An Eye Made Quiet

A Selection of Odes, Lyrics, and Sonnets by William Wordsworth

Autumn 2024

. . . with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
                  (from Tintern Abbey)

This book has been inspired by the birth of our first grandchild, Michael, in November of last year. As soon as Michael seemed to become aware of the world around him in the first weeks of his life, he looked out with intense concentration, his gaze seemingly fixing us for study. Those moments of connection were absolute, simple, and perfect, and I was reminded of Wordsworth’s ‘spots of time’ in The Prelude when everyday reality ceases to exist and time seems suspended. Everything else falls away. I felt again as if I was ‘seeing into the life of things’. With the advent of Michael I had expected joy, I imagined wonder, but not this. The natural Barbarian response to such a life-changing event is to make a book, and so that is what we are doing.

The ’spots of time’ led me to think more generally of Wordsworth’s poetry, and the poems that sprang to mind at once were first, ‘Intimations of Immortality, from Recollections of Early Childhood’, and second, ‘Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey’ – both odes that recreate and reflect upon the experiences and insights of childhood. These became the foundations for the selection. Other familiar lyrics such as ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’ and ‘Calm is the fragrant air’ followed, along with the sonnets ‘The world is too much with us’ and ‘It is a beauteous evening, calm and free’. As we developed the text, we unearthed lesser known poems that seemed to find a natural place in this selection: ‘Personal Talk’ forms a prologue introduction to the whole, and ‘Most sweet it is with uplifted eyes’, an epilogue. The goal with this, as with all the great texts we have chosen to revisit in Barbarian editions of the classics, is to refresh and explore what is new in the remembered and to discover the unknown in the familiar.

To provide a visual accent to the text pages, we composed a number of arrangements of type flowers designed by Vance Gerry late in his life. As well as being the proprietor of the Weather Bird Press, Gerry worked in the Disney animation studios on such films as The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, and The Lion King. It seemed fitting that his glad type flowers should decorate a book celebrating childhood. His flowers also form the multi-coloured pattern of the printed cover papers.

In a world that often seems ‘too much with us’, poetry can be a balm to the spirit. If we read with an eye and mind made quiet, we can remind ourselves that a field of daffodils, an inquisitive butterfly, or a sweet fragrance in the air can bring calm and a sense of balance to our lives. All of this I remembered in Michael’s eyes.

JAN ELSTED

TWO STATES: 100 copies. Small Crown quarto: 10 by 7 inches [254 by 177.8]. 56 pages. Hand-set in Garamond and Van Dijck and printed in blue, deep yellow, green, and black with Strauss for display and Vance Gerry’s type flowers for decorative accent. The 50 copies of the DELUXE EDITION are printed on the last of our stock of 1930’s vintage Turkey Mill mouldmade for the poems, and Zerkall rough cream for the preliminary pages and Afterword; they will be bound in half blue Japanese silk with a pattern paper printed with strip rule and type flowers in three colours, and presented in a deep yellow cloth slipcase. The 50 copies of the REGULAR EDITION are printed on Zerkall smooth white mouldmade and bound in the same half cloth and printed paper with no slipcase. Both states will have a printed spine label.
PRICES: DELUXE: C$725.00; REGULAR: C$595.

RESERVATIONS are RECOMMENDED. Visit our Ordering page to place an order for this title.