Alice Fell by William Wordsworth

Alice Fell by William Wordsworth

The Post-boy drove with fierce career,
For threat'ning clouds the moon had drowned;
When, as we hurried on, me ear
Was smitten with a startling sound.

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 call'd out;
He stopped his horses at the word,
But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout,
Nor aught else like it, could be heard.

The boy then smacked his whip, and fast
The horses scampered through the rain;
But hearing soon upon the blast
The cry, I bade him halt again.

Forthwith alighting on the ground,
"Whence comes," said I, "this piteous moan?"
And there a little Girl I found,
Sitting behind the chaise, alone

"My cloak!" no other word she spake,
But loud and bitterly she wept,
As if her innocent heart would break;
And down from off her seat she leapt.

"What ails you, Child?" --- she sobbed, "Look here!"
I saw it in the wheel entangled,
A weatherbeaten rag as e'er
From any garden scare-crow dangled.

There, twisted between nave and spoke,
It hung, nor could at once be freed;
But our joint pains unloosed the cloak;
A miserable rag indeed!

"And whither are you going, child,
To-night along these lonesome ways?"
"To Durham" answer'd she half wild ---
"Then come with me into the chaise."

Insensible to all relief
Sat the poor girl and forth did send
Sob after sob, as if her grief
Could never, never, have an end.

"My Child, in Durham do you dwell?"
She checked herself in her distress,
And said, "My name is Alice Fell;
I'm fatherless and motherless."

"And I to Durham, Sir, belong."
Again, as if the thought would choke
Her very heart, her grief grew strong;
And all was for her tattered cloak!

The chaise drove on; our journey's end
Was nigh; and, sitting by my side,
As if she had lost her only friend
She wept, nor would be pacified.

Up to the tavern-door we post;
Of Alice and her grief I told;
And I gave money to the host,
To buy a new cloak for the old.

"And let it be of duffil grey,
As warm a cloak as man can sell!"
Proud Creature was she the next day,
The little orphan, Alice Fell!

William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

The above poem was written in 1802. It is based on a story that Dorothy Wordsworth tells in her journal on 16th February 1802: 'Mr Graham said he wished Wm 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 the 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 with some respectable people in the town to buy her a new cloak.'