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DW’s revisions to several lines from this poem can be found near the end of this edition’s transcription of Notebook 15 of the Rydal Journals.
Lines to Dora H.
No fairy pen wherewith to write
No fairy prompter to indite
Waits Dora upon me
Yet on thy tiny spotless book
With playful fancy I can look
And with a spark of childlike glee
My tremulous fingers feeble hands
Refuse to labour with the mind
And that full oft is misty dull & blind
How venture then to draw a line
Over this delicate book of thine
The gorgeous insects gauzy wing
The butterfly’s resplendent ring
Would fitliest deck its spotless leaves
Or violet nursed in April dew
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A half blown rose of vermeil hue
Or humming bird from India’s land
Portrayed by youthful lady’s hand
Such cunning skill was never mine
Nor in my early years e’er flowed the line
Eer flowed in fancy’s theme
Nor aim held I but simple truth
The wild growth of a happy youth
Now age my eyesight oft bedims
My failing strength, my tottering limbs
Into a prison change this room
Though it is not a chearless spot
A cell of sorrow or of gloom
No damp cold walls close it round
No heavy hinges grating sound
Disturb the silence & the calm
To the weak body health & balm
Free entrance finds the summer breeze
Mind eyes behold the leafy trees
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The sky the clouds the gleaming showers
Craggs Lake & odiferous flowers
And fond affections nestle hear
With faithful recollections dear
Children whose parents I on buoyant knee
Carressed & fondled in their infancy
With visions of a pure delight
Not needing aim from bodily sight
Thou Dora then among the first
Dost nurture joy & pious trust
I call to mind thy Mother’s girlish grace
And the mild gladness of her face
Thy prayer I then breathed forth for her
Doth now again my bosom stir
I prayed that innocence might guide her youth
Along the paths of sacred truth.
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
Miss Wordsworth
June 1835 — Eliz. Hutchinson
