Please, help to bring peace to a trouble domestic scene. My dear wife once read a poem, purporting to be by Dorothy Wordsworth, which was a pastiche of Daffodils. She cannot remeber who wrote it, what it was called, or where she read it, but now urgently needs it (goodness knows for what!!) Each line of the poem is interspersed with a parenthetical domestic problem, and the poem serves to show that Dorothy was a far better poet than her brother, but that domestic duties prevented her from achieving her true potential.
The best I can come up with quickly is The Grasmere Journals. You might get you a copy and give it to her for your next weekiversary or whatever handy occasion is up coming.
Dear RC: I was unable to find an answer to your question, but I did find a very fine Atlantic Monthly article about Wordsworth, his sister, and Coleridge.
Thanks for the links to Dot and Bill - some very interesting stuff there which I enjoyed reading. But the thingy I'm looking for isn't actually written by Dorothy - it is a modern, female (I think) writer, who is making the point (again, I think!) that Dorothy would have been noted as a better poet than her brother, if it wasn't for the fact that she had to spend all of her time looking after him. (It is a feminist dig at the supposed helplessness of men generally)
This might be worth a look, Rhuby. I couldn't access the actual text, OR register. But perhaps if you try from work, the Oxford University Press will acknowledge you as already registered. ======================================================== Volume 43: January - December 1996 Issue 1: March 1996
I've tried OUP but can't find the bit you speak of. Do you have the URL, Jackie? it sounds interesting (although rather unlikely to be what I'm actually looking for - none the worse for that, though!)
I'm sorry, I should have put it--but I'd lost my mind and was thinking it was from askjeeves, which adds its own codes: any url I've ever copied from there takes up about half the screen, and often doesn't work. But this is a nice, simple google: http://www3.oup.co.uk/jnls/list/notesj/hdb/Volume_43/Issue_01/430032.sgm.abs.html
Why Dorothy Wordsworth is not as Famous as her Brother
(Lynn Peters)
'I wandered lonely as a . . . They're in the top drawer, William, Under your socks - I wandered lonely as a - No not that drawer, the top one. I wandered by myself - Well wear the ones you can find, No, don't get overwrought my dear, I'm coming.'
'I was out one day wandering Lonely as a cloud when - Soft boiled egg, yes my dear, As usual, three minutes - As a cloud when all of a sudden - Look, I said I'll cook it, Just hold on will you - All right. I'm coming.
'One day I was out for a walk When I saw this flock - It can't be too hard, it had three minutes. Well put some butter in it. -- This host of golden daffodils As I was out for a stroll one -
'Oh you fancy a stroll, do you. Yes, all right William. I'm coming. It's on the peg. Under your hat. I'll bring my pad, shall I, in case You want to jot something down?'
I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed---and gazed---but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
The "+" is important. Found it on a personal web page. The Dorothy-William thing made for interesting reading. Maybe this William, like a famous other, receives credit for work not his own...
The doc shrugs it off. Meanwhile, many of us have been uselessly googl®ing with the same key words. Good on ya, Doc. Thanks. Can you give us an URL, or is the web page too personal?
And thank you, Rhuby, for bringing it up in the first place. Regards to yer wife n cats.
Since it turns out the poem was not written by the original poet's relative, the following is analogous:
A Parental Ode to My Son Aged Three Years and Five Months ---Thomas Hood
Thou happy, happy elf! (But stop,--first let me kiss away that tear!) Thou tiny image of myself! (My love, he's poking peas into his ear!) Thou merry, laughing sprite, With spirits feather-light, Untouched by sorrow, and unspoiled by sin,-- (My dear, the child is swallowing a pin!)
The father's pride and hope! (He'll break the mirror with that skipping rope!) With pure heart newly stamped from nature's mint, (Where did he learn that squint?) Thou young domestic dove! (He'll have that jug off with another shove!) Dear nursling of the hymeneal nest! (Are those torn cloths his best?) Little epitome of man! (He'll climb upon the table, that's his plan!) Touched with the beauteous tints of dawning life,-- (He's got a knife!)
Fair Daffodils, we weep to see You haste away so soon; As yet the early-rising sun Has not attain'd his noon. Stay, stay, Until the hasting day Has run But to the even-song; And, having pray'd together, we Will go with you along.
We have short time to stay, as you, We have as short a spring; As quick a growth to meet decay, As you, or anything. We die As your hours do, and dry Away, Like to the summer's rain; Or as the pearls of morning's dew, Ne'er to be found again.
An interesting theory that Dorothy's playing nursemaid to a couple selfish males prevented her from achieving her apparent poetic potential.But I think there is something deeper: an unwarrantedly poor self-image that kept her from realizing that potential fully or finding romance and and a life of her own.:
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