1805
During 1805, the autobiographical poem, which was afterwards named by Mrs. Wordsworth [The Prelude], was finished. In that year also Wordsworth wrote the [Ode to Duty], [To a Sky-Lark], [Fidelity], the fourth poem [To the Daisy], the [Elegiac Stanzas suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle in a Storm], the [Elegiac Verses] in memory of his brother John, [The Waggoner], and a few other poems.—Ed.
[Contents 1805]
[Main Contents]
French Revolution
As it Appeared to Enthusiasts at its Commencement
Reprinted from The Friend
Composed 1805.—Published 1809
[The Poem]
[An extract from the long poem on my own poetical education. It was first published by Coleridge in his Friend, which is the reason of its having had a place in every edition of my poems since.—I. F.]
These lines appeared first in The Friend, No. 11, October 26, 1809, p. 163. They afterwards found a place amongst the "Poems of the Imagination," in all the collective editions from 1815 onwards. They are part of the [eleventh book] of The Prelude, entitled "France—(concluded)," ll. 105-144. Wordsworth gives the date 1805, but these lines possibly belong to the year 1804.—Ed.