No More Learning

And deal . . . 1809. ]


[Variant 7: "both" 'italicised' from 1815 to 1832, and also in 'The
Prelude'. ]


[Variant 8:

1832

. . . subterraneous . . . 1809. ]



Compare Coleridge's remarks in 'The Friend', vol. ii. p.
38, before
quoting this poem,

"My feelings and imagination did not remain unkindled in this general
conflagration; and I confess I should be more inclined to be ashamed
than proud of myself if they had! I was a sharer in the general
vortex, though my little world described the path of its revolution in
an orbit of its own," etc.

Ed.





* * * * *





ODE TO DUTY


Composed 1805. --Published 1807


"Jam non consilio bonus, sed more eo perductus, ut non tantum recte
facere possim, sed nisi recte facere non possim. " [A]

[This Ode is on the model of Gray's 'Ode to Adversity', which
is copied from Horace's Ode to Fortune. Many and many a
time have I been twitted by my wife and sister for having
forgotten this dedication of myself to the stern law-giver.
Transgressor indeed I have been from hour to hour, from day
to day: I would fain hope, however, not more flagrantly, or
in a worse way than most of my tuneful brethren. But these
last words are in a wrong strain. We should be rigorous to
ourselves, and forbearing, if not indulgent, to others; and, if
we make comparison at all, it ought to be with those who have
morally excelled us. --I. F. ]

In pencil on the MS. ,

"But is not the first stanza of Gray's from a chorus of AEschylus? And
is not Horace's Ode also modelled on the Greek? "

This poem was placed by Wordsworth among his "Poems of Sentiment and
Reflection.