“Glad Sight Wherever New With Old”

Composed 1842.--Published 1845

One of the “Poems of the Fancy.”--ED.

Glad sight wherever new with old Is joined through some dear homeborn tie;

The life of all that we behold Depends upon that mystery. Vain is the glory of the sky, The beauty vain of field and grove, Unless, while with admiring eye We gaze, we also learn to love.

A MS. copy of this fragment in Wordsworth’s handwriting, 31st December 1842, fixes the date approximately.--ED.

1845.

Look up, look round, let things unfold Far as they may, their mysteries; What profits it if new with old Unites not with some homeborn ties.

MS. 31st Dec. 1842.

Welcome the sight when new with old

C.

Glad sight it is when new with old

MS. 1843.

1845.

The good …

C.

1845.

… skies,

MS. 1843.

1845.

… eyes

MS. 1843.

Compare the lines addressed to Mrs. Wordsworth in 1824, beginning--

True beauty dwells in deep retreats.

ED.

1843

Two sonnets, and an Inscription for a monument to Southey, were written in 1843.--ED.