SHE WAS A PHANTOM OF DELIGHT

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by williamwordsworth

by williamwordsworth

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The germ of this poem was four lines composed as a part of the verses on the 'Highland Girl'. Though beginning in this way, it was written from my heart, as is sufficiently obvious.--I. F.]

One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--Ed.

She was a Phantom of delight

When first she gleamed upon my sight; [A]

A lovely Apparition, sent

To be a moment's ornament;

Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;

Like Twilight's, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful Dawn; [1]

A dancing Shape, an Image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.

I saw her upon nearer view,

A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,

And steps of virgin-liberty;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A Creature not too bright or good

For human nature's daily food;

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A Being breathing thoughtful breath,

A Traveller between [2] life and death;

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;

A perfect Woman, [3] nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort, and command;

And yet a Spirit still, and bright

With something of angelic light.[4]

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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 1807.

From May-time's brightest, liveliest dawn; 1836

The text of 1840 returns to that of 1807.]

[Variant 2: 1832.

... betwixt ... 1807.]

[Variant 3:1815.

A perfect Woman; ... 1807.]

[Variant 4:1845.

... of an angel light. 1807.

... angel-light. 1836.]

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FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: Compare two references to Mary Wordsworth in 'The Prelude': 'Another maid there was, who also shed A gladness o'er that season, then to me, By her exulting outside look of youth And placid under-countenance, first endeared;'

(Book vi. l. 224).

'She came, no more a phantom to adorn A moment, but an inmate of the heart, And yet a spirit, there for me enshrined To penetrate the lofty and the low;'(Book xiv, l. 268).--Ed.]

It is not easy to say what were the "four lines composed as a part of the verses on the 'Highland Girl'" which the Fenwick note tells us was"the germ of this poem." They may be lines now incorporated in those 'To a Highland Girl', vol. ii. p. 389, or they may be lines in the present poem, which Wordsworth wrote at first for the 'Highland Girl', but afterwards transferred to this one. They _may_ have been the first four lines of the later poem. The two should be read consecutively, and compared.

After Wordsworth's death, a writer in the 'Daily News', January 1859--then understood to be Miss Harriet Martineau--wrote thus:

"In the 'Memoirs', by the nephew of the poet, it is said that these verses refer to Mrs. Wordsworth; but for half of Wordsworth's life it was always understood that they referred to some other phantom which 'gleamed upon his sight' before Mary Hutchinson.

"This statement is much more than improbable; it is, I think, disproved by the Fenwick note. They cannot refer to the "Lucy" of the Goslar poems; and Wordsworth indicates, as plainly as he chose, to whom they actually do refer. Compare the Hon. Justice Coleridge's account of a conversation with Wordsworth ('Memoirs', vol. ii. p. 306), in which the poet expressly said that the lines were written on his wife. The question was, however, set at rest in a conversation of Wordsworth with Henry Crabb Robinson, who wrote in his 'Diary' on

"May 12 (1842).--Wordsworth said that the poems 'Our walk was far among the ancient trees' [vol. ii. p. 167], then 'She was a Phantom of delight,' [B] and finally the two sonnets 'To a Painter', should be read in succession as exhibiting the different phases of his affection to his wife."

('Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson',vol. iii. p. 197.)

The use of the word "machine," in the third stanza of the poem, has been much criticised, but for a similar use of the term, see the sequel to'The Waggoner' (p. 107):
'Forgive me, then; for I had been
On friendly terms with this Machine.'

See also 'Hamlet' (act II. scene ii. l. 124):

'Thine evermore, most dear lady, whilst this machine is to him.'

The progress of mechanical industry in Britain since the beginning of the present century has given a more limited, and purely technical,meaning to the word, than it bore when Wordsworth used it in these two instances.--Ed.

[Footnote B: The poet expressly told me that these verses were on hiswife.--H. C. R.]

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