Note BZ — 1816
Reading edition
To the edition of 1837, and subsequent ones, Wordsworth appended the following note:—
This poem began with the following stanza, which has been displaced on account of its detaining the reader too long from the subject, and as rather precluding, than preparing for, the due effect of the allusion to the genius of Plato:—
Fair is the Swan, whose majesty, prevailing O'er breezeless water, on Locarno's lake, Bears him on while proudly sailing He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake: Behold! the mantling spirit of reserve Fashions his neck into a goodly curve; An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs To which, on some unruffled morning, clings A flaky weight of winter's purest snows! —Behold!—as with a gushing impulse heaves That downy prow, and softly cleaves The mirror of the crystal flood, Vanish inverted hill,[174] and shadowy wood, And pendent rocks, where'er, in gliding state, Winds the mute Creature without visible Mate Or Rival, save the Queen of night Showering down a silver light, From heaven, upon her chosen favourite!
In the Fenwick note to An Evening Walk, vol. i. p. 5, after describing the two pairs of swans that frequented the lake of Esthwaite, Wordsworth says: "It was from the remembrance of those noble creatures, I took, thirty years after, the picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of Dion." After quoting the note, which explains the discarding of the above stanza, Professor Henry Reed remarks, "It is a remarkable instance of the comparative sacrifice of a passage of great beauty to the poet's dutiful regard for the principles of his Art" (American edition of 1851, p. 415). Wordsworth's reasons for withdrawing the stanza are obvious; but it is perhaps not unworthy of mention that when I was editing a volume of Selections from Wordsworth, to which many members of "The Wordsworth Society" contributed, Robert Browning besought me, in the strongest terms, to restore that discarded stanza.—Ed.