There Is A Little Unpretending Rill

Composed 1806?--Published 1820

[This Rill trickles down the hill-side into Windermere, near Low-wood. My sister and I, on our first visit together to this part of the country, walked from Kendal, and we rested to refresh ourselves by the side of the lake where the streamlet falls into it. This sonnet was written some years after in recollection of that happy ramble, that most happy day and hour.--I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

There is a little unpretending Rill Of limpid water, humbler far than aught That ever among Men or Naiads sought Notice or name!--It quivers down the hill, Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will; Yet to my mind this scanty Stream is brought Oftener than Ganges or the Nile; a thought Of private recollection sweet and still! Months perish with their moons; year treads on year; But, faithful Emma! thou with me canst say That, while ten thousand pleasures disappear, And flies their memory fast almost as they, The immortal Spirit of one happy day Lingers beside that Rill, in vision clear.

One of the MS. readings of the ninth line of this sonnet gives the date of the incident as "now seven years gone"; but I leave the date of composition undetermined. If we could know accurately the date of the "first visit" to the district with his sister (referred to in the Fenwick note), and if we could implicitly trust this MS. reading, it might be possible to fix it; but we can do neither. Wordsworth visited the Lake District with his sister as early as 1794, and in December 1799 he took up his abode with her at Dove Cottage. I have no doubt that the sonnet belongs to the year 1806, or was composed at an earlier date. As to the locality of the rill, the late Rev. R. Perceval Graves, of Dublin, wrote to me:--

"It was in 1843, when quitting the parsonage at Bowness, I went to reside at Dovenest, that, calling one day at Rydal Mount, I was told by both Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth, as a fact in which I should take a special interest, that the 'little unpretending rill' associated by the poet with 'the immortal spirit of one happy day,' was the rill which, rising near High Skelgill at the back of Wansfell, descends steeply down the hill-side, passes behind the house at Dovenest, and crossing beneath the road, enters the lake near the gate of the drive which leads up to Dovenest.

"The authority on which I give this information is decisive of the question. I have often traced upwards the course of the rill; and the secluded hollow, which by its source is beautified with fresh herbage and wild straggling bushes, was a favourite haunt of mine."--ED.

VARIANTS:

1820.

There is a tiny water, neither rill, Motionless well, nor running brook, nor aught MS.

There is a noiseless water, neither rill, Nor spring enclosed in sculptured stone, nor aught MS.

There is a trickling water, neither rill, Fountain inclosed, or rivulet, nor aught MS. 1806.

1820.

... It trickles down the hill, So feebly, just for love of power and will, Yet to my mind the nameless thing is brought MS.

... It totters down the hill, So feebly, quite forlorn of power and will; Yet nameless Thing it to my mind is brought MS.

1827.

Oftener than mightiest Floods, whose path is wrought Through wastes of sand, and forests dark and chill. 1820.

1827.

Do thou, even thou, O faithful Anna! say Why this small Streamlet is to me so dear; Thou know'st, that while enjoyments disappear And sweet remembrances like flowers decay, 1820.

1827.

Lingers upon its marge, ... 1820.

1820.

For on that day, now seven years gone, when first Two glad foot-travellers, through sun and shower My Love and I came hither, while thanks burst Out of our hearts ... We from that blessed water slaked our thirst. MS.

... seven years back, ...

... hearts to God for that good hour, Eating a traveller's meal in shady bower, We ... MS.

1807

In few instances is it more evident that the dates which Wordsworth affixed to his poems, in the editions of 1815, 1820, 1836, and 1845,--and those assigned in the Fenwick notes--cannot be absolutely relied upon, than in the case of the poems referring to Coleorton. Trusting to these dates, in the absence of contrary evidence, one would naturally assign the majority of the Coleorton poems to the year 1808. But it is clear that, while the sonnet To Lady Beaumont may have been written in 1806, the "Inscription" For a Seat in the Groves of Coleorton, beginning--

Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound,

was written, not in 1808 (as stated by Wordsworth himself), but in 1811; and that the other "Inscription" designed for a Niche in the Winter-garden at Coleorton, belongs (I think) to the same year; a year in which he also wrote the sonnet on Sir George Beaumont's picture of Bredon Hill and Cloud Hill, beginning--

Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay.

When the dates are so difficult to determine, there is a natural fitness in bringing all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as this can be done without seriously interfering with chronological order. The two "Inscriptions" intended for the Coleorton grounds, which were written at Grasmere in 1811, are therefore printed along with the poems of 1807; the precise date of each being given--so far as it can be ascertained--underneath its title.

Several political sonnets, and others, were written in 1807; also the Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle, and the first and larger part of The White Doe of Rylstone, with a few minor fragments. But, for reasons stated in the notes to The White Doe of Rylstone (see p. 191), I have assigned that poem to the year 1808. The Song at the Feast of Brougham Castle forms as natural a preface to The White Doe, as The Force of Prayer, a Tradition of Bolton Abbey, is its natural appendix. The latter was written, however, before The White Doe of Rylstone was finished.

It would be easier to fix the date of some of the poems written between the years 1806 and 1808, if we knew the exact month in which the two volumes of 1807 were published; but this, I fear, it is impossible to discover now.

On November 10th, 1806, Wordsworth wrote to Sir George Beaumont from Coleorton, "In a day or two I mean to send a sheet or two of my intended volume to the press" (evidently referring to the "Poems" of 1807). On the following day--11th November 1806--Dorothy Wordsworth wrote to Lady Beaumont, "William has written two other poems, which you will see when they are printed. He composes frequently in the grove.... We have not yet received a sheet from the printer." On the 15th November 1806 she again wrote to Lady Beaumont (from Coleorton), "My brother works very hard at his poems, preparing them for the press. Miss Hutchinson is the

bearing the post-mark February 18, 1807, she is speaking of her brother's poetical labour, and says, "He must go on, when he begins: and any interruptions (such as attending to the progress of the workmen and planning the garden) are of the greatest use to him; for, after a certain time, the progress is by no means proportioned to the labour in composition; and if he is called from it by other thoughts, he returns to it with ten times the pleasure, and the work goes on proportionately the more rapidly." From this we may infer that the years 1806-7 were productive ones, but it is disappointing that the dates of the composition of the poems are so difficult to determine.--ED.