No; but when the spirit fills The fantastic pannicles Full of fire--then I write As the Godhead doth indite. Does it seem an invidious task to recall the unhappy readings that I have mentioned--readings abandoned by Wordsworth long ago, and unknown to many of his younger students? To do it with slighting intent, or from mere curiosity, would be unworthy; nor will the routine mind be persuaded that there is anything more than a merely curious interest in the comparison of editions. We, thinking that Wordsworth cannot really be understood in a single edition, must leave the routine mind to its conviction that one text contains all that there is of value in his poetry. And to offset the ungraceful verses that we have just considered, let us look at some changes by which Wordsworth has made fine passages finer still. Of the sonnets published in 1819 with "The Waggoner," none is more striking, as I think, than the one beginning, "Eve's lingering clouds extend in solid bars." In it at first he spoke as follows of the reflection of the heavens at night in perfectly still water: Is it a mirror?--or the nether sphere Opening its vast abyss, while fancy feeds On the rich show?--But list! a voice is near; Great Pan himself low-whispering through the reeds. In the later editions this passage is enriched by a grand stroke of imagination: Is it a mirror?--or the nether sphere Opening to view the abyss in which she feeds Her own calm fires?--But list! a voice is near; Great Pan himself low-whispering through the reeds. The following change is from the same sonnets; the passage describes a bright star setting: Forfeiting his bright attire, He burns, transmuted to a sullen fire That droops and dwindles; and, the appointed debt To the flying moments paid, is seen no more. So in 1819; in later editions we find the passage as follows: He burns, transmuted to a dusty fire, Then pays submissively the appointed debt To the flying moments, and is seen no more. That is scarcely an improvement; but the alteration of epithet is curious: the substitution of fact for fancy in changing the low star's "sullen fire" into a "dusty fire." Here, again, is a case where the new reading has a fresher phrase than the old. It occurs in the last stanza of "Rob Roy's Grave," where Wordsworth spoke thus of the hero's virtues: ----Far and near, through vale and hill, Are faces that attest the same; And kindle, like a fire new-stirred, At sound of ROB ROY's name. Later, a new line was substituted as follows: ----Far and near, through vale and hill, Are faces that attest the same; The proud heart flashing through the eyes At sound of ROB ROY's name.