Some have thought the musings in my last post, on William Wordsworth and Dorothy from the Wizzard of Oz, walking together, were, even for me, a little too far gone. Well here’s a poem by Wordsworth with a preceeding note that he wrote about it – and how the series its from “ECCLESIASTICAL SONNETS” was inspired by the construction of the Church in Swannington at a spot chosen by Wordsworth himself:
“the intended Church which prompted these Sonnets was erected on Coleorton Moor towards the centre of a very populous parish between three and four miles from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, on the road to Loughborough, and has proved, I believe, a great benefit to the neighbourhood.”
I SAW the figure of a lovely Maid
Seated alone beneath a darksome tree,
Whose fondly-overhanging canopy
Set off her brightness with a pleasing shade.
No Spirit was she; ‘that’ my heart betrayed,
For she was one I loved exceedingly;
But while I gazed in tender reverie
(Or was it sleep that with my Fancy played?)
The bright corporeal presence–form and face–
Remaining still distinct grew thin and rare,
Like sunny mist;–at length the golden hair,
Shape, limbs, and heavenly features, keeping pace
Each with the other in a lingering race
Of dissolution, melted into air.
William Wordsworth
“Shape, limbs, and heavenly features, keeping pace Each with the other in a lingering race Of dissolution, melted into air.”
