Variants On The Text

[Variant 1:

1827.

The May is come again:--how sweet To sit upon my Orchard-seat! And Birds and Flowers once more to greet, My last year's Friends together: My thoughts they all by turns employ; A whispering Leaf is now my joy, And then a Bird will be the toy That doth my fancy tether. 1807.

And Flowers and Birds once more to greet, 1815.

The text of 1815 is otherwise identical with that of 1827.]

[Variant 2:

1845.

Upon ... 1807.]

[Variant 3:

1845.

While thus before my eyes he gleams, A Brother of the Leaves he seems; When in a moment forth he teems His little song in gushes: 1807.

My sight he dazzles, half deceives, A Bird so like the dancing Leaves; Then flits, and from the Cottage eaves Pours forth his song in gushes; 1827.

My dazzled sight the Bird deceives, A Brother of the dancing Leaves; 1832.

The Bird my dazzled sight deceives, 1840.

The Bird my dazzling sight deceives C.]

[Variant 4:

1827.

As if it pleas'd him to disdain And mock the Form which he did feign, While he was dancing with the train Of Leaves among the bushes. 1807.

The voiceless Form he chose to feign, 1820.]

Of all Wordsworth's poems this is the one most distinctively associated with the Orchard, at Town-end, Grasmere. Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal under date May 28th, 1802:

"We sat in the orchard. The young bull-finches in their pretty coloured raiment, bustle about among the blossoms, and poise themselves like wire-dancers or tumblers, shaking the twigs and dashing off the blossoms."

Ed.

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