6

WORDSWORTH1

Toil, small as pigmies in the gulf profound.
The cataract had borne him down

Into the gulf profound.

Bishops and Priests, think what a gulf profound.
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog.

The swan uplifts his chest, and backward flings

His neck, a varying arch, between his towering wings. . . .

Close by her mantling wings' embraces prest.
Fair is the Swan, whose majesty, prevailing....
Behold! the mantling spirit of reserve
Fashions his neck into a goodly curve;

Hear at morn

The hound, the horse's tread, and mellow horn.
Oft listening how the hounds and horn
Cheerly rouse the slumbering Morn.

Ah me! all light is mute amid the gloom,

The interlunar cavern of the tomb.

"As the moon Hid in her vacant interlunar cave."

The Sun to me is dark

And silent as the Moon,

When she deserts the night,

Hid in her vacant interlunar cave.

Dion (original form), 1–7.

P. L. vii. 438-9; cf. v. 279.

An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings.
The swan, with arched neck
Between her white wings mantling proudly.
(Wordsworth also speaks of the "mantling" celandine, To the Small
Celandine, 2d poem, 24; "mantling triumphs," Sonnet, "Grief, thou hast
lost," 14; and "mantling ale," Duddon, xiii. 12.)

The "parting Genius" sighs with hollow breath.
The parting Genius is with sighing sent.

And neighbouring moon, that coasts the vast profound,
Wheel pale and silent her diminish'd round.

While overhead the moon.
Wheels her pale course.
A gulf profound.

Round through the vast profundity obscure.

Evening Walk, 163.

Idle Shepherd-Boys, 69–70.
Eccl. Sonnets, III. xvi. 12.
P. L. ii. 592.

...

Evening Walk, 218-31.

Tinged like an angel's smile all rosy red.
Unveiling timidly a cheek

Suffused with blushes of celestial hue.
To whom the Angel, with a smile that glow'd
Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.

Evening Walk, 244–5.

Allegro, 53-4.

Bosomed deep in chestnut groves.
Bosom'd high in lufted trees.

Ib. 78.
Allegro, 78.

(Wordsworth uses "bosomed" three times more, twice in the sense of
hidden by trees. "Embosom," "embosoming," and "embosomed" he
uses nine times; cf. P. L. iii. 75, v. 597.)

Ib. (1793 ed.), 267-8.
Prelude, vii. 283-4.

Samson, 86-9.

Desc. Sketches, 71.
Nativity, 186.

Ib. (1793 ed.), 382-3.

P. L. i. 784-6.

P. L. ii. 592.

P. L. vii. 229.

Desc. Sketches, 475.

Eccl. Sonnets, II. xxii. 5-6.

P. L. viii. 618-19.

1 These parallels are nearly all taken from a collection of material regarding Wordsworth's debt to Milton, undertaken at Cornell University by Mrs. Alice M. Dunbar of Wilmington, Delaware, under the direction of Mr. Lane Cooper, who called my attention to the work. They are published here for the first time by the very kind consent of Mrs. Dunbar, whose list contains many more.

Dim religious groves embow'r.
Casting a dim religious light.
Etrurian shades High over-arch'd embower.

Desc. Sketches (1793 ed.), 124.
Penseroso, 160.

P. L. i. 303-4.

(Wordsworth also has ten cases of "embowering" and "embowered,"
usually of trees.)

His larum-bell from village-tow'r to tow'r
Swing on th'astounded ear it's dull undying roar.
The solemn curfew swinging long and deep.
I hear the far-off curfew sound...
Swinging slow with sullen roar.

Through his brain
1 At once the griding iron passage found.
The griding sword with discontinuous wound
Pass'd through him.

....

When I behold the ruins of that face,
Those eyeballs dark - dark beyond hope of light.
Nor appear'd Less than Archangel ruin’d. . . .
.. Darken'd so, yet shone
Above them all the Archangel; but his face.
Oh dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse
Without all hope of day!

But, oh the heavy change!

