William Wordsworth

Extempore Effusion Upon the Death of James Hogg

When first, descending from the moorlands,
I saw the stream of Yarrow glide
Along a bare and open valley,

Ettrick Shepherd identification

James Hogg (1770-1835), a working-class Scottish poet and shepherd. Wordsworth's guide on actual walking tours through the Scottish Borders—this isn't metaphorical companionship but real friendship across class lines.

The Ettrick Shepherd was my guide.
When last along its banks I wandered,
Through groves that had begun to shed
Their golden leaves upon the pathways,
My steps the Border-minstrel led.
The mighty Minstrel breathes no longer,
’Mid mouldering ruins low he lies ;
And death upon the braes of Yarrow,
Has closed the Shepherd-poet’s eyes :
Nor has the rolling year twice measured,

Coleridge's death timing

Coleridge died July 1834; Hogg died November 1835. 'Twice measured / From sign to sign' = two zodiac cycles, roughly 16 months. Wordsworth is tracking how quickly his oldest friends are dying.

From sign to sign, its steadfast course,
Since every mortal power of Coleridge
Was frozen at its marvellous source ;
The rapt One, of the godlike forehead,
The heaven-eyed creature sleeps in earth :

Charles Lamb reference

Lamb (1775-1834) died May 1834, before both Coleridge and Hogg. 'Frolic and gentle' captures his actual character—known for humor and kindness. He lived alone after his sister's death.

And Lamb, the frolic and the gentle,
Has vanished from his lonely hearth.
Like clouds that rake the mountain-summits,
Or waves that own no curbing hand,
How fast has brother followed brother,
From sunshine to the sunless land !
Yet I, whose lids from infant slumber
Were earlier raised, remain to hear
A timid voice, that asks in whispers,

Wordsworth's survival anxiety

Born 1770, same year as Hogg. By writing this, he's the last major Romantic poet standing. The 'timid voice' asking 'who next' is his own mortality speaking.

‘Who next will drop and disappear?’
Our haughty life is crowned with darkness,
Like London with its own black wreath,

George Crabbe invocation

Crabbe (1754-1832) died in 1832, before the others. Wordsworth shared a specific memory with him: looking out from Hampstead Heath over London. This isn't generic grief—he's recalling actual shared moments.

On which with thee, O Crabbe ! forth-looking,
I gazed from Hampstead’s breezy heath.
As if but yesterday departed,
Thou too art gone before ; but why,
O’er ripe fruit, seasonably gathered,
Should frail survivors heave a sigh ?
Mourn rather for that holy spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep ;
For her who, ere her summer faded,

The unnamed woman

Likely Wordsworth's daughter Dora, who died in 1847—but this poem was written in 1835, so he's prophesying. Or possibly his sister Dorothy, who was institutionalized. The ambiguity matters: he's mourning anticipated loss.

Has sunk into a breathless sleep.
No more of old romantic sorrows,
For slaughtered youth or love-lorn maid !
With sharper grief is Yarrow smitten,
And Ettrick mourns with her their poet dead.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Wordsworth as Last Survivor

This elegy marks a turning point in Wordsworth's life. Between 1834-1835, three of his closest friends and fellow Romantic poets—Coleridge, Lamb, and Hogg—died within months of each other. Wordsworth, born the same year as Hogg, suddenly realizes he's outlived his generation. The poem isn't just mourning; it's a reckoning with his own mortality.

The structure mirrors the deaths themselves: each stanza moves through a different loss, accelerating the pace. Notice the shift from personal memory (Hogg as guide) to abstract catalogue (Coleridge, Lamb) to existential fear ('who next will drop'). Wordsworth doesn't linger on any single grief—he's overwhelmed by accumulation. The repeated image of crossing from 'sunshine to the sunless land' is his only metaphor for death, suggesting he's too exhausted for elaborate mourning.

Memory as Concrete Evidence

Wordsworth grounds each death in a specific, shared moment rather than generalized praise. With Hogg, it's the actual walking tours through Yarrow and Ettrick. With Crabbe, it's a particular afternoon on Hampstead Heath looking over London. These aren't invented elegiac gestures—they're the poet's way of proving the friendship was real and material.

This matters because Wordsworth is defending himself against the accusation that he's simply performing grief. By anchoring each elegy in geography and shared experience, he's saying: I knew these people, not their reputations. The poem's refusal of 'old romantic sorrows / For slaughtered youth or love-lorn maid' is a deliberate rejection of conventional elegy. He's done with literary mourning. What he's facing is actual loss, and it demands a different register—one closer to confession than to craft.