Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855) ms, verse Wordsworth, Dorothy (1771-1855). - Holograph verse, titled 'Lines addressed to my Kind Friend & Medical Attendant Thomas Carr', which incorporates a version of 'Floating Island at Hawkshead, An Incident in the Schemes of Nature', copied for Isabella Fenwick, dated 19 August 1839. - 1 folded sheet, plus small scrap of paper that reads 'The Poet's Sister.' - It begins 'Five years of sickness & of pain / This weary frame has travelled o'er'. A point came, probably during her physical crisis of the winter of 1832-33, when it was feared that Dorothy might not live much longer. In a letter to Hannah Hoare, which contains a version of the poem to Thomas Carr (see WLL / Wordsworth, W and D / 7 / 538), Dorothy writes that ‘On that night Mr Carr left me because he could do no more for me, & my poor Brother went to lie down on his bed thinking he could not bear to see me die.’ Thomas Carr was the Ambleside surgeon who looked after the Wordsworth family. The composition date of this poem is given by Dorothy as c.1836. After the usual three stanzas of this work there follows a version of 'Floating Island at Hawkshead', which differs from both the published 1842 version and that in the commonplace book (DCMS 120.26). 'Floating Island at Hawkshead' was composed c.late 1820s. In The Fenwick Notes Wordsworth said of it that 'My poor Sister takes a pleasure in repeating these verses which she composed not long before the beginning of her sad illness.’ The ms has been burnt at some point and repaired. Provenance: Purchase, with the generous assistance of Dr Lucy Newlyn, Lexi Drayton, Mr Drayton, Dorothy McMillan, Michelle Levy, Susan Hedworth, and a group of visiting Road Scholars, 2013 See also: WLL / Wordsworth, W and D / 7 / 538 (Letter to Hannah Hoare, dated September 1837, which contains a version of the poem to Thomas Carr ) DCMS 120.26 ('Floating Island at Hawkshead, An incident in the schemes of Nature', Dorothy Wordsworth's commonplace book leaf 31v)

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Reference 2013.31