Part III

., act I. scene iv. l. 87.--ED.

[B] Compare the lines in _The Cuckoo and the Nightingale_, vol. ii. p. 255--

I heard the lusty Nightingale so sing, That her clear voice made a loud rioting, Echoing through all the green wood wide. ED.

[C] Henry Crabb Robinson, in his _Diary_ (May 9, 1815), anticipates this return to the text of 1807.--ED.

"THOUGH NARROW BE THAT OLD MAN'S CARES, AND NEAR"

Composed 1807.--Published 1807

----"gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name."

[Written at Coleorton. This old man's name was Mitchell. He was, in all his ways and conversation, a great curiosity, both individually and as a representative of past times. His chief employment was keeping watch at night by pacing round the house, at that time building, to keep off depredators. He has often told me gravely of having seen the Seven Whistlers, and the Hounds as here described. Among the groves of Coleorton, where I became familiar with the habits and notions of old Mitchell, there was also a labourer of whom, I regret, I had no personal knowledge; for, more than forty years after, when he was become an old man, I learned that while I was composing verses, which I usually did aloud, he took much pleasure, unknown to me, in following my steps that he might catch the words I uttered; and, what is not a little remarkable, several lines caught in this way kept their place in his memory. My volumes have lately been given to him by my informant, and surely he must have been gratified to meet in print his old acquaintances.--I. F.]

In 1815 this sonnet was one of the "Poems belonging to the Period of Old Age"; in 1820 it was transferred to the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

Though narrow be that old Man's cares, and near, The poor old Man is greater than he seems: For he hath waking empire, wide as dreams; An ample sovereignty of eye and ear. Rich are his walks with supernatural cheer; 5 The region of his inner spirit teems With vital sounds and monitory gleams Of high astonishment and pleasing fear. He the seven birds hath seen, that never part, Seen the SEVEN WHISTLERS in their nightly rounds, 10 And counted them: and oftentimes will start-- For overhead are sweeping GABRIEL'S HOUNDS[A] Doomed, with their impious Lord, the flying Hart To chase for ever, on aërial grounds!

To bring all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as possible, this and the next sonnet are transferred from their places in the chronological list, and placed beside the Coleorton "Inscriptions."

I am indebted to Mr. William Kelly of Leicester for the following note on the Leicestershire superstition of the Seven Whistlers.

"There is an old superstition, which it is not easy to get to the bottom of, concerning a certain cry or sound heard in the night, supposed to be produced by the Seven Whistlers. What or who those whistlers are is an unsolved problem. In some districts they are popularly believed to be witches, in others ghosts, in others devils, while in the Midland Counties they are supposed to be birds, either plovers or martins--some say swifts. In Leicestershire it is deemed a bad omen to hear the Seven Whistlers, and our old writers supply many passages illustrative of the popular credulity. Spenser, in his _Faërie Queene_,