''"Poor Susan"'' is a
lyric poem
Modern lyric poetry is a formal type of poetry which expresses personal emotions or feelings, typically spoken in the first person.
It is not equivalent to song lyrics, though song lyrics are often in the lyric mode, and it is also ''not'' equi ...
by
William Wordsworth
William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Ballads'' (1798).
Wordsworth's '' ...
composed at
Alfoxden in 1797. It was first published in the collection ''Lyrical Ballads'' in 1798. It is written in
anapestic tetrameter
Anapestic tetrameter is a poetic meter that has four anapestic metrical feet per line. Each foot has two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. It is sometimes referred to as a "reverse dactyl", and shares the rapid, driving pa ...
.
The poem records the memories awakening in a country girl in London on hearing a thrush sing in the early morning.
Text
At the corner of Wood-Street, when day-light appears,
There's a Thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years.
Poor Susan has pass'd by the spot and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.
'Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees
A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail,
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The only one dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in Heaven, but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes.
Poor Outcast! return—to receive thee once more
The house of thy Father will open its door,
And thou once again, in thy plain russet gown,
Mayst hear the thrush sing from a tree of its own.
History
In Wordsworth's
Preface to the Lyrical Ballads
The Preface to ''Lyrical Ballads'' is an essay, composed by William Wordsworth, for the second edition published in 1800 of the poetry collection ''Lyrical Ballads'', and then greatly expanded in the third edition of 1802. It has come to be seen a ...
, the poet states:
Charles Lamb
Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist, poet, and antiquarian, best known for his '' Essays of Elia'' and for the children's book ''Tales from Shakespeare'', co-authored with his sister, Mary Lamb (1764– ...
objected to the final stanza: According to
Ernest de Sélincourt, Wordsworth responded by deleting the stanza in the 1815 edition of his poems and renaming the poem ''The Reverie of Poor Susan'', a title which may have been influenced by his reading
Bürger's ''Des Arme Suschens Traum'' at
Goslar
Goslar (; Eastphalian: ''Goslär'') is a historic town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than city, cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different p ...
.
In addition he replaced the word ''There's'' at the beginning of the second line by ''Hangs'' and added an introductory note:
However, Peter J. Manning pointed out that:
References
Bibliography
* Davies, Hunter. ''William Wordsworth'', Weidenfeld and Nicolson 1980
* Gill, Stephen. ''William Wordsworth: A Life'', Oxford University Press 1989
* Moorman, Mary. ''William Wordsworth, A Biography: The Early Years, 1770-1803 v. 1'', Oxford University Press 1957
* Moorman, Mary. ''William Wordsworth: A Biography: The Later Years, 1803-50 v. 2'', Oxford University Press 1965
External links
Internet archive of ''Lyrical Ballads''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Poor Susan
Poetry by William Wordsworth
1804 poems
1807 poems
1815 poems