"I grieved for Buonaparté"

Composed May 21, 1802.—Published 1807A

The Poem

[In the cottage of Town-end, one afternoon in 1801, my sister read to me the sonnets of Milton. I had long been well acquainted with them, but I was particularly struck on that occasion with the dignified simplicity and majestic harmony that runs through most of them—in character so totally different from the Italian, and still more so from Shakespeare's fine sonnets. I took fire, if I may be allowed to say so, and produced three sonnets the same afternoon, the first I ever wrote, except an irregular one at school. Of these three the only one I distinctly remember is 'I grieved for Buonaparté, etc.'; one of the others was never written down; the third, which was I believe preserved, I cannot particularise.—I. F.]

One of the "Sonnets dedicated to Liberty," afterwards called "Poems dedicated to National Independence and Liberty." From the edition of 1815 onwards, it bore the title 1801.—Ed.

The Poem

text variant footnote line number

I grieved for Buonaparté, with a vain
And an unthinking grief! The tenderest mood
Of that Man's mind—what can it be? what food
Fed his first hopes? what knowledge could he gain?
'Tis not in battles that from youth we train
The Governor who must be wise and good,
And temper with the sternness of the brain
Thoughts motherly, and meek as womanhood.
Wisdom doth live with children round her knees:
Books, leisure, perfect freedom, and the talk
Man holds with week-day man in the hourly walk
Of the mind's business: these are the degrees
By which true Sway doth mount; this is the stalk
True Power doth grow on; and her rights are these.

Note
Contents 1802
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Variant 1:

1837

grief! the vital blood
Of that man's mind, what can it be? What food
Fed his first hopes? what knowledge could he gain?

1802

... grief! for, who aspires
To genuine greatness but from just desires,
And knowledge such as He could never gain?

1815

Footnote A:

It had twice seen the light previously in The Morning Post, first on September 16, 1802, unsigned, and again on January 29, 1803, when it was signed W. L. D.—Ed.

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Note:

Wordsworth's date 1801, in the Fenwick note, should have been 1802. His sister writes, in her Journal of 1802:

"May 21.—W. wrote two sonnets on Buonaparte, after I had read Milton's sonnets to him."

The "irregular" sonnet, written "at school," to which Wordsworth refers, is probably the one published in the European Magazine. in 1787, vol. xi. p. 202, and signed Axiologus.—Ed.

Contents 1802
Main Contents