WORDSWORTH, William (1770-1850). Autograph manuscript signed ('Wm Wordsworth'), a verse draft opening 'While mellow warble, lovely trill', n.p. [Rydal Mount], 22 June 1825.

WORDSWORTH, William (1770-1850). Autograph manuscript signed ('Wm Wordsworth'), a verse draft opening 'While mellow warble, lovely trill', n.p. [Rydal Mount], 22 June 1825.

One page, 203 x 160mm, 16 lines. Provenance: perhaps given to the writer Maria Jane Jewsbury (1800-1833, see next lot), who visited the Wordsworths in the summer of 1825; by descent from her biographer Eric Gillett (1893-1978).

A draft by Wordsworth containing the germs of two poems published ten years later: 'Ode, Composed on May Morning' and 'To May'. The first stanza, opening 'While mellow warble, lovely trill/ The tremulous heart excite', may be compared to lines forming part of 'Ode, Composed on May Morning' [cf. lines 13-16 of the version published in Yarrow Revisited, 1835], while the second stanza, which begins 'Season of Fancy and of Hope!/ Permit not for one hour', mirrors the final verse of 'To May' [a pendant, also published in 1835].

In 1843, Wordsworth dictated an account of his life's work to his friend Isabella Fenwick; the 'Fenwick Notes' serve as an invaluable resource for Wordsworth scholars, offering explanatory detail and illuminating his sources of inspiration. Of the two May poems, Wordsworth noted: 'My daughter & I left Rydal Mount upon a tour through our mountains with Mr. and Mrs. Carr in the month of May 1826 & as we were going up the Vale of Newlands I was struck with the appearance of the little Chapel gleaming thro' the veil of half opened leaves – & the feeling which was then conveyed to my mind was expressed in the Stanza that follows [...] my intention was to write only one Poem; but subsequently I broke it into two making additions to each part so as to produce a consistent and appropriate whole'. In fact, the present draft is dated 1825 by Wordsworth, not 1826 – a memory-lapse, perhaps, or simply a reflection of the very gradual manner in which certain poems were composed.

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