Envoi

Abstract

The epigraph is Southey’s every line; for God’s sake, reader, take it not for mine. When the lines appear transplanted in Don Juan, they point to the difference celebrity makes. Southey’s poet has retreated from the world to a contemplative solitude. He appears as a vatic, God-like figure (‘The voice of the Lord is upon the waters’, Ps 29.3) whose power over his readers is partly a function of his separation from them. Not caring for the world’s opinion, he is free to tell the world eternal truths in poetry of lasting merit. He casts his book upon the waters like a message in a bottle to be found washed up in another time and place. His audience, he imagines, knows nothing of the poet, but his readers recognise the value of the poem and the vein of truth it contains. Between the poet and ‘the world’ lies the ocean — a black box that conveys the poem to its audience through mysterious and inscrutable channels. To send a poem out into the world, Southey suggests, is to bid it farewell in the confidence that — somewhere, somehow — discerning readers will find it. True worth will receive its due in the end.

‘Go, little book, from this my solitude!

I cast thee on the waters, go thy ways!

And if, as I believe, thy vein be good,

The world will find thee after many days. ’

(Don Juan, 1. 222)