Each hut, perchance, might have its own; And to the Boy they all were known— He knew and prized them all. The rarest was a Turtle-shell Which he, poor Child, had studied well; And, as a Coracle that braves On Vaga's breast the fretful waves, And gaily lift its fearless brim Above the tossing surge. And this the little blind Boy knew Had stoutly launched from shore Launched from the margin of a bay His father's ship, and had sailed far- Our Highland Boy oft visited The house that held this prize; and, led While there he sate, alone and blind, He launched his vessel,-and in pride Sang through the adventurer's hair." After stanza xxxi. (“And quickly with a silent crew," etc.) were added, in 1815, the two following: "But soon they move with softer pace; On Grasmere's clear unruffled breast Or as the wily sailors crept To seize (while on the Deep it slept) They steal upon their prey." And in the same year the following final stanza was added: "And in the lonely Highland dell Still do they keep the Turtle shell; How carefully Wordsworth weighed the animadversions of his critics is well seen from the change which he effected in stanza iii. This was held up to ridicule in the Simpliciad: "High land 'tis called, because it is not low, And land because it is not sea, I trow." Wordsworth disarms criticism here by getting rid of the word 'land' in l. 3, which he rewrites happily, thus (1836): 66 That, under hills which rise like towers," etc. For the substitution of' safely' for 'sweetly' (1827) in stanza xiv., see note on ll. 10, 13 of The Solitary Reaper. A few minor textual changes are here unnoticed. The Green Linnet (page 79).-Composed 1803 (W.-1836). Stanza i. was recast as follows in 1815-doubtless to get rid of the phrase: "the toy that doth my fancy tether," derided by Jeffrey and in the Simpliciad: "Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed Their snow-white blossoms on my head, Of spring's unclouded weather, In this sequestered nook how sweet To sit upon my orchard-seat! And birds and flowers once more to greet, My last year's friends together." (Flowers and birds,' edd. 1815, 1820; 'birds and flowers,' edd. 1827, 1849-50.) The last stanza gave the Poet much trouble. Both Jeffrey and the author of the Simpliciad underscored "teems." In a letter (Knight's Life, iii., p. 153), in which he discusses with Barron Field the textual changes made in ed. 1827, Wordsworth says, of the whole stanza, that it is " very faulty. Forth he teems' is a provincialism; Dr. Johnson says, a low word, when used in this sense.' But my main motive for altering the stanza was the wholly unjustifiable use of the word train, as applied to leaves attached to a tree. A train of withered leaves, driven in the wind along the gravel, as I have often seen them, might be said. 'Did feign' is an awkward expletive for an elegant poem, as this is generally allowed to be." The stanza was rewritten in 1827, and 11. 1 and 2 rehandled in 1832, 1840, and 1845. We quote the version of 1845: |