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

THE IDLE SHEPHERD BOYS; OR, DUNGEON-GHYLL FORCE [A]

A PASTORAL

Composed 1800.--Published 1800

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. I will only add a little monitory anecdote concerning this subject. When Coleridge and Southey were walking together upon the Fells, Southey observed that, if I wished to be considered a faithful painter of rural manners, I ought not to have said that my shepherd-boys trimmed their rustic hats as described in the poem. Just as the words had passed his lips two boys appeared with the very plant entwined round their hats. I have often wondered that Southey, who rambled so much about the mountains, should have fallen into this mistake, and I record it as a warning for others who, with far less opportunity than my dear friend had of knowing what things are, and far less sagacity, give way to presumptuous criticism, from which he was free, though in this matter mistaken. In describing a tarn under Helvellyn I say:

"There sometimes doth a leaping fish

Send through the tarn a lonely cheer."

This was branded by a critic of these days, in a review ascribed to Mrs.Barbauld, as unnatural and absurd. I admire the genius of Mrs. Barbauld and am certain that, had her education been favourable to imaginative influences, no female of her day would have been more likely to sympathise with that image, and to acknowledge the truth of the sentiment.--I. F.]

Included among the "Poems referring to the Period of Childhood."--Ed.

The valley rings with mirth and joy;

Among the hills the echoes play

A never never ending song,

To welcome in the May. [1]

The magpie chatters with delight;

The mountain raven's youngling brood

Have left the mother and the nest;

And they go rambling east and west

In search of their own food;

Or through the glittering vapours dart

In very wantonness of heart.

Beneath a rock, upon the grass,

Two boys are sitting in the sun;

Their work, if any work they have,