The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Ii Part 129

TO H. C.

SIX YEARS OLD

Composed 1802.--Published 1807

One of the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood."--Ed.

O thou! whose fancies from afar are brought; Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel, And fittest to unutterable thought The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol; Thou faery voyager! that dost float 5 In such clear water, that thy boat May rather seem To brood on air [A] than on an earthly stream; Suspended in a stream as clear as sky, Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; 10 O blessed vision! happy child!

Thou [1] art so exquisitely wild, I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, 15 Lord of thy house and hospitality; And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest But when she sate within the touch of thee.

O too industrious folly!

O vain and causeless melancholy! 20 Nature will either end thee quite; Or, lengthening out thy season of delight, Preserve for thee, by individual right, A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flocks.

What hast thou to do with sorrow, 25 Or the injuries of to-morrow?

Thou art a dew-drop, which the morn brings forth, Ill fitted to sustain [2] unkindly shocks, Or to be trailed along the soiling earth; A gem that glitters while it lives, 30 And no forewarning gives; But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife Slips in a moment out of life.

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1845.

That ... 1807.]

[Variant 2:

1827.

Not doom'd to jostle with ... 1807.

Not framed to undergo ... 1815.]

FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: See Carver's Description of his Situation upon one of the Lakes of America.--W. W. 1807.]

These stanzas were addressed to Hartley Coleridge. The lines,

'I think of thee with many fears For what may be thy lot in future years,'

taken in connection with his subsequent career, suggest the similarly sad "presentiment" with which the 'Lines composed above Tintern Abbey'

conclude. The following is the postscript to a letter by his father, S.

T. C., addressed to Sir Humphry Davy, Keswick, July 25, 1800:

"Hartley is a spirit that dances on an aspen leaf; the air that yonder sallow-faced and yawning tourist is breathing, is to my babe a perpetual nitrous oxide. Never was more joyous creature born. Pain with him is so wholly trans-substantiated by the joys that had rolled on before, and rushed on after, that oftentimes five minutes after his mother has whipt him he has gone up and asked her to whip him again."

('Fragmentary Remains, Literary and Scientific', of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart., pp. 78, 79.)--Ed.

TO THE DAISY

Composed 1802.--Published 1807

"Her [A] divine skill taught me this, That from every thing I saw I could some instruction draw, And raise pleasure to the height Through the meanest object's sight.

By the murmur of a spring, Or the least bough's rustelling; By a Daisy whose leaves spread Shut when t.i.tan goes to bed; Or a shady bush or tree; She could more infuse in me Than all Nature's beauties can In some other wiser man."

G. WITHER. [1]

[Composed in the orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.--I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Fancy."--Ed.

In youth from rock to rock I went, From hill to hill in discontent Of pleasure high and turbulent, Most pleased when most uneasy; But now my own delights I make,--5 My thirst at every rill can slake, [2]

And gladly Nature's love partake, Of Thee, sweet Daisy! [3]