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Yet, God is my witness, thou small helpless Thing!

Thy life I would gladly sustain

Till summer come up from the south, and with crowds

Of thy brethren a march thou should'st sound through the

clouds,

And back to the forests again!

1800.

Towards the close of December 1799, Wordsworth took up his abode at Townend, Grasmere, and the poems belonging to the following year (1800), are more particularly associated with that district of the Lakes. Two of them-fragments of an unpublished book of The Recluse, entitled "Home at Grasmere "-refer to his settlement at Dove Cottage. Others -such as Michael, and The Brothers—classed by him afterwards amongst the "Poems founded on the Affections," deal with incidents in the rural life of the dalesmen of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Most of the "Poems on the Naming of Places" were written during this year; and the "places" are all in the neighbourhood of Grasmere. To these may be added several "pastoral" poems, such as The Idle Shepherd Boys (the story of Dungeon-Ghyll Force), sundry "Poems of the Fancy," and one or two "Inscriptions." In all, twenty-five poems belong to the year 1800; and, with the exception of the two fragments of The Recluse, they were published during the same year in the second edition of Lyrical Ballads. -ED.

It is impossible to fix the precise date of the composition of the following fragments from the first book of The Recluse. They refer to the settlement at Dove Cottage, where Wordsworth went to reside with his Sister, on the 21st of December 1799. They may therefore fitly introduce the poems belonging to the year 1800. They were first published in 1850 in the Memoirs of the poet, by the Bishop of Lincoln.

ON NATURE'S INVITATION DO I COME.
Comp. 1800.

ON Nature's invitation do I come,

Pub. 1850.

By Reason sanctioned. Can the choice mislead,

That made the calmest, fairest spot on earth,

With all its unappropriated good,

My own, and not mine only, for with me

Entrenched-say rather peacefully embowered—
Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot,
A younger orphan of a Name extinct,
The only daughter of my parents dwells:

Aye, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir;
Pause upon that, and let the breathing frame
No longer breathe, but all be satisfied.

Oh, if such silence be not thanks to God

For what hath been bestowed, then where, where then
Shall gratitude find rest? Mine eyes did ne'er
Fix on a lovely object, nor my mind

Take pleasure in the midst of happy thought,
But either she, whom now I have, who now
Divides with me that loved abode, was there,
Or not far off. Where'er my footsteps turned,
Her voice was like a hidden bird that sang;
The thought of her was like a flash of light
Or an unseen companionship, a breath
Or fragrance independent of the wind.
In all my goings, in the new and old
Of all my meditations, and in this
Favourite of all, in this the most of all. .
Embrace me then, ye hills, and close me in.
Now on the clear and open day I feel
Your guardianship: I take it to my heart;
'Tis like the solemn shelter of the night.
But I would call thee beautiful; for mild,
And soft, and gay, and beautiful thou art,
Dear valley, having in thy face a smile,

Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased,
Pleased with thy crags, and woody steeps, thy lake.
Its one green island, and its winding shores,

The multitude of little rocky hills,

Thy church, and cottages of mountain-stone

Clustered like stars some few, but single most,
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats,
Or glancing at each other cheerful looks
Like separated stars with clouds between.

This Grasmere cottage is, even more than Rydal Mount, identified with Wordsworth's "poetic prime." It had once been a publichouse, bearing the sign of the Dove and Olive Bough-and as such is referred to in The Waggoner - from which circumstance it was for a long time, and is still occasionally, called "Dove Cottage." A small two storied house, it is described somewhat minutely—as it was in Wordsworth's time-by De Quincey, in his "Recollections of the Lakes," and by the Bishop of Lincoln, in his Memoirs of the poet. "The front of it faces the lake; behind is a small plot of orchard and garden ground, in which there is a spring and rocks; the enclosure shelves upwards towards the woody sides of the mountains above it." The following is De Quincey's description of it, as he saw it in the summer of 1807. "A white cottage, with two yew trees breaking the glare of its white walls" (these yews still stand on the eastern side of the cottage). "A little semi-vestibule between two doors prefaced the entrance into what might be considered the principal room of the cottage. It was an oblong square, not above eight and a half feet high, sixteen feet long, and twelve broad; wainscoted from floor to ceiling with dark polished oak, slightly embellished with carving. One window there was-a perfect and unpretending cottage window, with little diamond panes, embowered at almost every season of the year with roses; and, in the summer and autumn, with a profusion of jasmine, and other fragrant shrubs. . . . I was ushered up a little flight of stairs, fourteen in all, to a little drawing-room, or whatever the reader chooses to call it. Wordsworth himself has described the fireplace of this room as his

Half-kitchen and half-parlour fire.

