Or Pleasure-house, once destined to be built 1
Among the birch-trees of this rocky isle

But, as it chanced, Sir William having learned
That from the shore a full-grown man might wade
And make himself a freeman of this spot

At any hour he chose, the prudent Knight 2
Desisted, and the quarry and the mound

Are monuments of his unfinished task.

The block on which these lines are traced, perhaps,
Was once selected as the corner-stone

Of that intended Pile, which would have been
Some quaint odd plaything of elaborate skill,
So that, I guess, the linnet and the thrush,
And other little builders who dwell here,
Had wondered at the work. But blame him not
For old Sir William was a gentle Knight,
Bred in this vale, to which he appertained
With all his ancestry. Then peace to him,
And for the outrage which he had devised
Entire forgiveness-But if thou art one
On fire with thy impatience to become
An inmate of these mountains,-if, disturbed
By beautiful conceptions, thou hast hewn
Out of the quiet rock the elements

Of thy trim Mansion destined soon to blaze

In snow-white splendour,-think again; and, taught
By old Sir William and his quarry, leave
Thy fragments to the bramble and the rose;
There let the vernal slow-worm sun himself,

And let the redbreast hop from stone to stone.

Or pleasure-house, which was to have been built.

2

1836.

the Knight forthwith.

1800.

1800,

1801.

The chronological table in the first volume of this edition was printed before I discovered, from the perusal of Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, that it was during the year 1801 that her brother wrote his versions of Chaucer. They were not published till the years 1820, and 1842; and, in the absence of other evidence, they were assigned by me to these years respectively. But there is no doubt that they were written in December 1801. Only two other poems belong to 1801, viz.:—The Sparrow's Nest, and the Sonnet on Skiddaw. During this year, however, The Excursion was in progress. In its earlier stages, and before the plan of The Recluse was matured, the introductory part was known in the Wordsworth household by the name of The Pedlar; and the following extracts from the Journal of 1801 will show the progress that was being made with it :-" Dec. 21.—Wm. sate beside me, and wrote the Pedlar. 22d.-W. composed a few lines of the Pedlar. 23d.— William worked at the Ruined Cottage (which was the name of the first part of the Excursion), and made himself very ill," &c.-ED.

[Written in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere. At the end of the garden of my father's house at Cockermouth was a high terrace that commanded a fine view of the river Derwent and Cockermouth Castle. This was our favourite play-ground. The terrace wall, a low one, was covered with closely-clipt privet and roses, which gave an almost impervious shelter to birds who built their nests there. The latter of these stanzas alludes to one of those nests.]

1

BEHOLD, within the leafy shade

Those bright blue eggs together laid!
On me the chance-discovered sight
Gleamed like a vision of delight.1

I started-seeming to espy

The home and sheltered bed,

1815.

Look, five blue eggs are gleaming there!
Few visions have I seen more fair,

Nor many prospects of delight

More pleasing than that simple sight!

1807

The Sparrow's dwelling, which, hard by
My Father's house, in wet or dry
My sister Emmeline and I
Together visited.

She looked at it and seemed to fear it;
Dreading, tho' wishing to be near it :1
Such heart was in her, being then
A little Prattler among men.
The Blessing of my later years
Was with me when a boy:

She gave me eyes, she gave me ears;
And humble cares, and delicate fears;
A heart, the fountain of sweet tears;
And love, and thought, and joy.

This Poem, first published in the series entitled "Moods of my own Mind," in 1807, was, in the edition of 1815, placed amongst the "Poems founded on the Affections." There it remained, in the six collective editions that followed, till, in 1845, it was transferred to the "Poems referring to the period of childhood." Wordsworth's "sister Emmeline " was his only sister, Dorothy.-ED.

1

PELION AND OSSA FLOURISH SIDE BY SIDE.

Comp. 1801.

Pub. 1815.

