Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for a hermitage.Ed.
[B] Compare the line in the Ode to Duty vol. iii. p. 40—
Me this unchartered freedom tires.Ed.
PERSONAL TALK
Composed 1806.—Published 1807
[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The last line but two stood, at first, better and more characteristically, thus:—
"By my half-kitchen and half-parlour fire."
My sister and I were in the habit of having the tea-kettle in our little sitting room; and we toasted the bread ourselves, which reminds me of a little circumstance not unworthy to be set down among these minutiæ. Happening both of us to be engaged a few minutes one morning when we had a young prig of a Scotch lawyer to breakfast with us, my dear Sister, with her usual simplicity, put the toasting fork with a slice of bread into the hands of this Edinburgh genius. Our little book-case stood on one side of the fire. To prevent loss of time, he took down a book, and fell to reading, to the neglect of the toast, which was burnt to a cinder. Many a time have we laughed at this circumstance, and other cottage simplicities of that day. By the bye, I have a spite at one of this series of Sonnets (I will leave the reader to discover which) as having been the means of nearly putting off for ever our acquaintance with dear Miss Fenwick, who has always stigmatized one line of it as vulgar, and worthy only of having been composed by a country squire.—I. F.]
In 1815, this was classed among the "Poems proceeding from Sentiment and Reflection." From 1820 to 1843, it found a place among the "Miscellaneous Sonnets," and in 1845 was restored to its earlier one among the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection."—Ed.