THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH - VOL. 2 (Completed)

WRITTEN IN GERMANY, ON ONE OF THE COLDEST DAYS OF THE CENTURY

Composed 1799.--Published 1800

I must apprize the Reader that the stoves in North Germany generally have the impression of a galloping Horse upon them, this being part of the Brunswick Arms.--W. W. 1800.

[A bitter winter it was when these verses were composed by the side of my sister, in our lodgings at a draper's house, in the romantic imperial town of Goslar, on the edge of the Hartz Forest. In this town the German emperors of the Franconian Line were accustomed to keep their court, and it retains vestiges of ancient splendour. So severe was the cold of this winter, that when we passed out of the parlour warmed by the stove, our cheeks were struck by the air as by cold iron. I slept in a room over a passage that was not ceiled. The people of the house used to say rather unfeelingly, that they expected I should be frozen to death some night;but with the protection of a pelisse lined with fur, and a dog's skin bonnet, such as was worn by the peasants, I walked daily on the ramparts, or on a sort of public ground or garden, in which was a pond.Here I had no companion but a kingfisher, a beautiful creature that used to glance by me. I consequently became much attached to it. During these walks I composed the poem that follows, A Poet's Epitaph.--I.F.]

One of the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." Wordsworth originally gave to this poem the title "The Fly," but erased it before publication.--Ed.

A plague on [1] your languages, German and Norse!

Let me have the song of the kettle;

And the tongs and the poker, instead of that horse

That gallops away with such fury and force

On this [2] dreary dull plate of black metal.[3]

See that Fly, [4]--a disconsolate creature! perhaps

A child of the field or the grove;

And, sorrow for him! the [5] dull treacherous heat

Has seduced the poor fool from his winter retreat,

And he creeps to the edge of my stove.

Alas! how he fumbles about the domains

Which this comfortless oven environ!

He cannot find out in what track he must crawl,

Now back to the tiles, then in search of the wall, [6]

And now on the brink of the iron.

Stock-still there he stands like a traveller bemazed:

The best of his skill he has tried;