PELION and Ossa flourish side by side,
Together in immortal books enrolled:
His ancient dower Olympus hath not sold;
And that inspiring Hill, which 'did divide,
Into two ample horns his forehead wide,'
Shines with poetic radiance as of old;

While not an English Mountain we behold
By the celestial Muses glorified.

1845.

She looked at it as if she feared it;
Still wishing, dreading to be near it :

1807

Yet round our sea-girt shore they rise in crowds:
What was the great Parnassus' self to Thee,
In his natural sovereignty

Mount Skiddaw?

Our British Hill is nobler far; he shrouds

His double front among Atlantic clouds,1

And pours forth streams more sweet than Castaly.

SELECTIONS FROM CHAUCER

MODERNISED.

Wordsworth's modernisations of Chaucer were all written in 1801. Two of them were from the Canterbury Tales, but his version of one of these-The Manciple's Tale-has never been printed. Of the three poems which were published, the first-The Prioress' Tale-was included in the edition of 1820. The Troilus and Cressida and The Cuckoo and the Nightingale appeared in the "Poems of Early and Late Years," 1842. But they had also been published the year before in a small volume entitled "The Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer Modernised" (London, 1841), a volume to which Elizabeth Barrett, Leigh Hunt, R. H. Horne, Thomas Powell, and others contributed. Wordsworth wrote thus of the project to Mr Powell :-"I am glad that you enter so warmly into the Chaucerian project, and that Mr L. Hunt is disposed to give his valuable aid to it. For myself, I cannot do more than I offered, to place at your disposal The Prioress' Tale already published, The Cuckoo and the Nightingale, The Manciple's Tale, and I rather think (but I cannot just now find it) a small portion of the Troilus and Cressida. You ask my opinion about that poem. Speaking from a recollection only, of many years past, I should say it would be found too long and probably tedious. The Knight's Tale is also very long; but, though Dryden has executed it in his own way observe, with great spirit and harmony, he has suffered too much of the simplicity, and with that of the beauty and occasional pathos of the original to escape, that I should be pleased to hear that a new version should be attempted upon my principle by some competent person. It would delight me to read every part of Chaucer over again-for I reverence and admire him above measure-with a view to your work; but my eyes will not permit me to do so. Who will undertake the Prologue to the C. Tales?

1 1827.

His double-fronted head in higher clouds.

1815.

For your publication that is indispensable, and I fear it will prove very difficult. It is written, as you know, in the couplet measure; and therefore I have nothing to say upon its metre, but in respect to the poems in stanza, neither in The Prioress' Tale nor in The Cuckoo and Nightingale have I kept to the rule of the original as to the form, and number, and position of the rhymes; thinking it enough if I kept the same number of lines in each stanza; and this is, I think, all that is necessary, and all that can be done without sacrificing the substance of sense too often to the mere form of sound." (From an unpublished and undated letter, written probably in 1840.) In a letter to Professor Henry Reed, dated "Rydal Mount, January 13th, 1841," Wordsworth said, "So great is my admiration of Chaucer's genius, and so profound my reverence for him as an instrument in the hands of Providence, for spreading the light of literature through his native land, that notwithstanding the defects and faults in this publication" (referring, I presume, to the volume, "The Poems of Geoffrey Chaucer Modernised "), I am glad of it, as a means of making many acquainted with the original, who would otherwise be ignorant of everything about him but his name."-ED.

In the following Poem no further deviation from the original has been made than was necessary for the fluent reading and instant understanding of the Author: so much, however, is the language altered since Chaucer's time, especially in pronunciation, that much was to be removed, and its place supplied with as little incongruity as possible. The ancient accent has been retained in a few conjunctions, as alsò and alway, from a conviction that such sprinklings of antiquity would be admitted, by persons of taste, to have a graceful accordance with the subject. The fierce bigotry of the Prioress forms a fine back-ground for her tender-hearted sympathies with the Mother and Child; and the mode in which the story is told amply atones for the extravagance of the miracle.

I.

"O LORD, our Lord! how wondrously," (quoth she) 'Thy name in this large world is spread abroad! For not alone by men of dignity