The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth
Chapter 344 : O Friend! too well thou know'st, of what sad years 75 The long suppression had be

O Friend! too well thou know'st, of what sad years 75 The long suppression had benumbed my soul, That, even as Life returns upon the Drown'd, The unusual Joy awoke a throng of Pains-- Keen Pangs of LOVE, awakening, as a Babe, Turbulent, with an outcry in the Heart! 80 And Fears self-will'd, that shunn'd the eye of Hope, And Hope, that scarce would know itself from Fear; Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain, And Genius given and Knowledge won in vain; And all, which I had cull'd in wood-walks wild, 85 And all, which patient Toil had rear'd, and all, Commune with THEE had open'd out--but Flowers Strew'd on my Corse, and borne upon my Bier, In the same Coffin, for the self-same Grave!

That way no more! and ill beseems it me, 90 Who came a Welcomer, in Herald's Guise, Singing of Glory and Futurity, To wander back on such unhealthful road Plucking the Poisons of Self-harm! And ill Such intertwine beseems triumphal wreaths 95 Strew'd before thy advancing! Thou too, Friend!

Impair thou not the memory of that hour Of thy Communion with my n.o.bler mind By pity or grief, already felt too long!

Nor let my words import more blame than needs. 100 The tumult rose and ceas'd: for Peace is nigh Where Wisdom's voice has found a list'ning Heart.

Amid the howl of more than wintry storms The Halcyon hears the Voice of vernal Hours, Already on the wing!

Eve following Eve 105 Dear tranquil Time, when the sweet sense of Home Is sweetest! Moments, for their own sake hail'd, And more desired, more precious for thy Song!

In silence listening, like a devout child, My soul lay pa.s.sive, by the various strain 110 Driven as in surges now, beneath the stars With momentary [B] stars of her [C] own birth, Fair constellated Foam, still darting off Into the Darkness; now a tranquil Sea, Outspread and bright, yet swelling to the Moon. 115

And when--O Friend! my Comforter! my [D] Guide!

Strong in thyself and powerful to give strength!-- Thy long sustained Song finally clos'd, And thy deep voice had ceas'd--yet thou thyself Wert still before mine eyes, and round us both 120 That happy Vision of beloved Faces-- (All whom, I deepliest love--in one room all!) Scarce conscious and yet conscious of its close I sate, my Being blended in one Thought, (Thought was it? or aspiration? or resolve?) 125 Absorb'd; yet hanging still upon the Sound-- And when I rose, I found myself in Prayer.

S. T. COLERIDGE.

'Jany'. 1807.

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Different reading on same MS.:

'To one cast forth, whose Hope had seem'd to die.'

Ed.]

[Footnote B: Compare, as an ill.u.s.trative note, the descriptive pa.s.sage in Satyrane's first Letter in 'Biographia Literaria', beginning, "A beautiful white cloud of foam," etc.--S.T.C.]

[Footnote C: Different reading on same MS., "'my'."--Ed.]

[Footnote D: Different reading on same MS., "'and'."--Ed.]

In a MS. copy of 'Dejection, An Ode', transcribed for Sir George Beaumont on the 4th of April 1802--and sent to him, when living with Lord Lowther at Lowther Hall--there is evidence that the poem was originally addressed to Wordsworth.

The following lines in this copy can be compared with those finally adopted:

'O dearest William! in this heartless mood, To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo'd All this long eve so balmy and serene Have I been gazing on the western sky,'

'O William, we _receive_ but what we _give_: And in our life alone does Nature live.'

'Yes, dearest William! Yes!

There was a time when though my Path was rough This Joy within me dallied with distress.'

The MS. copy is described by Coleridge as "imperfect"; and it breaks off abruptly at the lines:

'Suspends what Nature gave me at my birth My shaping spirit of Imagination.'

And he continues:

'I am so weary of this doleful poem, that I must leave off....'

Another MS. copy of this poem, amongst the Coleorton papers, is signed "S. T. Coleridge to William Wordsworth." Ed.

NOTE VII.--GENERAL BEAUPUY

(See pp. 297 and 302, 'The Prelude', book ix.)

Professor Emile Legouis of Lyons--a thorough student, and a very competent expounder, of our modern English Literature--supplied me, some years ago, with numerous facts in reference to Wordsworth's friend General Beaupuy, and his family, from which I extract the following:

'The Prelude' gives us very little precise information about the republican officer with whom Wordsworth became acquainted in France, and on whom he bestowed more praise than on almost any other of his contemporaries. We only gather the following facts:--That his name was 'Beaupuy', that he was quartered at Orleans, with royalist officers, sometime between November 1791 and the spring of 1792, and that

'He perished fighting, _in supreme command_, Upon the borders of the unhappy Loire, For liberty, against deluded men, His fellow-countrymen....'

Though it seems very easy to identify a general even with such scanty data, the task is rendered more difficult by two inaccuracies in Wordsworth's statement, which, however, can be explained and redressed without much difficulty.

The first inaccuracy is in the spelling of the name, which is 'Beaupuy' and not 'Beaupuis'--a slight mistake considering that Wordsworth was a foreigner, and, besides, wrote down his friend's name ten years and perhaps more after losing sight of him. Moreover, the name of the general who, I think, was meant by Wordsworth, I have found spelt 'Beaupuy' in one instance, viz. the signature of a letter of his, as printed in 'Vie et Correspondance de Merlin de Thionville', publiee par Jean Reynaud, Paris, 1860 (2'e partie p. 241).

The spelling of proper names was not so fixed then as it is nowadays, and this irregularity is not to be wondered at.

The second inaccuracy consists in stating that General Beaupuy died on the banks of the Loire during the Vendean war. Indeed, he was grievously wounded at the Battle of Chateau-Gonthier, on the 26th of October 1793, and reported as dead. His soldiers thought he had been killed, and the rumour must have spread abroad, as it was recorded by A. Thiers himself in his 'Histoire de la Revolution', and by A.

Challemel in his 'Histoire Musee de la Republique Francaise'.

It is no wonder that Wordsworth, who was then in England, and could only read imperfect accounts of what took place in France, should have been mistaken too.