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William Wordsworth

Helen Darbishire and Ernest De Selincourt (eds), The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. 3: Miscellaneous Sonnets; Memorials of Various Tours; Poems to National Independence and Liberty; The Egyptian Maid; The River Duddon Series; The White Doe and Other Narrative Poems; Ecclesiastical Sonnets (Second Edition)

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Critical ApparatusCritical ApparatusXXXII

[Composed?—Published 1807.]

  • 1With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,
  • 2Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;
  • 3Some lying fast at anchor in the road,
  • 4Some veering up and down, one knew not why.
  • 5A goodly Vessel did I then espy
  • 6Come like a giant from a haven broad;
  • 7And lustily along the bay she strode,
  • 8Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.
  • 9This Ship was nought to me, nor I to her,
  • 10Yet I pursued her with a Lover's look;
  • 11This Ship to all the rest did I prefer:
  • 12When will she turn, and whither? She will brook
  • 13No tarrying; where She comes the winds must stir:
  • 14On went She, and due north her journey took.

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Notes

Critical Apparatus
p. 18. XXXI and XXXII. Both these sonnets on the ship are found in MS. M, transcribed before March 1804. To No. XXXII W. appended in 1807 the note: "From a passage in Skelton which I cannot here insert, not having the Book at hand." The line is from Skelton's Bowge of Court:
  • Methought I saw a shippe, goodly of sayle
  • Come saylinge forth into that haven brood,
  • Her tackelynge ryche, and of hye apparayle.
In a letter to Lady Beaumont, May 21, 1807, W. wrote an exposition of the sonnet (v. M.Y., pp. 128–9).
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