IX I look for ghosts; but none will force
Their way to me:  ’tis falsely said
That there was ever intercourse
Between [3] the living and the dead; 60
For, surely, then I should have sight
Of him I wait for day and night,
With love and longings infinite.

X My apprehensions come in crowds;
I dread the rustling of the grass; 65
The very shadows of the clouds
Have power to shake me as they pass: 
I question things and do not find
One that will answer to my mind;
And all the world appears unkind. 70

XI Beyond participation lie
My troubles, and beyond relief: 
If any chance to heave a sigh,
They pity me, and not my grief. 
Then come to me, my Son, or send 75
Some tidings that my woes may end;
I have no other earthly friend!

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 

1836.

  To have despair’d, and have believ’d,
  And be for evermore beguil’d; 1807.]

[Variant 2: 

1832.

  What power hath even ... 1807.]

[Variant 3: 

1832.

  Betwixt ... 1807.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  In the edition of 1807, the title was ’The Affliction of Margaret—­of—­’; in 1820, it was ‘The Affliction of Margaret’; and in 1845, it was as above.  In an early Ms. it was ’The Affliction of Mary—­of—­’.  For an as yet unpublished Preface to it, see volume viii. of this edition.—­Ed.]

* * * * *

THE FORSAKEN

Composed 1804.—­Published 1842

[This was an overflow from ‘The Affliction of Margaret’, and was excluded as superfluous there, but preserved in the faint hope that it may turn to account by restoring a shy lover to some forsaken damsel.  My poetry has been complained of as deficient in interests of this sort,—­a charge which the piece beginning, “Lyre! though such power do in thy magic live,” will scarcely tend to obviate.  The natural imagery of these verses was supplied by frequent, I might say intense, observation of the Rydal torrent.  What an animating contrast is the ever-changing aspect of that, and indeed of every one of our mountain brooks, to the monotonous tone and unmitigated fury of such streams among the Alps as are fed all the summer long by glaciers and melting snows.  A traveller observing the exquisite purity of the great rivers, such as the Rhone at Geneva, and the Reuss at Lucerne, when they issue out of their respective lakes, might fancy for a moment that some power in nature produced this beautiful change, with a view to make amends for those Alpine sullyings which the waters exhibit near their fountain heads; but, alas! how soon does that purity depart before the influx of tributary waters that have flowed through cultivated plains and the crowded abodes of men.—­I.  F.]