The Poetical Works: The Poetical Works: Volume 4 (Oxford English Texts) - Hardcover

From evidence gathered since the Chronological Table in the first volume of this edition was issued, I have been led to assign many of theS onnets first published in 1807 to the year 1806. Wordsworth left Grasmere with his household for Coleorton inN ovember 1806, and we have no proof that he returned toW estmoreland till A pril 1808; although his sister spent part of the winter of 1807-8 at Dove Cottage, while he and Mrs Wordsworth wintered atS tockton with the Hutchinsons. Several of the sonnets which are published in the volumes of 1807 refer, however, toG rasmere, and were evidently composed there ;and I have conjecturally assigned a good many of them about twenty in all to the year 1806, including even the one composed by the side of Grasmere Lake, beginning Clouds, lingering yet, extend in solid bars, to which he himself gave the date 1807. (S ee the note, p. 31.) Some of these sonnets may have been composed earlier than 1806, but it is not likely that any of them belong to a later year. In addition to these sonnets, the poems of 1806 include the Character of the Happy Warrior (unless that should be assigned to the close of the previous year see the note to the poem), The Horn of Egremont Castle, the three poems composed in London in the spring of the year (A pril or May) viz., Stray Pleasures, Star-gazers, and The Power of Music the lines on theM ountain Echo, those composed in expectation of the death of Mr Fox, and theO de on I mmortality. Sir Walter Scott, in writing to Southey on the 4th ofF ebruary 1806, said, Wordsworth has of late been more employed in correcting his poems than in writing others. Since this edition was begun, so many new facts and dates have been discovered from sources as yet only partially accessible that a second and revised Chronological Table of the Poems will be given in the last volume, along with theL ife of the Poet. E
(Typographical errors above are due to OCR software and don't occur in the book.)