The Yarrow poems are a series of three poems composed by the English Romantic poet

William Wordsworth William Wordsworth (7 April 177023 April 1850) was an English Romantic poetry, Romantic poet who, with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romanticism, Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication ''Lyrical Balla ...

comprising "Yarrow Unvisited" (1803), "Yarrow Visited" (1814) and "Yarrow Revisited" (1831). "Yarrow Unvisited" presents a justification for his failure to take a detour to see the

Yarrow Water The Yarrow Water is a river in the Scottish Borders, Borders in the south east of Scotland. It is a tributary of the Ettrick Water (itself a tributary of the River Tweed, Tweed) and renowned for its high quality trout and salmon, salmon fishing.< ...

, a river much celebrated in earlier Scottish verse, during a tour of Scotland with his sister

Dorothy Dorothy may refer to: *Dorothy (given name), a list of people with that name. Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Dorothy'' (TV series), 1979 American TV series * Dorothy Mills, a 2008 French movie, sometimes titled simply ''Dorot ...

; this, according to the poem, allowed him to retain his imagined idea of the river rather than be disappointed by the reality. It was partly written for his friend

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

, whose friendship with him began during this same tour. The second poem records his impressions on finally seeing the Yarrow in company with the poet

James Hogg James Hogg (1770 – 21 November 1835) was a Scottish poet, novelist and essayist who wrote in both Scots language, Scots and English. As a young man he worked as a shepherd and farmhand, and was largely self-educated through reading. He was a ...

. The third, a tribute to his friend

, was inspired by the poets' last visit to the Yarrow the year before Scott's death. All three draw on the rich heritage of earlier poems and ballads set in the Yarrow Valley. "Yarrow Unvisited" is one of Wordsworth's most famous short poems, and has been judged one of his finest. Modern critical evaluation of the two later works has been more mixed.

"Yarrow Unvisited"

Summary

The narrator tells how, touring Scotland, his "winsome marrow" proposes to him at

Clovenfords Clovenfords is a village in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland, north of the hamlet of Caddonfoot and west of the town Galashiels. The village sits on undulating grasslands and surrounding rolling hills. The 2011 census gave it a population ...

that But he decides to leave Yarrow to its inhabitants; instead they should follow the

River Tweed The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is a river long that flows east across the Border region in Scotland and northern England. Tweed cloth derives its name from its association with the River Tweed. The Tweed is one of the great salmon rivers ...

Gala Water The Gala Water ( Lowland Scots: Gala Watter; Scottish Gaelic An Geal Ath) is a river in the Scottish Borders area of Scotland and a tributary of the River Tweed. It is sometimes known as the "Gala", which nickname is also shared with Galashiels, ...

Leader Leadership, is defined as the ability of an individual, group, or organization to "", influence, or guide other individuals, teams, or organizations. "Leadership" is a contested term. Specialist literature debates various viewpoints on the co ...

Haughs,

Dryburgh Dryburgh is a village in the Borders region of Scotland, within the county of Berwickshire. It is most famous for the ruined Dryburgh Abbey. Dryburgh Abbey Hotel lies on the edge of the village. The village K6 red telephone box outside th ...

and on to

Teviotdale Roxburghshire or the County of Roxburgh () is a historic county and registration county in the Southern Uplands of Scotland. It borders Dumfriesshire to the west, Selkirkshire and Midlothian to the northwest, and Berwickshire to the north. T ...

. The Yarrow has nothing more to offer them than a thousand other streams. His companion is surprised at these words, but he explains that, beautiful though it may be, he prefers to move on, since it is Let Yarrow remain unseen since even that beautiful valley cannot match their dreams of it. As they grow older their cares will be lightened by the knowledge

Composition

In August 1803

and his sister

set out on a tour of Scotland, initially with their friend

Samuel Taylor Coleridge Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( ; 21 October 177225 July 1834) was an English poet, literary critic, philosopher, and theologian who was a founder of the Romantic Movement in England and a member of the Lake Poets with his friend William Wordsworth ...

, though they left him behind after two weeks. On 18 September, in the return half of their journey, they walked from

Peebles Peebles () is a town in the Scottish Borders, Scotland. It was historically a royal burgh and the county town of Peeblesshire. According to the United Kingdom census, 2011, 2011 census, the population was 8,376 and the estimated population in ...

