The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth — Volume 1 (of 8) · Chapter 15Her Eyes are Wild
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Written at Alfoxden. The subject was reported to me by a lady of Bristol, who had seen the poor creature.—I. F.
From 1798 to 1805 this poem was published under the title of The Mad Mother. In the editions of 1815 and 1820 it was ranked as one of the "Poems founded on the Affections." In the editions of 1827 and 1832, it was classed as one of the "Poems of the Imagination." In 1836 and afterwards, it was replaced among the "Poems founded on the Affections."—Ed.
Variant 1:
Variant 2:
Footnote A:
"For myself, I would rather have written The Mad Mother than all the works of all the Bolingbrokes and Sheridans, those brilliant meteors, that have been exhaled from the morasses of human depravity since the loss of Paradise."
(S. T. C. to W. Godwin, 9th December 1800.) See
William Godwin: his Friends and Contemporaries
, vol. ii. p. l4.—Ed.