And, O the change!

And partner of my loss. · - O heavy change!
But, O the heavy change, now thou art gone!

Suffer my genial spirits to decay.
So much I feel my genial spirits droop.

Could Father Adam open his eyes
And see this sight beneath the skies,
He'd wish to close them again.

Ib. (1793 ed.), 778-9.

Evening Walk (1793 ed.), 318.

Penseroso, 74-6.

Guilt and Sorrow, 492-3.

P. L. vi. 329-30.

(A reference, as Wordsworth pointed out, to P. L. xi. 185-90.)

Borderers, i. 135-6.

P. L. i. 592-600.

Samson, 80-82.

Simon Lee, 25.
Mother's Return, 53.
Excursion, iii. 669.
Lycidas, 37.

Redbreast chasing the Butterfly, 12-14.

To overleap At will the crystal battlements...
O'er Limbo lake with aëry flight to steer,
And on the verge of Chaos hang in fear.

Tintern Abbey, 113.
Samson, 594.

To the Small Celandine (2), 49–50.

Comus, 634-5.

Stanzas in "Castle of Indolence," 60-61.

P. L. vi. 525-7, 760-1.
P. L. ii. 271, vi. 475.

(Wordsworth also has "whose panoply is not a thing put on❞—“Who
rises on the banks," 17; and "your scaly panoplies"-"The soaring
lark," 23.)

Departure from Grasmere, 5-12.

Alas! what boots it? — who can hide?
Alas! what boots the long laborious quest?
"What boots," continued she, "to mourn?"
What boots the sculptured tomb?

Alas! what boots it with uncessant care?

The gift of this adventurous song.
Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous song.

The earth is all before me.
The world was all before them.

A watchful heart Still couchant.

Changes oft His couchant watch.

(Wordsworth also speaks of a "couchant" lion, fawn, doe: To Enterprise,
35; "Long has the dew," 5; White Doe, i. 203.)

Immortal verse
Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre.
Raptures of the lyre;
And wisdom married to immortal verse.
Whose waves the Orphean lyre forbad to meet.
Where is the Orphean lyre, or Druid harp,
To accompany the verse?

With other notes than to the Orphean lyre I sung.
Soft Lydian airs Married to immortal verse.

With crosses and with cyphers scribbled o'er.
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er.

Hence life, and change, and beauty, solitude
More active even than "best society."
Solitude to her Is blithe society.

For solitude sometimes is best society.

Her pealing organ was my neighbour too.
There let the pealing organ blow.

Eccl. Sonnets, II. xxviii. 6-9.

P. L. iv. 181-2.

P. L. i. 742.

P. L. i. 225.

P. L. ii. 407.

P. L. ii. 917-19.

P. L. iii. 474-5, 490-5.
Ode to Duty, 1.

P. L. ix. 652-3.

"When, to the attractions," 81-2. P. L. iv. 405-6.

The Waggoner, 702.
Tyrolese Sonnets, iv. 1.
Egyptian Maid, 97.
Excursion, vi. 615.
Lycidas, 64.

The Waggoner, 784.
P. L. i. 13.

Prelude, i. 14.
P. L. xii. 646.

Ib. i. 232-3.

Excursion, vii. 535-6.
Source of the Danube, 9.

To the Clouds, 60–61.
P. L. iii. 17-18.
Allegro, 136-7.

Prelude, i. 511.
P. L. viii. 83.

Ib. ii. 294-5.
Characteristics of a Child, 12-13.
P. L. ix. 249.

Prelude, iii. 57.
Penseroso, 161.

This is, in truth, heroic argument.
Argument Not less but more heroic.

Stood almost single...

Darkness before, and danger's voice behind.
In darkness, and with dangers compass'd round,
And solitude.

(Of Milton in each case.)

Grain-tinctured, drenched in empyrean light.
Sky-tinctured grain.

Dews, vapours, and the melody of birds.
Walks, and the melody of birds.

Whether by native prose, or numerous verse.
In prose or numerous verse.

