The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth Volume Iii Part 18

[Variant 2:

1837.

Towards a safer sh.o.r.e--... 1815.]

[Variant 3:

1837

--A few appear by morning light, Preserved upon the tall mast's height: Oft in my Soul I see that sight; 1815.]

[Variant 4: In the edition of 1827 and subsequent ones, Wordsworth here inserted a footnote, asking the reader to refer to No. VI. of the "Poems on the Naming of Places," beginning "When, to the attractions of the busy world," p. 66. His note of 1837 refers also to the poem which there precedes the present one, viz. the 'Elegiac Stanzas.'--Ed.]

ELEGIAC STANZAS [A]

SUGGESTED BY A PICTURE OF PEELE CASTLE, IN A STORM, PAINTED BY SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT

Composed 1805.--Published 1807

[Sir George Beaumont painted two pictures of this subject, one of which he gave to Mrs. Wordsworth, saying she ought to have it; but Lady Beaumont interfered, and after Sir George's death she gave it to Sir Uvedale Price, at whose house at Foxley I have seen it.--I. F.]

Placed by Wordsworth among his "Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces."--Ed.

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!

Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee: I saw thee every day; and all the while Thy Form was sleeping on a gla.s.sy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air! 5 So like, so very like, was day to day!

Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there; It trembled, but it never pa.s.sed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep; No mood, which season takes away, or brings: 10 I could have fancied that the mighty Deep Was even the gentlest of all gentle Things.

Ah! THEN, if mine had been the Painter's hand, To express what then I saw; and add the gleam, The light that never was, on sea or land, 15 The consecration, and the Poet's dream; [1]

I would have planted thee, thou h.o.a.ry Pile Amid a world how different from this!

Beside a sea that could not cease to smile; On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss. 20

Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine [2]

Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;-- Of all the sunbeams that did ever s.h.i.+ne The very sweetest had to thee been given.

A Picture had it been of lasting ease, 25 Elysian quiet, without toil or strife; No motion but the moving tide, a breeze, Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.

Such, in the fond illusion [3] of my heart, Such Picture would I at that time have made: 30 And seen the soul of truth in every part, A stedfast peace that might not be betrayed. [4]

So once it would have been,--'tis so no more; I have submitted to a new control: A power is gone, which nothing can restore; 35 A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.

Not for a moment could I now behold A smiling sea, and be what I have been: The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old; This, which I know, I speak with mind serene. 40

Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend, If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore, This work of thine I blame not, but commend; This sea in anger, and that dismal sh.o.r.e.

O 'tis a pa.s.sionate Work!--yet wise and well, 45 Well chosen is the spirit that is here; That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell, This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!

And this huge Castle, standing here sublime, 1 love to see the look with which it braves, 50 Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time, The lightning, the fierce wind, and trampling waves.

Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone, Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!

Such happiness, wherever it be known, 55 Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.

But welcome fort.i.tude, and patient cheer, And frequent sights of what is to be borne!

Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.-- Not without hope we suffer and we mourn. 60

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1807.

and add a gleam, The l.u.s.tre, known to neither sea nor land, But borrowed from the youthful Poet's dream; 1820.

... the gleam, 1827.

The edition of 1832 returns to the text of 1807. [a]]

[Variant 2:

1845.

... a treasure-house, a mine 1807.