, deciding to avoid the Yarrow not for the reasons stated in the poem but simply because they were short of time. They had at this point just met for the first time, and formed what was to be a lifelong friendship with,

, at that time best known as the editor of the ballad-collection ''

Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ''Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border'' is an anthology of Border ballads, together with some from north-east Scotland and a few modern literary ballads, edited by Walter Scott. It was first published by Archibald Constable in Edinburgh in 1 ...

''. They were impressed by the depth of his love for the

Border country The Anglo-Scottish border runs for 96 miles (154 km) between Marshall Meadows Bay on the east coast and the Solway Firth in the west, separating Scotland and England. The Firth of Forth was the border between the Picts, Picto-Gaels, ...

and everything that pertained to it. They returned home to Grasmere on 25 September. Wordsworth wrote "Yarrow Unvisited" at some point in the next few months, probably in November 1803, using for it the metre of a ballad called "Leader Haughs and Yarrow". His headnote for the poem directed the reader's attention to "the various Poems the Scene of which is laid upon the Banks of the Yarrow; in particular, the exquisite Ballad of

Hamilton Hamilton may refer to: * Alexander Hamilton (1755/1757–1804), first U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States * ''Hamilton'' (musical), a 2015 Broadway musical by Lin-Manuel Miranda ** ''Hamilton'' (al ...

" called "The Braes of Yarrow". Among these poems is a ballad by John Logan, also called "The Braes of Yarrow" and known to be much admired by Wordsworth; likewise the anonymous "

The Dowie Dens o Yarrow "The Dowie Dens o Yarrow", also known as "The Braes of Yarrow" or simply "Yarrow", is a Scottish border ballad (). It has many variants (Francis James Child, Child collected at least 19) and it has been printed as a Broadside (music), broadside ...

", " The Lament of the Border Widow", "Rare Willy Drowned in Yarrow", "The Rose of Yarrow", "Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow",

Burns Burns may refer to: Astronomy * 2708 Burns, an asteroid * Burns (crater), on Mercury People * Burns (surname), list of people and characters named Burns ** Burns (musician), Scottish record producer Places in the United States * Burns, ...

's "Braw Lads" and other poems, together constituting a long tradition to which Wordsworth's poem responds. Its theme is his belief, confirmed by his travels of the previous few years, in the superiority of unvisited scenes to visited ones as a spur to the imagination; as R. H. Hutton wrote, "He hoarded his joys and lived upon the interest which they paid in the form of hope and expectation." But the poem's scenery was determined by his wish to draw a picture of all the aspects of the Border Scott loved, for it was written, Wordsworth told his new friend, "not without a view of pleasing you".

Reception

When published in Wordsworth's ''

Poems, in Two Volumes ''Poems, in Two Volumes'' is a collection of poetry by English Romantic poet William Wordsworth, published in 1807. It contains many notable poems, including: * " Resolution and Independence" * "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (sometimes antho ...

'' in 1807, "Yarrow Unvisited" took its share of the critical scorn directed at that collection by the reviewers. The ''

Edinburgh Review The ''Edinburgh Review'' is the title of four distinct intellectual and cultural magazines. The best known, longest-lasting, and most influential of the four was the third, which was published regularly from 1802 to 1929. ''Edinburgh Review'', ...

'' called it "a very tedious and affected performance", while ''Le Beau Monde, or, Literary and Fashionable Magazine'' said that Wordsworth "had long protracted tfor the pleasure of concluding it with a nothing". Even his friend

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� ...

later told him that it had only one or two exquisite stanzas in it, namely the penultimate one or the last two. In 1819

William Maginn William Maginn (10 July 1794 – 21 August 1842) was an Irish journalist and writer. About Born at Cork he became a contributor to ''Blackwood's Magazine'', and after moving to London in 1824 became for a few months in 1826 the Paris correspond ...

wrote a parody of it called "

Don Juan Don Juan (), also known as Don Giovanni ( Italian), is a legendary fictional Spanish libertine who devotes his life to seducing women. The original version of the story of Don Juan appears in the 1630 play (''The Trickster of Seville and t ...

