[Sub-Variant ii: 

  He all the while before me being full in view.  MS. 1802.]

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FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  Some have thought that Wordsworth had S.T.C. in his mind, in writing this stanza.  I cannot agree with this.  The value and interest of the poem would be lessened by our imagining that Wordsworth’s heart never failed him; and that, when he appears to moralise at his own expense, he was doing so at Coleridge’s.  Besides, the date of this poem, taken in connection with entries in the Grasmere Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth, makes it all but certain that Coleridge was not referred to.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  Compare in ‘The Matron of Jedborough and her Husband’, p. 417, ll. 66-69: 

  ’Some inward trouble suddenly
  Broke from the Matron’s strong black eye—­
  A remnant of uneasy light,
  A flash of something over-bright!’

Ed.]

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SUB-FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Sub-Footnote i:  Additional variants obtained from this source are inserted as “MS. 1802.”—­Ed.]

The late Bishop of Lincoln, in the ‘Memoirs’ of his uncle (vol. i. pp. 172, 173), quotes from a letter, written by Wordsworth “to some friends, which has much interest as bearing on this poem. [C] The following are extracts from it: 

“It is not a matter of indifference whether you are pleased with his figure and employment, it may be comparatively whether you are pleased with this Poem; but it is of the utmost importance that you should have had pleasure in contemplating the fortitude, independence, persevering spirit, and the general moral dignity of this old man’s character.”  Again, “I will explain to you, in prose, my feelings in writing that poem....  I describe myself as having been exalted to the highest pitch of delight by the joyousness and beauty of nature; and then as depressed, even in the midst of those beautiful objects, to the lowest dejection and despair.  A young poet in the midst of the happiness of nature is described as overwhelmed by the thoughts of the miserable reverses which have befallen the happiest of all men, viz. poets.  I think of this till I am so deeply impressed with it, that I consider the manner in which I was rescued from my dejection and despair almost as an interposition of Providence.  A person reading the poem with feelings like mine will have been awed and controlled, expecting something spiritual or supernatural.  What is brought forward?  A lonely place, ’a pond, by which an old man was, far from all house or home:’  not stood, nor sat, but was—­the figure presented in the most naked simplicity possible.  This feeling of spirituality or supernaturalness is again referred to as being strong in my mind