NOTES BY THE EDITOR.

SONNET I.

THE first sketch of this sonnet was sent by the Author in a letter to his mother, when it had been proposed to him to write an Essay on his father's life and genius.

Aliter

SONNET X, page 12, lines 3, 4.

And tinged by time like patch of snow in May
In hollow cove for winter left to wait.

SONNET XIII, page 15.

This sonnet, with that on Freedom, page 49, are variations, and, as the Editor thinks, improvements upon those bearing the same name in the first volume,-if, indeed, they be not the original sketches.

SONNET XIV, page 16.

On this sonnet the author observes: "It was written in haste, and contains little more than a general hint, or perhaps a few turns of phrase."

SONNET XXIII, page 25.

The last six lines of this sonnet are thus expressed in what appears to be the first copy :

Far otherwise the creed of her that made
'This brief memorial of two noble lives.
Though she sustained the penalty of wives
Unwisely wedded, woe did not degrade
Her faith in good which cannot be achieved,
Yet surely is, because it is believed.

Another variation is as follows:

The simple woman that hath written here
This brief memorial of her parents dear
Confutes a doctrine that she never knew ;
A good not found by keen anatomy,
Nor decomposed by fiery chemistry,
By force of mere believing she makes true.

Aliter

SONNET XXXII, page 34.

Once thou wast fair-God knows how long ago;
Yet some there are to whom thy fixed idea,
Even now is fresh as sea-born Cytherea.
The waves of time, still ebbing as they flow,
Behind them leave the quiet tints that glow
On each successive billow. Years on years,
Nor all varieties of mirth and tears,

Can make hearts ignorant of what they know.
Once thou wert fair, and still art fair to me;
Though fifty summers faded since we met,
Thy timid glance I cease not yet to see,
And thy young voice I never can forget.
Though all the world should say that thou art old,
To me thou still art young-thy true self I behold.

Aliter

SONNET XL, page 43.

I saw thee, Edward, when thy baby cries
Sounded in mother's ears a swift alarm;
I saw thee cradled on thy father's arm,
When he, with many smiles and many sighs,
Guessed in the gleamings of thy infant eyes,
The infant feelings not matured to thought,
And all the strife of must and will and ought,
Doomed to untwist thy tangled destinies.
I see thee now a far-experienced man,
That can dispute the axioms of my mouth,
With knowledge netted in the Afric South.
And thou hast learned with foreign eye to scan
Old England's faults;—and yet thy heart is still,
Quick and responsive to the mountain rill.

AMBLESIDE, October 8, 1840.

SONNET XLIII, page 45, line 5.

And every bird the pushing (sic) woods among,

Aliter

SONNET XLIV, page 47.

Sweet lady, thou art come to us again:

Old Loughrigg still is on his wonted seat;

Still on the springy mound the young lambs bleat;
The wee birds chirp as if to see thee fain.
Then why should I, no Philomel, complain?
Yet can I but lament for what must be,
The untimely death of many a noble tree.
Would that religion of old times were ours,

(In that one article, not all the others)

Which those brave shepherds held, who reared the towers,

Nigh the moist cradle of the foundling Brothers,

The faith that did in awe and love instal

For many an age the Fig-Tree Ruminal.

Page 88.

The Anemone.

The last line of this beautiful poem was probably written

My lovely, lone, and last Anemone.

Page 130.

To Margaret, on her first birthday.

The ninth and eleventh lines of this sonnet should have been punctuated as follows:

Merely she is with God, and God with her;

And her meek ignorance, guiltless of demur
For her is faith and hope.

Page 152.

Why is there war on earth?

The conclusion is thus varied in another-perhaps an earlier copy:

Aliter

We have escaped from Egypt, but we lack-
We lack, or heed not, the prophetic voice
Which Israel had, but would not always hear.
Hence from the corse of vanquished tyranny

Spring armed hosts, all eager to be slaves,
Crying for liberty, but meaning nought
Save naked power, unclad with reverend form,
Unsanctified by faith, by love unbalmed.

Page 319.

Enoch.

He walked with God, and like the breath of prayer
His earthly substance melted quite away :

So much he loved the Lord, his mortal clay
Was changed to living light, and blent with air

Soft as a rainbow, joined the spirits that were
On the first day, who sang the primal morn.
Weary and joyless Enoch's brief sojourn
Where God is hid. In all the world so fair
Nought could he find that he could love for love,
Till the good Lord took pity on his woe;
For woe it is with all the heart above

A heartless corse to tread the earth below.
He faded from the earth, and was unseen:
A thought of God was all that he had been.

The swift-foot ostrich stills its flightless wing.

The above variations are believed to be for the most part earlier than the corresponding readings in the printed text. It is not often that an alteration is introduced into a poem, however it may improve the phraseology, without some violence to the delicate logic of feeling. Where any doubt of this kind was entertained, the Editor has considered it a matter of curiosity, if not of justice, to give the reader the opportunity of comparison.

THE END.

LONDON:

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.