The year succeeding the time when Miss Wordsworth and her brother became resident at Alfoxden was one of glowing enjoyment and fruitful industry. We are not without a few pleasing pictures of this charmed primitive period of their lives—its profitable intercourse, its delightful rambles.
"Upon smooth Quantock's airy ridge we roamed,
Unchecked, or loitered 'mid his sylvan combs;
Thou, in bewitching words with happy heart,
Didst chant the vision of that ancient man,
The bright-eyed mariner; and rueful woes
Didst utter of the Lady Christabel—
And I, associate with such labours, steeped
In soft forgetfulness the livelong hours,
Murmuring of him who, joyous hap, was found