Poems in Two Volumes, Volume 2 — Reading Notes

Scottish Tour and the Ballad Tradition

The tour poems open with 'Rob Roy's Grave,' which invokes Robin Hood to frame Scotland's outlaw as a figure of 'dauntless heart' and 'wondrous length and strength of arm.' The poem's stanza form and refrain ('Then clear the weeds from off his Grave') echo English balladry, yet Wordsworth inserts a philosophical argument: Rob Roy 'sought his moral creed' in 'the principles of things,' not in books. This tension between folk simplicity and reflective thought recurs in 'The Solitary Reaper' and 'Stepping Westward,' where encounters with Highland figures prompt meditations on solitude and hospitality. The excerpts do not reveal whether the tour poems form a coherent narrative, but they consistently blend observed detail—a grave, a reaper, a narrow glen—with abstract reflection. The notes mentioned in the contents may provide context, but they are not included here.

Sonnets of Public and Private Conscience

Several sonnets address political and moral issues. 'A Prophecy. Feb. 1807' envisions Germany rising against Napoleon, with Arminius as a 'Watchword' that stirs the nation to throw off its yoke. The poem's prophetic tone and direct address to 'Germans' mark a departure from the personal lyrics. More striking is the sonnet to Thomas Clarkson, celebrating the abolition of the slave trade: 'The bloody Writing is for ever torn.' Here Wordsworth praises Clarkson's 'pilgrimage sublime' and predicts 'a good Man's calm.' The sonnet form imposes discipline on these public themes, yet the excerpts also include a sonnet on an old man whose 'waking empire' is 'wide as dreams,' suggesting that Wordsworth saw the sonnet as equally suited to inner vision. The catalog subject 'English poetry' does not capture this engagement with contemporary events.

Voices of Exile and Compassion

A remarkable sequence presents a French exile in an English hamlet who befriends a neighbor's child. The poem shifts into the exile's voice: 'Dear Babe, thou Daughter of another, / One moment let me be thy Mother!' The speaker's longing for her own child left behind—'Across the waters I am come, / And I have left a Babe at home'—creates a layered portrait of displacement and maternal affection. Wordsworth frames the poem as a translation of what he 'knew, had heard, and guess'd,' acknowledging the limits of his knowledge. This self-awareness contrasts with the assertive voice of the Rob Roy poem. The excerpt breaks off before the poem's conclusion, but the existing lines show Wordsworth using dramatic monologue to explore sympathy across national and linguistic boundaries. The catalog does not hint at this cosmopolitan dimension.

Readers approaching this volume should note that the excerpts represent only a fraction of the contents listed in the table of contents, which includes poems like 'The Blind Highland Boy,' 'Power of Music,' and 'Ode.' The 'Moods of My Own Mind' section, with its short lyrics on butterflies, celandines, and sparrows, may offer a more private counterpoint to the public sonnets. Pay attention to Wordsworth's use of footnotes and epigraphs—the Latin motto on the title page promises that 'our Muse will speak to you with a weightier sound' in times to come, a claim the poems themselves test.

Wordsworth’s Moods of My Own Mind always felt like a private conversation, the quiet hum of a man listening to his own heart. I find that same gentle intimacy in Poems (1786), Volume I. — Story, Setting & Ideas, as if both books were old friends, content to sit together in the same patch of afternoon light, never needing to speak. A shared breath, truly.