Unread". By 1833, Scott's son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, could call it one of Wordsworth's most exquisite works, and on the poet's death in 1850 his obituarist in '' The Athenaeum'' named it, along with about twenty sonnets and four longer poems, as one of the works by which he would be remembered. The later 19th-century critic

John Campbell Shairp John Campbell Shairp (30 July 1819 – 18 September 1885) was a Scottish critic and man of letters. Life He was born at Houstoun House, Linlithgowshire, the third son of Major Norman Shairp of Houstoun, and was educated at Edinburgh Academ ...

judged that "if it contains only two stanzas ines 49–56pitched in Wordsworth's highest strain, tis throughout in his most felicitous diction. The manner is that of the old ballad, with an infusion of modern reflection, which yet does not spoil its naturalness." Among modern critics,

Hugh Sykes Davies Hugh Sykes Davies (17 August 1909 – 6 June 1984)Mary Moorman rated it as one of Wordsworth's best poems. "Yarrow Unvisited" has had a perceptible influence on 20th-century literature. Poems which have alluded to it and re-examined its themes include

Stevie Smith Florence Margaret Smith (20 September 1902 – 7 March 1971), known as Stevie Smith, was an English poet and novelist. She won the Cholmondeley Award and was awarded the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. A play, '' Stevie'' by Hugh Whitemore, bas ...

's "The Occasional Yarrow",

Norman Nicholson Norman Cornthwaite Nicholson (8 January 1914 – 30 May 1987) was an English writer. Although he is now known chiefly for his poetry, Nicholson also wrote in many other forms: novels, plays, essays, topography and criticism. Biography Nich ...

's "Askam Unvisited", and

Paul Muldoon Paul Muldoon is an Irish poet. He has published more than thirty collections and won a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and the T. S. Eliot Prize. At Princeton University he has been both the Howard G. B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humani ...

's ''Yarrow''.

Hugh Kingsmill Hugh Kingsmill Lunn (21 November 1889 – 15 May 1949), who dropped his surname for professional purposes, was a versatile British writer and journalist. The writers Arnold Lunn and Brian Lunn were his brothers. Life Hugh Kingsmill Lunn was born ...

and

Hesketh Pearson Edward Hesketh Gibbons Pearson (20 February 1887 – 9 April 1964) was an English actor, theatre director and writer. He is known mainly for his biographies; they made him the leading British biographer of his time, in terms of commercial succes ...

, the authors of ''Skye High: The Record of a Tour Through Scotland in the Wake of Samuel Johnson and James Boswell'' (1937), coined the term ''yarrowing'' to describe their practice of leaving unvisited those Scottish locations which, having been passed through by

Johnson Johnson may refer to: People and fictional characters *Johnson (surname), a common surname in English * Johnson (given name), a list of people * List of people with surname Johnson, including fictional characters *Johnson (composer) (1953–2011) ...

and Boswell, had originally figured in their own planned itinerary.

"Yarrow Visited"

Summary

The poet is saddened to see Yarrow different from how he had imagined it. He describes its appearance in the early morning and admits that it has many beauties. He remembers

the tale ''The Tale'' is a 2018 American drama (film and television), drama film written and directed by Jennifer Fox (documentary filmmaker), Jennifer Fox and starring Laura Dern, Ellen Burstyn, Jason Ritter, Elizabeth Debicki, Isabelle Nélisse, Common ...

of "the famous flower/Of Yarrow", wonders where its scenes took place and finds the landscape worthy of the story. He notes the ruins of Newark Castle, and praises the "fair scenes", suitable for every stage of human life. He proposes to place a heather wreath on his true-love's head, or on his own. He can now see Yarrow both through imagination and through experience, and though he has to leave it the memory of seeing it will be a happy one.

