Then will hang on every stalk,
Each within the leafy bower;
And for that promise spare the flower!"
An incident showing the tender sensibility of her nature when a child is also deserving of special mention. In a note to the "Second Evening Voluntary," Wordsworth says: "My sister, when she first heard the voice of the sea from this point (the high ground on the coast of Cumberland overlooking Whitehaven and the sea beyond it) and beheld the sea spread before her, burst into tears. Our family then lived at Cockermouth, and this fact was often mentioned among us as indicating the sensibility for which she was so remarkable."
The death of their mother was, however, the signal for separation. Her brother William was sent to school at Hawkshead, in North Lancashire, and Dorothy went to reside with her maternal grandfather at Penrith. Subsequently, during her brother's school and college days, we are informed that she lived chiefly at Halifax with her cousin, occasionally making lengthened visits at Forncett, to her cousin, Dr. Cookson, Canon of Windsor. Although they were in this way for some years deprived of each other's society, except during occasional college vacations, they were not forgotten by each other, and their early love did not grow cold. Wordsworth, having gone to Cambridge in 1787, during one of his early vacations visited his relations at Penrith, when he was for a short period restored to his sister's society. In his autobiographical poem, "The Prelude," he has thus recorded the fact:—
"In summer, making quest for works of art,
Or scenes renowned for beauty, I explored
That streamlet whose blue current works its way
Between romantic Dovedale's spiry rocks;
Pried into Yorkshire dales, or hidden tracts