The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 2 (of 8)Wordsworth, William
General
The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 2 (of 8)
Wordsworth, William
English poetry -- 18th century; English poetry -- 19th century
"The Cypressus distichia stands in the first order of North American
trees. Its majestic stature, lifting its cumbrous top towards the
skies, and casting a wide shade upon the ground, as a dark intervening
cloud," etc.
(Bartram's 'Travels', p. 88).--Ed.]
[Footnote F: The splendid appearance of these scarlet flowers, which are
scattered with such profusion over the Hills in the Southern parts of
North America is frequently mentioned by Bartram in his 'Travels'.--W.
W. 1800.]
[Footnote G: Mr. Ernest Coleridge tells me he
"has traced, to a note-book of Coleridge's in the British Museum, the
source from which Wordsworth derived his description of Georgian
scenery in 'Ruth'. He does, I know, refer to Bartram, but the whole
passage is a poetical rendering, and a pretty close one, of Bartram's
poetical narrative. I have a portrait--the frontispiece of Bartram's
'Travels'--of Mico Chlucco, king of the Seminoles, whose feathers nod
in the breeze just as did the military casque of the 'youth from
Georgia's shore.'"
Ed.]
[Footnote H:
"North and south almost endless green plains and meadows, embellished
with islets and projecting promontories of high dark forests, where
the pyramidal Magnolia grandiflora ... conspicuously towers."
(Bartram's 'Travels', p. 145).--Ed.]
[Footnote I: The Tone is a River of Somersetshire, at no great distance
from the Quantock Hills. These Hills, which are alluded to a few stanzas
below, are extremely beautiful, and in most places richly covered with
Coppice woods. W. W. 1800.]
* * * * *
SUB-FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT
[Sub-Footnote a: The edition of 1805 substitutes the stanzas beginning,
'It was a fresh and glorious world'
for stanzas 2, 3, and 4 of the above six in this note, but it inserts
these omitted stanzas later on as Nos. 27, 28, 29.--Ed.]
[Sub-Footnote b: Wordsworth wrote to Barren Field in 1828 that this stanza
"was altered, Lamb having observed that it was not English. I like it
better myself;'
(i.e. the version of 1800)
"but certainly to carouse cups--that is to empty them--is the genuine
English."
Ed.]
* * * * *
1800
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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