No More Learning

Take all in kindness then, as said
With a staid heart but playful head;
And fail not Thou, loved Rock! to keep
Thy charge when we are laid asleep.

W. W.



There is no poem more closely identified with the Grasmere district of
the English Lakes--and with the road from Grasmere to Keswick--than 'The
Waggoner' is, and in none are the topographical allusions more minute
and faithful.

Wordsworth seemed at a loss to know in what "class" of his poems to
place 'The Waggoner;' and his frequent changes--removing it from one
group to another--shew the artificial character of these classes. Thus,
in the edition of 1820, it stood first among the "Poems of the Fancy. "
In 1827 it was the last of the "Poems founded on the Affections. " In
1832 it was reinstated among the "Poems of the Fancy. " In 1836 it had a
place of its own, and was inserted between the "Poems of the Fancy" and
those "Founded on the Affections;" while in 1845 it was sent back to its
original place among the "Poems of the Fancy;" although in the table of
contents it was printed as an independent poem, closing the series.

The original text of 'The Waggoner' underwent little change, till the
year 1836, when it was carefully revised, and altered throughout. The
final edition of 1845, however, reverted, in many instances--especially
in the first canto--to the original text of 1819.

As this poem was dedicated to Charles Lamb, it may be of interest to
note that, some six months afterwards, Lamb presented Wordsworth with a
copy of the first edition of 'Paradise Regained' (the edition of 1671),
writing on it the following sentence,

"Charles Lamb, to the best knower of Milton, and therefore the
worthiest occupant of this pleasant edition. --Jan. 2nd, 1820.
"

The opening stanzas are unrivalled in their description of a sultry June
evening, with a thunder-storm imminent.

' 'Tis spent--this burning day of June!
Soft darkness o'er its latest gleams is stealing;
The buzzing dor-hawk, round and round, is wheeling,--
That solitary bird
Is all that can be heard
In silence deeper far than that of deepest noon!
. . .
. . .
The mountains against heaven's grave weight
Rise up, and grow to wondrous height.
The air, as in a lion's den,
Is close and hot;--and now and then
Comes a tired and sultry breeze
With a haunting and a panting,
Like the stifling of disease;
But the dews allay the heat,
And the silence makes it sweet. '


The Waggoner takes what is now the middle road, of the three leading
from Rydal to Grasmere (see the note to 'The Primrose of the Rock'). The
"craggy hill" referred to in the lines

'Now he leaves the lower ground,
And up the craggy hill ascending
. . .
Steep the way and wearisome,'

is the road from Rydal Quarry up to White Moss Common, with the Glowworm
rock on the right, and the "two heath-clad rocks," referred to in the
last of the "Poems on the Naming of Places," on the left.