To see the Trees, which I had thought so tall,
Mere dwarfs; the Brooks so narrow, Fields so small.
In these lone vales, if aught of faith may claim,
Thin silver hairs, and ancient hamlet fame;
When up the hills, as now, retreats the light,
Strange apparitions mock the village sight,
In these secluded vales, if village fame,
Confirmed by hoary hairs, belief may claim;
When up the hills, as now, retired the light,
Strange apparitions mocked the shepherd's sight.
The dog, loud barking, 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where his master points, the intercepted flocks.
That, barking busy 'mid the glittering rocks,
Hunts, where he points, the intercepted flocks;
But what to them avails the land
Which he can till no longer?
But what avails the land to them,
Which they can till no longer?
"But what," saith he, "avails the land,
Which I can till no longer?
But what avails it now, the land
Which he can till no longer?
'Tis his, but what avails the land
Which he can till no longer?
The time, alas! is come when he
Can till the land no longer.
The time is also come when he
Can till the land no longer.
"Fox Ghyll, Ambleside, 4th October 1881.
"I have been long intending to write you as to the manuscript notes and alterations in Wordsworth's poems, which you have had the opportunity of seeing, and, so far as you thought fit, of using for your edition. They came into my possession in this way. I saw them advertised in a catalogue which was sent me, and at my request the book was very courteously forwarded to me for my inspection. It appeared to me of sufficient interest and value to induce me to buy it; and I accordingly became the purchaser.
"It is a copy of the edition in six volumes, the publication of which began in the year 1836; and of the volume containing the collected sonnets, which was afterwards printed uniformly with that edition. It appears to have been the copy which Wordsworth himself used for correcting, altering, and adding to the poems contained in it. As you have seen, in some of the poems the Alterations are very large, amounting sometimes to a complete rewriting of considerable passages. Many of these alterations have been printed in subsequent editions; some have not; two or three small poems, as far as I know, have not been hitherto published. Much of the writing is Wordsworth's own; but perhaps the larger portion is the hand-writing of others, one or more, not familiar to me as Wordsworth's is.
"How the volumes came to be sold I do not know.... Such as they are, and whatever be their interest or value, you are, as far as I am concerned, heartily welcome to them; and I shall be glad indeed if they add in the least degree to make your edition more worthy of the great man for whom my admiration grows every day I live, and my deep gratitude to whom will cease only with my life, and my reason."
"has not been confined to a particular walk or an individual place; a proof (of which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to submit the poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance. The country is idealised rather than described in any one of its local aspects."[13]
"It was during a solitary walk on the banks of the Cam that I was first struck with this appearance, and applied it to my own feelings in the manner here expressed, changing the scene to the Thames, near Windsor";[14]