as bright as thine own. Wordsworth's desire was to make the butterfly resemble the redbreast as closely as possible, but on consideration he thought it absurd to speak of a butterfly's bosom, and so he retained the reading of 1815. Matthew Arnold, probably by an oversight, prints the cancelled text of 1832. TO A BUTTERFLY ("I've watched you"). Written in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere, on Apr. 20, 1802; first published in 1807. Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal gives us the date of the poem, which she calls "a conclusion to the poem of the 'Butterfly,'" that is, to the poem beginning "Stay near me" (p. 135). The stanza of both poems is identical in form. When printed the poems appeared separately. Perhaps "The Redbreast chasing the Butterfly" (Apr. 18, 1802) recalled the butterfly poem written on March 14. The first line is now as it originally stood, but in 1836 Wordsworth substituted a short half-hour," -"short" carries the reader away from the butterfly to Wordsworth's mood of mind, and he happily reverted to the earlier text. It also suggested a point which Wordsworth did not intend, a contrast between the "short" the "long passage of time now and Stop here whenever you are weary, To connect the butterfly at rest in the sun with "frozen seas (1.5) is an example of the "abstracting power" of the imagination, of which Wordsworth speaks in his Preface to the ed. of 1815; the one common characteristic on which the imagination concentrates itself is the motionlessness of both butterfly and ocean. ... TO THE SMALL CELANDINE. Written Apr. 30, 1802, at Town-end, Grasmere, and published in 1807. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal: "We came into the orchard directly after breakfast and sat there. The lake was calm, the sky cloudy. William began to write the poem of The Celandine. I walked backwards and forwards with William. He repeated his poem to me. Then he got to work again and would not give over." Wordsworth notes as remarkable that "this flower, coming out so early in the spring as it does, and so bright and beautiful and in such profusion, should not have been noticed earlier in English verse. What adds much to the interest that attends it is its habit of shutting itself up and opening out according to the degree of light and temperature of the air." Southey, however, in a sonnet ("Thou lingerest, Spring!") written in 1799, had written: Scarce doth the glossy celandine appear The most interesting fact about the text is that in the ed. of 1836 and until that of 1843 a stanza appeared between the present fifth and sixth stanzas, which in 1845 Wordsworth transferred with an altered text to the next following poem, "To the Same Flower," where it appears as the last stanza but one (" Drawn by what peculiar spell"). 16. Sage astronomer in 1836 replaced "great astronomer." 58. Too strongly put before 1836: "Scorn'd and slighted upon earth." 61, 62. Before 1836: Singing at my heart's command, In the lanes my thoughts pursuing, Altered, probably, because the "singing" anticipates "I will sing" in 1. 63, and to avoid the identity of rhyme in "ensuing," "pursuing." TO THE SAME FLOWER ("Pleasures newly found"). Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal gives the date of composition, May I, 1802: William wrote The Celandine, second part." Published in 1807. There are interesting variations of text in 11. 51-53; in 1807: In 1820: Let, as old Magellen [" Magellan,” 1815] did, Others roam about the sea; Build who will a pyramid. Let, with bold advent'rous skill, Others thrid the polar sea; Rear a pyramid who will. In 1827 as now, except with "Adventurer " for " Discoverer" (1845). Wordsworth at one time intended to restore "old Magellan." For the transference of the sixth stanza, see notes on the last poem. As found 1836-43 in the preceding poem, it stood thus: Drawn by what peculiar spell, Opening daily at thy side, By the season multiplied? It was well to erase the unhappy "Settle on thy brilliant features." 14. Rising sun: 1807-32," risen sun." 20. 'Kerchief-plots, plots no larger than a handkerchief. 38. Sheltering hold: 1807-27, "shelter'd hold." 39. Previous to 1845 this line was Bright as any of the train." 50. Beneath our shoon. Rolfe compares, Comus 634, the herb "hæmony" with its "bright golden flower," on which the "dull swain" treads daily "with his clouted shoon." Wordsworth in 1804 wrote a third poem on "The Small Celandine," in a sadder strain. See p. 191. RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. १९ Written at Town-end, Grasmere, between May 3 and July 4, 1802; published in 1807. Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal gives the dates, and tells how Wordsworth, on certain days, worked almost incessantly at The Leech-Gatherer," and "tired himself to death." The incident on which the poem was founded was recorded by Dorothy on Oct. 3, 1800. The encounter with the Leech-Gatherer was probably on September 26. Not far from Dove Cottage the brother and sister met an old man almost double," carrying a bundle; he wore an apron and nightcap; "his face was interesting; he had dark eyes and a long nose.' The man was of Scotch parents, and he had been in the army; his wife and nine out of ten children were dead. "His trade was to gather leeches, but now leeches were scarce, and he had not strength for it. He lived by begging, and was making his way to Carlisle where he should buy a few godly books to sell." "I was in the state of feeling described in the beginning of the poem," says Wordsworth (Fenwick note)," while crossing over Barton Fell from Mr. Clarkson's at the foot of Ullswater, towards Askham. The image of the hare I then observed on the ridge of the Fell." In a letter to friends [probably to Mary and Sara Hutchinson, June 14, 1802] Wordsworth writes: "I will explain to |