No More Learning

And thus to me he made reply; 1798. ]


* * * * *

FOOTNOTES ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A: See Appendix IV. --Ed. ]


[Footnote B: Mr. Ernest H. Coleridge writes to me of this poem:

"The Fenwick note is most puzzling.

1. If Coleridge went to visit Thelwall, with Wordsworth and Dorothy in
July 1798, this is the only record; but I suppose that he did.

2. How could the poem have been suggested in front of Alfoxden? The
visit to Liswyn took place after the Wordsworths had left Alfoxden
never to return. If little Montagu ever did compare Kilve and Liswyn
Farm, he must have done so after he left Alfoxden. The scene is laid
at Liswyn, and if the poem was written at Alfoxden, before the party
visited Liswyn, the supposed reply was invented to a supposed question
which might be put to the child when he got to Liswyn. How unlike
Wordsworth.

3.
Thelwall came to Alfoxden at the commencement of Wordsworth's
tenancy; and the visit to Wales took place when the tenancy was over,
July 3-10. "

Ed. ]





* * * * *





"A WHIRL-BLAST FROM BEHIND THE HILL"


Composed March 18, 1798. --Published 1800.


[Observed in the holly-grove at Alfoxden, where these verses were
written in the spring of 1799. [A] I had the pleasure of again seeing,
with dear friends, this grove in unimpaired beauty forty-one years
after. [B]--I. F. ]

Classed among the "Poems of the Fancy. "--Ed.


* * * * *

THE POEM


A whirl-blast from behind the hill
Rushed o'er the wood with startling sound;
Then--all at once the air was still,
And showers of hailstones pattered round.
Where leafless oaks towered high above, 5
I sat within an undergrove
Of tallest hollies, tall and green;
A fairer bower was never seen.
From year to year the spacious floor
With withered leaves is covered o'er, 10
[1] And all the year the bower is green. [C]
But see! where'er the hailstones drop
The withered leaves all skip and hop;
There's not a breeze--no breath of air--
Yet here, and there, and every where 15
Along the floor, beneath the shade
By those embowering hollies made,
The leaves in myriads jump and spring,
As if with pipes and music rare
Some Robin Good-fellow were there, 20
And all those leaves, in festive glee,
Were dancing to the minstrelsy. [2] [3] [D]


* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1:

1820.