“Oh What A Wreck! How Changed In Mien And Speech!”

Composed 1835.--Published 1838

[The sad condition of poor Mrs. Southey put me upon writing this. It has afforded comfort to many persons whose friends have been similarly affected.--I.F.]

One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED.

Oh what a Wreck! how changed in mien and speech! Yet--though dread Powers, that work in mystery, spin Entanglings of the brain; though shadows stretch O’er the chilled heart--reflect; far, far within Hers is a holy Being, freed from Sin. She is not what she seems, a forlorn wretch, But delegated Spirits comfort fetch To Her from heights that Reason may not win. Like Children, She is privileged to hold Divine communion; both do live and move, Whate’er to shallow Faith their ways unfold, Inly illumined by Heaven’s pitying love; Love pitying innocence not long to last, In them--in Her our sins and sorrows past.

Mrs. Southey died 16th November 1837. She had long been an invalid. See Southey’s Life and Correspondence, vol. vi. p. 347.--ED.

1842.

… for …

1838.

Compare a remark of Wordsworth’s that he never saw those with mind unhinged, but he thought of the words, “Life hid in God.” It is a curious oriental belief that idiots are in closer communion with the Infinite than the sane are.--ED.

1836

So far as can be ascertained, only one sonnet was written by Wordsworth in 1836. The verses To a Redbreast, by his sister-in-law, Sarah Hutchinson, may however be placed alongside of the sonnet addressed to her.--ED.