Whether the all-cheering sun be free to shed
  His beams around thee, or thou rest thy head
  Pillowed in some dark dungeon’s noisome den, 1815.

  Whether the whistling Rustic tend his plough
  Within thy hearing, or Thou liest now
  Buried in some deep dungeon’s earless den;—­1820.]

[Variant 2: 

1807.

...  Yet die not; be thou Life to thyself in death; with chearful brow Live, loving death, nor let one thought in ten Be painful to thee ... 1803.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  But previously printed in ‘The Morning Post’ of February 2, 1803, under the signature W. L. D.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  Compare Massinger, ‘The Bondman’, act I. scene iii. l. 8: 

  ‘Her man of men, Timoleon.’

Ed.]

[Footnote B:  Compare Rowe’s ‘Tamerlane’, iii. 2: 

  ‘But to subdue the unconquerable mind.’

Also Gray’s poem ‘The Progress of Poesy’, ii. 2, l. 10: 

  ‘Th’ unconquerable Mind, and Freedom’s holy flame.’

Ed.]

Francois Dominique Toussaint (who was surnamed L’Ouverture), the child of African slaves, was born at St. Domingo in 1743.  He was a Royalist in political sympathy till 1794, when the decree of the French convention, giving liberty to the slaves, brought him over to the side of the Republic.  He was made a general of division by Laveux, and succeeded in taking the whole of the north of the island from the English.  In 1796 he was made chief of the French army of St. Domingo, and first the British commander, and next the Spanish, surrendered everything to him.  He became governor of the island, which prospered under his rule.  Napoleon, however, in 1801, issued an edict re-establishing slavery in St. Domingo.  Toussaint professed obedience, but showed that he meant to resist the edict.  A fleet of fifty-four vessels was sent from France to enforce it.  Toussaint was proclaimed an outlaw.  He surrendered, and was received with military honours, but was treacherously arrested and sent to Paris in June 1802, where he died, in April 1803, after ten months’ hardship in prison.  He had been two months in prison when Wordsworth addressed this sonnet to him.—­Ed.

* * * * *

COMPOSED IN THE VALLEY NEAR DOVER, ON THE DAY OF LANDING

Composed August 30, 1802.—­Published 1807

  Here, on our native soil, we breathe once more. [1]
  The cock that crows, the smoke that curls, that sound
  Of bells;—­those boys who [2] in yon meadow-ground
  In white-sleeved shirts are playing; [A] and the roar
  Of the waves breaking on the chalky shore;—­[3] 5
  All, all are English.  Oft have I looked round
  With joy in Kent’s green vales;