[Footnote B:  On Oct 9, 1800, S. T. Coleridge, in writing to Sir Humphry Davy of his own ‘Christabel’, said,

  “I would rather have written ‘Ruth’, and ‘Nature’s Lady,’ than a
  million such poems.”

This poem was printed in ‘The Morning Post’, March 2nd, 1801.—­Ed.]

* * * * *

“A SLUMBER DID MY SPIRIT SEAL”

Composed 1799.—­Published 1800

[Written in Germany.—­I.F.]

Included among the “Poems of the Imagination.” [A]—­Ed.

  A slumber did my spirit seal;
    I had no human fears: 
  She seemed a thing that could not feel
    The touch of earthly years.

  No motion has she now, no force; 5
    She neither hears nor sees;
  Rolled round in earth’s diurnal course,
    With rocks, and stones, and trees. [B]

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  It was one of the “Lucy” Poems.  In his instructions to the printer in 1807, Wordsworth told him to insert “I travelled among unknown men” after “A slumber did my spirit seal.”—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  Compare Suckling’s ‘Fragmenta Aurea’ (The Tragedy of Brennoralt), p. 170, edition 1658.

  Heavens! shall this fresh ornament of the world,
  These precious love-lines, pass with other common things,
  Amongst the wastes of time?  What pity ’twere.

Ed.]

* * * * *

ADDRESS TO THE SCHOLARS OF THE VILLAGE SCHOOL OF—­

Composed 1798 or 1799.—­Published 1842

[Composed at Goslar, in Germany.—­I.F.]

First published in “Poems, chiefly of Early and Late Years,” and included, in 1845, among the “Epitaphs and Elegiac Pieces.”—­Ed.

  I come, ye little noisy Crew,
  Not long your pastime to prevent;
  I heard the blessing which to you
  Our common Friend and Father sent. 
  I kissed his cheek before he died; 5
  And when his breath was fled,
  I raised, while kneeling by his side,
  His hand:—­it dropped like lead. 
  Your hands, dear Little-ones, do all
  That can be done, will never fall 10
  Like his till they are dead. 
  By night or day blow foul or fair,
  Ne’er will the best of all your train
  Play with the locks of his white hair,
  Or stand between his knees again. 15

    Here did he sit confined for hours;
  But he could see the woods and plains,
  Could hear the wind and mark the showers
  Come streaming down the streaming panes. 
  Now stretched beneath his grass-green mound 20
  He rests a prisoner of the ground. 
  He loved the breathing air,
  He loved the sun, but if it rise
  Or set, to him where now he lies,
  Brings not a moment’s care. 25