the mountain above it." Memoirs, vol. 1. p. 156. worth's poems were composed in this orchard. 55, 56. Many of Words some in bands...lands. The reference is to the migratory birds, who have already taken flight for the winter. 59. Kinds, species. Wordsworth is perhaps thinking of the domestic animals, which no longer feel the "cheering power" of the spring. 64. Blue-cap. The tom-tit. 65-68. Who was...out. The tom-tit was looking for insects. "Often a single bird or the whole family party will alight on a tree, and, after a very brief survey, will go on to the next, where perhaps a prolonged stay will be made. To man's eyes the two trees are just alike.... The bird, however, knows better; the germ of one is sound, that of the other infected. Hardly any portion of the bud itself is eaten, the egg or insect lodged there is the morsel sought, and the bud, when picked open, is in most cases utterly destroyed; but with it is also destroyed the potential destroyer of more buds than any one can tell." Yarrell's British Birds, quoted by Wintringham, Birds of Wordsworth. 72. Harlequin. A clown. Cf. Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, May 28, 1802: "We sat in the orchard.... The young bullfinches in their party-coloured raiment bustle about among the blossoms and poise themselves like wire dancers, or tumblers, shaking the twigs, and dashing off the blossoms." 82. neighbouring rill. The spring already mentioned, which bubbled up in the orchard. 85. glitter. A favourite word with Wordsworth to describe the shining of water or plain. Cf. The Cock is Crowing: "The lake doth glitter.” 88. "The sky serene and pure" is spoken of as a lure, because it is an autumnal sky, which may soon become clouded and stormy and so deceive those whom it has tempted out. 91-94. Is it...gaiety? Wordsworth recognises that each season has its peculiar pleasures, and that the repose of autumn may be as pleasant in its way as the gaiety of spring. 96. impenetrable. Because we can only conjecture, and cannot fully understand the motives at the heart of other creatures. Dr Stopford Brooke remarks on this passage that in Wordsworth's idea, Nature "from her own vast life, gave to everything its special life, a separate soul to each....Each had from Nature not only its own distinct soul and character, but also its own distinct work to do." 100. Too sedate. Whatever older and more experienced persons may know, which is too grave and serious to be revealed openly, yet the joy of the infant and kitten is so great that the poet almost regrets that he can no longer share in the purely animal delight of unthinking creatures. 104. Dora. In the editions of the poems from 1807-1843, the word was Laura. But after Dora Quillinan's death in 1847, her father, wishing to acknowledge the connection of this poem with her infancy, changed the word to Dora. 111-128. The poet determines to go through life in such a way that he may keep alive the faculty of being pleased by trivial things, such as a kitten's antics, or the laughing eye of a child: and just as the kitten gambols with the falling leaf, which is the sign of decay and dissolution, so he will find matter for happy reflection even in sorrowful events. Crabb Robinson (Diary, Sept. 11, 1816) says that "Wordsworth quoted some of...The Kitten and the Falling Leaves to show he had connected even the kitten with the great, awful, and mysterious powers of Nature." 123. sprightly soul, lively soul. 126. jocund, joyful, a favourite epithet with Wordsworth. Cf. I wandered lonely as a Cloud, 11. 15, 16: "A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company." THE COCK IS CROWING. This poem, first published in 1807, was written on April 16, 1802. See Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal for that day: "The sun shone, the wind had passed away, the hills looked cheerful, the river was very bright as it flowed into the lake.... When we came to the foot of Brother's Water, I left William sitting on the bridge, and went along the path on the right side of the lake through the wood....When I returned I found William 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 living creature to be seen on them; behind us, a flat pasture with forty-two cattle feeding; to our left, the road leading to the hamlet. No smoke there, the sun shone on the bare roofs. The people were at work ploughing, harrowing and sowing...a dog barking now and then, cocks crowing, birds twittering, the snow in patches at the top of the highest hills, yellow palms, purple and green twigs on the birches, ashes with their glittering stems quite black." 15. The Ploughboy is whooping. Cf. Intimations of Immortality, 1. 35: "Thou child of Joy, Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou happy Shepherd-boy!" 20. The rain is over and gone. A reminiscence of: "For lo, the winter is passed, the rain is over and gone" (Song of Solomon ii. 11). MY HEART LEAPS UP. Composed in 1802, and first published in 1807. Cf. Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal: "Friday [date not given] While I was getting into bed, he [William] wrote The Rainbow,'" and again, "Friday, 14th May, We wrote to Coleridge; sent off bread and frocks to the Cs... William very nervous. After he was in bed haunted with altering The Rainbow." This poem contains the germ of the idea afterwards expanded in the Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood. To Wordsworth it seemed that the child was nearer to Heaven than the man, and he rejoiced that in adult years he could still feel that rapture in the beautiful objects of nature which had thrilled him in his boyhood, and seemed to him an earnest of his close connection with the unseen spiritual world. The capacity for feeling wonder and rapture at scenes which have become familiar by repeated experience is the special endowment of the poet. Cf. Mrs Browning's sonnet, The Poet: "The poet hath the child's sight in his breast And sees all new. What oftenest he has viewed, But in the Ode itself, though Wordsworth speaks especially of the beauty of the rainbow, he adds that something has passed away: "The rainbow comes and goes, And lovely is the rose; The moon doth with delight Look round her when the heavens are bare, Waters on a starry night Are beautiful and fair; The sunshine is a glorious birth; But yet I know, where'er I go, That there hath past away a glory from the earth." 7-9. The last lines of this poem were adopted by Wordsworth as his motto for the Ode. The word "piety" is here used in its original sense (L. pietas, filial affection) and "natural piety" signifies the ordinary natural affection of a son for his father. Thus the man regards his childhood with the same reverence and affection as a son regards his father, and wishes to keep firm the bond with it. I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD. First published 1807. Wordsworth's note is as follows: "Town End 1804. The two best lines in it are by Mary. The daffodils grew and still grow on the margin of Ullswater, and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March, nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves." Dorothy Wordsworth in her Journal for April 15, 1802, writes, "When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park, we saw a few daffodils close to the waterside. We fancied that the sea had floated the seeds ashore, and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along, there were more, and yet more, and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow, for very weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew up on them over the lake; they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing. There was here and there a little knot, and a few stragglers higher up; but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity, unity and life of that one busy highway." 2. That floats on high. Wordsworth often uses the word "float" to describe the movement of a cloud. Cf. Three years she grew in Sun and Shower, 11. 19, 20: "The floating clouds their State shall lend To her..." 6. Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. In a letter to Sir George Beaumont, Wordsworth insists on the idea of movement in connection with this poem. "The very object of my poem is the trouble or agitation, both of the flowers and the water" (Grosart, III. p. 182). 7-12. This stanza was not in the first version of the poem, but was added in 1815. 21, 22. These lines were suggested by Mrs Wordsworth, who accompanied her husband and his sister on their excursion to Ullswater. With the idea expressed in them may be compared the following passage from Wordsworth's Preface to the Lyrical Ballads (1800): "To these qualities he [i.e. the Poet] has added a disposition to be affected more than other men by absent things as if they were present; an ability of conjuring up in himself passions, which are indeed far from being the same as those produced by real events, yet (especially in those parts of the general sympathy which are pleasing and delightful) do more nearly resemble the passions produced by real events than anything which, from the motions of their own minds merely, other men are accustomed to feel in themselves." SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT. First published 1807. Wordsworth's note is : "1804 Town End. The germ of this poem was from lines composed as a part of the verses on the Highland Girl. Though beginning in this way, it was written from my heart, as is sufficiently obvious." The poem on the Highland Girl was suggested by a chance meeting during Wordsworth's tour to Scotland in 1803, which is described in his sister's Journal. But Henry Crabb Robinson, in a letter to Mrs Clarkson, says: "The poet expressly told me that the verses were on his wife." At another time Wordsworth told him that they should be read in |