These mighty workmen of our later age,
Who, with a broad highway, have overbridged
The froward chaos of futurity.

A pensive sky, sad days, and piping winds.
While rocking winds are piping loud.

That seemed another morn Risen on mid noon.
Seems another morn Risen on mid-noon.

The mountains more by blackness visible
And their own size, than any outward light.
No light, but rather darkness visible.

Prelude, iii. 184.
P. L. ix. 13-14; cf. 28–9.

Her brood, Though fledged and feathered.
Their brood... feather'd soon and fledge.
(Of young fowl in each case.)

Lead his voice through many a maze.
The melting voice through mazes running.

Ib. iii. 287-8.

P. L. vii. 27-8.

Tract more exquisitely fair
Than that famed paradise of ten thousand trees,
Or Gehol's matchless gardens.

Spot more delicious than those gardens feign'd
Or of revived Adonis, or renown'd
Alcinous, host of old Laertes' son.

Ib. iv. 328.

P. L. v. 285.

Ib. iv. 331.

P. L. viii. 528.

(A reference to P. L. x. 249-320.)

Ib. v. 200.

P. L. v. 150.

Ib. v. 246-7.

P. L. vii. 418-20.

Ib. v. 347-9.

Ib. vi. 174.
Penseroso, 126.
Ib. vi. 197-8.
P. L. v. 310-11.

Ib. vi. 714-15.

P. L. i. 63.

Ib. vii. 555.
Allegro, 142.

Ib. viii. 75-7.

P. L. ix. 439-41.
Ib. viii. 81.
Eccl. Sonnets, I. i. 4.

And boon nature's lavish help.

Of mountain-quiet and boon nature's grace.
But Nature boon
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain.
The curious traveller... sees, or thinks he sees.
Some belated peasant sees, Or dreams he sees.
(Of the supernatural in each case.)
Such opposition as aroused
The mind of Adam, yet in Paradise

Though fallen from bliss, when in the East he saw
Darkness ere day's mid course, and morning light
More orient in the western cloud, that drew
O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,
Descending slow with something heavenly fraught.

P. L. iv. 242-3.
Prelude, viii. 560–65.
P. L. i. 783-4.

Ib. viii. 658-64.

Why in the east

Darkness ere day's mid-course, and morning-light
More orient in yon western cloud, that draws
O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,
And slow descends, with something heavenly fraught?

And oft amid the "busy hum" I seemed.
And the busy hum of men.

Or crown of burning seraphs as they sit
In the empyrean.

From the pure Empyrean when he [God] sits.

(Wordsworth also uses "empyrean" twice as an adjective; Milton has
it five times as a noun and once as an adjective.)

But ere the Moon had sunk to rest
In her pale chambers of the west.
Pacing toward the other goal
Of his [the sun's] chamber in the east.

P. L. xi. 2037.

Ib. viii. 680.
Allegro, 118.

Ib. x. 522-3.
P. L. iii. 57.

Ib. xi. 419-20.

P. L. iv. 268-9.

Ib. xiii. 229.
P. L. i. 372.

Ib. xiv. 71-2.
P. L. i. 21.

Ib. xiv. 119-20.

P. L. v. 486-8.

(But cf. Ralegh's sonnet on the Faerie Queene.)

Ib. xiv. 160-61.

P. L. ii. 622.

P. L. iii. 593-4.

Ib. xiv. 245-6.

P. L. ix. 490-1.

Sonnet, "Methought I saw," 1.
Sonnet, “Methought I saw,” 1.

Seat in Coleorton, 16.
Penseroso, 102.

White Doe, iv. 132.
Sonnet on his Blindness, 14.

Ib. iv. 223-4.

Comus, 100-101.

Ib. vii. 57.

With woollen cincture.

P. L. ix. 1117.

With feather'd cincture.

(Of clothing in each case. Wordsworth also has "encincture": Source

of Danube, 8; Excursion, v. 159; Eccl. Sonnets, III. xli. 9.)