THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH - VOL. 2 (Completed)

ALICE FELL; OR, POVERTY [A]

Composed March 12th and 13th, 1802.--Published 1807

[Written to gratify Mr. Graham of Glasgow, brother of the author of 'The Sabbath'. He was a zealous coadjutor of Mr. Clarkson, and a man of ardent humanity. The incident had happened to himself, and he urged me to put it into verse, for humanity's sake. The humbleness, meanness if you like, of the subject, together with the homely mode of treating it,brought upon me a world of ridicule by the small critics, so that in policy I excluded it from many editions of my poems, till it was restored at the request of some of my friends, in particular my son-in-law, Edward Quillinan.--I.F.]

It was only excluded from the editions of 1820, 1827, and 1832. In the edition of 1807 it was placed amongst a group of "Poems composed during a Tour, chiefly on foot." In 1815, in 1836, and afterwards, it was included in the group "referring to the Period of Childhood."

In Dorothy Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal, the following reference to this poem occurs:

"Feb. 16, 1802.--Mr. Graham said he wished William had been with him the other day. He was riding in a post-chaise, and he heard a strange cry that he could not understand. The sound continued, and he called to the chaise-driver to stop. It was a little girl that was crying as if her heart would burst. She had got up behind the chaise, and her cloak had been caught by the wheel, and was jammed in, and it hung there. She was crying after it, poor thing. Mr. Graham took her into the chaise, and her cloak was released from the wheel, but the child's misery did not cease, for her cloak was torn to rags. It had been a miserable cloak before; but she had no other, and it was the greatest sorrow that could befall her. Her name was Alice Fell. She had no parents, and belonged to the next town. At the next town Mr. G. left money to buy her a new cloak."

"Friday (March 12).--In the evening after tea William wrote 'Alice Fell'."

"Saturday Morning (13th March).--William finished 'Alice Fell'...."Ed.

The post-boy drove with fierce career,

For threatening clouds the moon had drowned;

When, as we hurried on, my ear

Was smitten with a startling sound. [1]

As if the wind blew many ways,

I heard the sound,--and more and more;

It seemed to follow with the chaise,

And still I heard it as before.

At length I to the boy called out;

He stopped his horses at the word,

But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout,

Nor aught else like it, could be heard.