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Helen Darbishire and Ernest De Selincourt (eds), The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. 4: Evening Voluntaries; Itinerary Poems of 1833; Poems of Sentiment and Reflection; Sonnets Dedicated to Liberty and Order; Miscellaneous Poems; Inscriptions; Selections From Chaucer; Poems Referring to the Period of Old Age; Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces; Ode-Intimations of Immortality (Second Edition)
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Editor’s NoteEditor’s NoteIIin a garden of the same
[Composed 1811.—Published 1815.]
- 1Oft is the medal faithful to its trust
- 2When temples, columns, towers, are laid in dust;
- 3And 'tis a common ordinance of fate
- 4That things obscure and small outlive the great:
- 5Hence, when yon mansion and the flowery trim
- 6Of this fair garden, and its alleys dim,
- pg 1967And all its stately trees, are passed away,
- 8This little Niche, unconscious of decay,
- 9Perchance may still survive. And be it known
- Critical Apparatus10That it was scooped within the living stone,—
- 11Not by the sluggish and ungrateful pains
- 12Of labourer plodding for his daily gains,
- Critical Apparatus13But by an industry that wrought in love;
- 14With help from female hands, that proudly strove
- Critical Apparatus15To aid the work, what time these walks and bowers
- 16Were shaped to cheer dark winter's lonely hours.
Editor’s Note
p. 195. II. In a Garden of the Same: "This Niche is in the sandstone-rock in the winter-garden at Coleorton, which garden, as has been elsewhere said, was made under our direction out of an old unsightly quarry. While the labourers were at work, Mrs. Wordsworth, my Sister, and I used to amuse ourselves occasionally in scooping this seat out of the soft stone. It is of the size, with something of the appearance, of a Stall in a Cathedral. This inscription is not engraven, as the former and the two following are, in the grounds." —I. F.
Critical Apparatus
II. 10 scooped within] fashioned in MS.
Critical Apparatus
13–14
MS.
- But by prompt hands of Pleasure and of Love
- Female and Male, that emulously strove
