"The sun has long been set"

Composed June 8, 1802.—Published 1807

The Poem

[This Impromptu appeared, many years ago, among the Author's poems, from which, in subsequent editions, it was excludedA. It is reprinted, at the request of the Friend in whose presence the lines were thrown off.—I. F.]

One of the "Evening Voluntaries."—Ed.

The Poem

text variant footnote line number

The sun has long been set,
The stars are out by twos and threes,
The little birds are piping yet
Among the bushes and trees;
There's a cuckoo, and one or two thrushes,
And a far-off wind that rushes,
And a sound of water that gushes,
And the cuckoo's sovereign cry
Fills all the hollow of the sky.

Who would go "parading"
In London, "and masquerading,"
On such a night of June
With that beautiful soft half-moon,
And all these innocent blisses?
On such a night as this is!

Note
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B

5

10

15

Variant 1:

1807

... and the trees;

1836

The edition of 1837 returns to the text of 1807.

Variant 2:

1835

And a noise of wind that rushes,
With a noise of water that gushes;

1807

Footnote A:

It appeared in 1807 as No. II. of "Moods of my own Mind," and not again till the publication of "Yarrow Revisited" in 1835.—Ed.

return to footnote mark

Footnote B:

Compare:

'At operas and plays parading,
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading.'

Burns, The Two Dogs, a Tale, II. 124-5.—Ed.

Note:

"June 8th (1802).—After tea William came out and walked, and wrote that poem, The sun has long been set, etc. He walked on our own path, and wrote the lines; he called me into the orchard and there repeated them to me."

(Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal.) The "Friend in whose presence the lines were thrown off," was his sister.—Ed.

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