Composition

From July to September 1814 Wordsworth was again on tour in Scotland, accompanied by his wife Mary and her sister, Sara Hutchinson. On 1 September they started from

Traquair Traquair () is a small village and civil parishes in Scotland, civil parish in the Scottish Borders; Counties of Scotland, until 1975 it was in the county of Peeblesshire. The village is situated on the B709 road south of Innerleithen at . H ...

and, along with the poet

and (initially) Robert Anderson, editor of ''The Works of the British Poets'', walked first to

St Mary's Loch St Mary's Loch is the largest natural loch in the Scottish Borders, and is situated on the south side of the A708 road between Selkirk and Moffat, about south of Edinburgh. Description It is long and wide, and was created by glacial acti ...

and then along the course of the Yarrow. The following day the Wordsworths visited Abbotsford, Scott's home, where they were entertained by Scott's wife, though the writer himself was not there. He began to write "Yarrow Visited" either on the day of the walk itself or on the Abbotsford day, completing it, more or less, within the next fortnight. He then gave a copy to Hogg to include in an anthology of works by living poets, but this book was never published and the version of the poem Wordsworth gave him is now lost. He radically revised it, probably in late September or early October, admitting to a friend that it was "heavier than my things generally are", and that a "falling off rom "Yarrow Unvisited"was unavoidable, perhaps, from the subject, as imagination almost always transcends reality." He made further revisions before its eventual publication in his ''Poems'' (1815). The resulting work, Stephen Gill has written, "celebrates the actual beauty of the place while recognizing how much its power to move depends on literary associations and the mind's play". Again Wordsworth engages deeply with earlier local poems by Hamilton, Hogg and

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...

, and particularly with Logan's "The Braes of Yarrow" and Scott's ''

The Lay of the Last Minstrel ''The Lay of the Last Minstrel'' (1805) is a narrative poem in six cantos with copious antiquarian notes by Walter Scott. Set in the Scottish Borders in the mid-16th century, it is represented within the work as being sung by a minstrel late in ...

'', even down to their rhymes and rhythms, making it "more lyric than ballad, more music than narrative, more sound than sense".

Reception

Charles Lamb found "Yarrow Visited" far superior to its predecessor in that it was more consistent in its excellence, and he wrote of lines 41–48 "no lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry". Hogg disagreed, giving it as his opinion in 1832 that "Yarrow Visited" was "not so sweet or ingenious a poem...so much is hope superior to enjoyment". Allan Cunningham, in 1825, wrote that the two poems would immortalise any stream. There was favourable criticism in the periodicals, the ''

Monthly Review The ''Monthly Review'' is an independent socialist magazine published monthly in New York City. Established in 1949, the publication is the longest continuously published socialist magazine in the United States. History Establishment Following ...

'' finding in "Yarrow Visited" a "peculiar softness and beauty", while '' Tait's Edinburgh Magazine'', on Wordsworth's death, wrote that it was not easy to find a more beautiful treatment of the subject of enjoyment of natural beauty triumphing over initial anticipations of disappointment. Later in the century, John Campbell Shairp pronounced a judgement the opposite of Lamb's, "Yarrow Visited" being for him more irregular in quality than "Yarrow Unvisited", "some of ts stanzasrising to an excellence which Wordsworth has not surpassed, and which has impressed them on the poetic memory as possessions for ever, others sinking down to the level of ordinary poetic workmanship". Modern opinions differ as to the poem's merits. Kenneth R. Johnston considered it no more than "a tepid tribute of scene-painting", but F. B. Pinion wrote that it is "exquisitely expressed throughout", and "one of several poems which show that Wordsworth in his later years was capable of writing in strains rarely surpassed by other English poets".

"Yarrow Revisited"

Summary

Again, after many years, the poet has looked on the Yarrow at Newark Castle, this time with the "Great Minstrel of the Border". They have spent a happy day in contemplation of the autumnal scene, recalling the happy days of their youth and maturity and contrasting their own changing fate with the unchanging stream. Blessings on the Muse who trains her sons to meet sickness and care! Scott, as you travel to Italy, may your health be restored there and may classical and native Fancy both inspire you as you find new scenes there. For even Nature can mean little without "the poetic voice/That hourly speaks within us". Our memories of local scenes sustain us through the changes of Life. You, who climbed the stairs of Yarrow tower that day can bear witness to this. May the Yarrow flow on, and may future bards sing its praises, so dear now to the poet's memory!