It was not fully seven feet six inches high, and in other respects pretty nearly of the same dimensions as the rustic hall below. There was, however, in a small recess, a library of perhaps three hundred volumes, which seemed to consecrate the room as the poet's study and composing room, and such occasionally it was. But far oftener he both studied, as I found, and composed on the high road.”+

Other poems of later years refer, much more fully than the above

* Memoirs, vol. i. p. 156.

+ "Recollections of the Lakes," &c., pp. 130-137, Works, vol. ii., ed. 1862.

fragment does, to this cottage and its orchard ground, where so many of his lyrics were composed. Some allusion to the latter may, however, be made here.

This orchard ground behind the cottage, which was for the most part in grass, sloped upwards; but a considerable portion of the natural rock was exposed; and in the face of this rock, some rough stone steps were cut by Wordsworth, and a near neighbour of his, John Fisher, so as conveniently to reach the upper terrace, where he built a small arbour. The ground is not much altered since 1800. The short terrace walk is curved, with a sloping bank of grass above, shaded by apple trees, hazel, holly, laburnum, laurel, and mountain ash. Below the terrace is the well, which supplied the cottage in Wordsworth's time; and there the large leaved primroses still grow, doubtless the successors of those planted by his own and his sister's hands. Above, and amongst the rocks, are the daffodils, which they also brought to their "gardenground;" the Christmas roses which they planted near the well have been removed to the eastern side of the garden, where they still flourish luxuriantly. The box-wood planted by the poet grows close to the cottage. The arbour is now gone; and, in the place where it stood, a seat is erected. The hidden brook still sings its under-song, as it used to do, "its quiet soul on all bestowing," and the green linnet may doubtless be seen now, as it used to be in 1803. The allusions to this garden ground at Dove Cottage, in the poems which follow, will be noted as they occur.-ED.

"BLEAK SEASON WAS IT, TURBULENT AND WILD.”

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Bleak season was it, turbulent and wild,

When hitherward we journeyed, side by side,

Through bursts of sunshine and through flying showers,
Paced the long vales, how long they were, and yet
How fast that length of way was left behind,
Wensley's rich vale and Sedberge's naked heights.
The frosty wind, as if to make amends
For its keen breath, was aiding to our steps,
And drove us onward as two ships at sea;
Or, like two birds, companions in mid-air,
Parted and reunited by the blast.

Stern was the face of nature; we rejoiced

In that stern countenance; for our souls thence drew
A feeling of their strength. The naked trees,
The icy brooks, as on we passed, appeared

To question us, "Whence come ye? To what end?"

This poem refers to the winter journey on foot which Wordsworth and his sister took from Sockburn to Grasmere by Wensleydale and Askrigg, and as he has left us an account of this journey in a letter to Coleridge, written a few days after their arrival at Grasmere—a letter in which his characterisation of nature is almost as happy as it is in his best poems-some extracts from it are appended.-Ed.

...

"We left Sockburn last Tuesday morning. We crossed the Tees by moonlight in the Sockburn fields, and after ten good miles' riding came in sight of the Swale. It is there a beautiful river, with its green bank and flat holms scattered over with trees. Four miles further brought us to Richmond, with its huge ivied castle, its friarage steeple, its castle tower resembling a huge steeple. . . . We were now in Wensleydale, and D. and I set off side by side to foot it as far as Kendal. ... We reached Askrigg, twelve miles, before six in the evening, having been obliged to walk the last two miles over hard frozen roads. . . . Next morning the earth was thinly covered with snow, enough to make the road soft and prevent its being slippery. On leaving Askrigg we turned aside to see another waterfall. It was a beautiful morning, with driving snow showers, which disappeared by fits, and unveiled the east, which was all one delicious pale orange colour. After walking through two small fields we came to a mill, which we passed, and in a moment a sweet little valley opened before us, with an area of grassy ground, and a stream dashing over various laminæ of black rocks close under a bank covered with firs; the bank and stream on our left, another woody bank on our right, and the flat meadow in front, from which, as at Buttermere, the stream had retired, as it were, to hide itself under the shade. As we walked up this delightful valley we were tempted to look back perpetually on the stream, which reflected the orange lights of the morning among the gloomy rocks, with a brightness varying with the agitation of the current. The steeple of Askrigg was between us and the east, at the bottom of the valley; it was not a quarter of a mile distant. . . . The two banks seemed to join before us with a facing of rock common to them both. When we reached this bottom the valley opened out again; two rocky banks on each side, which, hung with ivy and moss, and fringed luxuriantly with brushwood, ran directly parallel to each other, and then approaching with a gentle curve at their point of union, presented a lofty waterfall, the termination of the valley. It was a keen frosty morning, showers of snow threatening us, but the sun bright and active. We had a task of twenty-one miles to perform in a short winter's day. . . . On a nearer approach the waters seemed to fall

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