The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 3 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 519 pages of information about The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 3.

[Footnote A:  This motto was added in the edition of 1837.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  Compare S. T. C. in ‘The Friend’ (edition 1818, vol. iii. p. 62),

  “Its instinct, its safety, its benefit, its glory is to love, to
  admire, to feel, and to labour.”

Ed.]

[Footnote C:  Compare Churchill’s ‘Gotham’, i. 49: 

  ‘An Englishman in chartered freedom born.’

Ed.]

[Footnote D:  Compare in ‘Sartor Resartus’,

  “Happy he for whom a kind of heavenly sun brightens it [Necessity]
  into a ring of Duty, and plays round it with beautiful prismatic
  refractions.”

Ed.]

[Footnote E:  Compare Persius, ‘Satura’, ii. l. 38: 

  ‘Quidquic calcaverit hic, rosa fiat.’

And Ben Jonson, in ‘The Sad Shepherd’, act I. scene i. ll. 8, 9: 

  ’And where she went, the flowers took thickest root,
  As she had sow’d them with her odorous foot.’

Also, a similar reference to Aphrodite in Hesiod, ‘Theogony’, vv. 192 ’seq.’—­Ed.]

[Footnote F:  Compare S. T. C. in ‘The Friend’ (edition 1818), vol. iii. p. 64.—­Ed.]

Mr. J. R. Tutin has supplied me with the text of a proof copy of the sheets of the edition of 1807, which was cancelled by Wordsworth, in which the following stanzas take the place of the first four of that edition: 

  ’There are who tread a blameless way
  In purity, and love, and truth,
  Though resting on no better stay
  Than on the genial sense of youth: 
  Glad Hearts! without reproach or blot;
  Who do the right, and know it not: 
  May joy be theirs while life shall last
  And may a genial sense remain, when youth is past.

  Serene would be our days and bright;
  And happy would our nature be;
  If Love were an unerring light;
  And Joy its own security. 
  And bless’d are they who in the main,
  This creed, even now, do entertain,
  Do in this spirit live; yet know
  That Man hath other hopes; strength which elsewhere must grow.

  I, loving freedom, and untried;
  No sport of every random gust,
  Yet being to myself a guide,
  Too blindly have reposed my trust;
  Resolv’d that nothing e’er should press
  Upon my present happiness,
  I shov’d unwelcome tasks away: 
  But henceforth I would serve; and strictly if I may.

  O Power of duty! sent from God
  To enforce on earth his high behest,
  And keep us faithful to the road
  Which conscience hath pronounc’d the best: 
  Thou, who art Victory and Law
  When empty terrors overawe;
  From vain temptations dost set free,
  From Strife, and from Despair, a glorious Ministry! [G]’

Ed.

[Footnote G:  In the original Ms. sent to the printer, I find that this stanza was transcribed by Coleridge.—­Ed.]

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The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 3 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.