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

COMPOSED NEAR CALAIS, ON THE ROAD LEADING TO ARDRES, AUGUST 7, 1802[A]

Composed August, 1802.--Published 1807

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty"; re-named in 1845, "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty."--Ed.

Jones! as [1] from Calais southward you and I

Went pacing side by side, this public

Way Streamed with the pomp of a too-credulous day, [B]

When faith was pledged to new-born Liberty: [2]

A homeless sound of joy was in the sky:

From hour to hour the antiquated Earth, [3]

Beat like the heart of Man: songs, garlands, mirth, [4]

Banners, and happy faces, far and nigh!

And now, sole register that these things were,

Two solitary greetings have I heard,

"Good morrow, Citizen!" a hollow word,

As if a dead man spake it! Yet despair

Touches me not, though pensive as a bird

Whose vernal coverts winter hath laid bare. [5]

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VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:1837.

... when ... 1807. ... while ... 1820.]

[Variant 2:1837.

Travell'd on foot together; then this Way,

Which I am pacing now, was like the May

With festivals of new-born Liberty: 1807.

Where I am walking now ... MS.

Urged our accordant steps, this public Way

Streamed with the pomp of a too-credulous day,

When faith was pledged to new-born Liberty: 1820.]

[Variant 3:1845.

The antiquated Earth, as one might say, 1807.

The antiquated Earth, hopeful and gay, 1837.]

[Variant 4:1845.

... garlands, play, 1807.]

[Variant 5:1827.

I feel not: happy am I as a Bird:

Fair seasons yet will come, and hopes as fair. 1807.

I feel not: jocund as a warbling Bird; 1820.]

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FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: In the editions of 1807 to 1837 this is a sub-title, the chief title being 'To a Friend'. In the editions of 1840-1843, the chief title is retained in the Table of Contents, but is erased in the text.--Ed.]

[Footnote B: 14th July 1790.--W. W. 1820.]

This sonnet, originally entitled 'To a Friend, composed near Calais, on the Road leading to Ardres, August 7th, 1802', was addressed to Robert Jones, of Plas-yn-llan, near Ruthin, Denbighshire, a brother collegian at Cambridge, and afterwards a fellow of St. John's College, and incumbent of Soulderne, near Deddington, in Oxfordshire. It was to him that Wordsworth dedicated his 'Descriptive Sketches', which record their wanderings together in Switzerland; and it is to the pedestrian tour, undertaken by the two friends in the long vacation of 1790, that he refers in the above sonnet. The character of Jones is sketched in the poem written in 1800, beginning:

'I marvel how Nature could ever find space,' [A]

and his parsonage in Oxfordshire is described in the sonnet--

'Where holy ground begins, unhallowed ends,

Is marked by no distinguishable line.'

The following note on Jones was appended to the edition of 1837:

"This excellent Person, one of my earliest and dearest friends, died in the year 1835. We were under-graduates together of the same year, at the same college; and companions in many a delightful ramble through his own romantic Country of North Wales. Much of the latter part of his life he passed in comparative solitude; which I know was often cheered by remembrance of our youthful adventures, and of the beautiful regions which, at home and abroad, we had visited together. Our long friendship was never subject to a moment's interruption,--and, while revising these volumes for the last time, I have been so often reminded of my loss, with a not unpleasing sadness, that I trust the Reader will excuse this passing mention of a Man who well deserves from me something more than so brief a notice. Let me only add, that during the middle part of his life he resided many years (as Incumbent of the Living) at a Parsonage in Oxfordshire, which is the subject of one of the 'Miscellaneous Sonnets.'"

Ed.

[Footnote A: See p. 208 ['A Character'].--Ed.]

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