Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood. 
  Wisdom doth live with children round her knees: 
  Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk 10
  Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk
  Of the mind’s business:  these are the degrees
  By which true Sway doth mount; this is the stalk
  True Power doth grow on; and her rights are these.

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 

1837.

... grief! the vital blood
Of that man’s mind, what can it be?  What food
Fed his first hopes? what knowledge could he gain? 1802.

... grief! for, who aspires
To genuine greatness but from just desires,
And knowledge such as He could never gain? 1815.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  It had twice seen the light previously in ’The Morning Post’, first on September 16, 1802, unsigned, and again on January 29, 1803, when it was signed W. L. D.—­Ed.]

Wordsworth’s date 1801, in the Fenwick note, should have been 1802.  His sister writes, in her Journal of 1802: 

  “May 21.—­W. wrote two sonnets on Buonaparte, after I had read
  Milton’s sonnets to him.”

The “irregular” sonnet, written “at school,” to which Wordsworth refers, is probably the one published in the ‘European Magazine’ in 1787, vol. xi. p. 202, and signed Axiologus.—­Ed.

* * * * *

A FAREWELL

Composed May 29, 1802.—­Published 1815

[Composed just before my Sister and I went to fetch Mrs. Wordsworth from Gallow-hill, near Scarborough.—­I.F.]

This was one of the “Poems founded on the Affections.”  It was published in 1815 and in 1820 without a title, but with the sub-title ’Composed in the Year 1802’.  In 1827 and 1832 it was called ‘A Farewell’, to which the sub-title was added.  The sub-title was omitted in 1836, and afterwards.—­Ed.

  Farewell, thou little Nook of mountain-ground,
  Thou rocky corner in the lowest stair
  Of that magnificent temple which doth bound
  One side of our whole vale with grandeur rare;
  Sweet garden-orchard, eminently fair, 5
  The loveliest spot that man hath ever found,
  Farewell!—­we leave thee to Heaven’s peaceful care,
  Thee, and the Cottage which thou dost surround.

  Our boat is safely anchored by the shore,
  And there will safely ride [1] when we are gone; 10
  The flowering shrubs that deck our humble door [2]
  Will prosper, though untended and alone: 
  Fields, goods, and far-off chattels we have none: 
  These narrow bounds contain our private store
  Of things earth makes, and sun doth shine upon; 15
  Here are they in our sight—­we have no more.