Composition

In August 1831, suffering from the after-effects of a stroke and hoping to regain his health in Italy, Scott invited Wordsworth to visit him before his departure. Suffering health problems of his own, Wordsworth delayed his departure and only reached Abbotsford, accompanied by his daughter Dora, on 19 September, five days before Scott was due to leave. On 20 September they all took a trip to Newark Castle on the Yarrow which might, Wordsworth realized, be Scott's last. This day's journey was the occasion of two poems by Wordsworth, one a sonnet beginning "A trouble, not of clouds, or weeping rain", and the other "Yarrow Revisited", written a few weeks later in October 1831. The subject of this latter poem is not so much the Yarrow itself as the changing reactions to it of both Wordsworth and Scott through the course of their adult lives; it is the poet's act of homage to his old friend. It was published in his collection, ''Yarrow Revisited and Other Poems'', initially in April 1835, though new editions were needed in 1836 and 1839, this being the first of Wordsworth's books to meet with commercial success. Wordsworth was not finished with the subject of his memories of the Yarrow: he returned to it in passages of his "Extempore Effusions upon the Death of James Hogg" in 1835, and again in "Musings near Aquapendente" in 1837.

Reception

The title-poem of ''Yarrow Revisited'' initially got a good press. In America, it is true, '' The Christian Examiner and General Review'' judged that though the language was pure and flowing, "the structure of the verse does not correspond to the grave style of thought. It is altogether too light and dancing." The images it thought sometimes pretty and simple, sometimes too far-fetched. But ''

Fraser's Magazine ''Fraser's Magazine for Town and Country'' was a general and literary journal published in London from 1830 to 1882, which initially took a strong Tory line in politics. It was founded by Hugh Fraser and William Maginn in 1830 and loosely direc ...

'' found the poem "consummately lovely", with an epic dignity to its characters, and the ''

Monthly Repository The ''Monthly Repository'' was a British monthly Unitarian periodical which ran between 1806 and 1838. In terms of editorial policy on theology, the ''Repository'' was largely concerned with rational dissent. Considered as a political journal, i ...

s reviewer saw it as "a beautiful completion and building up into an entire unity of the author's two former poems...While, as in all Wordsworth's compositions, the power of the scenery is over every verse, the effect is much enhanced by the view afforded us of the mode in which one great poet thought and felt of another." ''

Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine ''Blackwood's Magazine'' was a British magazine and miscellany printed between 1817 and 1980. It was founded by publisher William Blackwood and originally called the ''Edinburgh Monthly Magazine'', but quickly relaunched as ''Blackwood's Edinbu ...

'' spoke of the "perfect beauty" of all three Yarrow poems. J. G. Lockhart, Scott's son-in-law, considered that Wordsworth had "connected his name to all time" with the Yarrow in these three poems.

Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (; 6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's ...

was, according to his son, "always greatly moved by 'Yarrow Revisited'". John Campbell Shairp agreed with Wordsworth's own view that "There is too much pressure of fact for these verses to harmonise, as much as I could wish, with the two preceding poems", but nevertheless considered it one of the best works in Wordsworth's later manner, inferior only to the finest of the ''

Lyrical Ballads ''Lyrical Ballads, with a Few Other Poems'' is a collection of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798 and generally considered to have marked the beginning of the English Romantic movement in literature. ...

'', and valuable also as a record of his friendship with Scott. Alexander Lamont, writing in '' The Sunday Magazine'', acknowledged this biographical interest but found it greatly inferior to the two earlier Yarrow poems in poetic art. There was similar diversity of opinion among 20th-century critics. Scott's biographer Edgar Johnson called it "twaddling moralistic doggerel", though Donald Sultana felt that that did not do this "moving lyric" justice. Mary Moorman, like Shairp, agreed with Wordsworth's own misgivings about the poem, while also being charmed by the picture it presented of two poets finding happiness for a few hours in spite of age and sickness. Kenneth R. Johnston thought it a powerful tribute to the power of poetry, rivalling the first poem in the sequence in a way in which "Yarrow Visited" did not. Stephen Gill flatly contradicted Wordsworth's remarks on "Yarrow Revisited": "It is the pressure of fact against the consolations of fancy which shapes the poet's meditation and makes it so poignant." It is, he wrote, a strong poem which, in its final lines, sums up the Yarrow sequence and "reaffirm the rewards both of art and friendship".

Footnotes

References

* * * * * * * * * * * *

External links

Full text of the poems
at Hello Poetry
Full text of the poems
at the

Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yarrow poems, The 1803 poems 1814 poems 1831 poems Poetry by William Wordsworth Sequels Cultural depictions of Walter Scott Works about Scotland Yarrow Valley