In the Fenwick note to An Evening Walk, vol. i. p. 5, after describing the two pairs of swans that frequented the lake of Esthwaite, Wordsworth says: "It was from the remembrance of those noble creatures, I took, thirty years after, the picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of Dion." After quoting the note, which explains the discarding of the above stanza, Professor Henry Reed remarks, "It is a remarkable instance of the comparative sacrifice of a passage of great beauty to the poet's dutiful regard for the principles of his Art" (American edition of 1851, p. 415). Wordsworth's reasons for withdrawing the stanza are obvious; but it is perhaps not unworthy of mention that when I was editing a volume of Selections from Wordsworth, to which many members of "The Wordsworth Society" contributed, Robert Browning besought me, in the strongest terms, to restore that discarded stanza.—Ed.
From 1820 to 1843 Dion was classed among the "Poems of Sentiment and Reflection." In the edition of 1845 it was placed next to Laodamia among the "Poems of the Imagination."—Ed.
VARIANT:
[174] 1820.
ms.
Vanish the dusky hill, . . .
I
Serene, and fitted to embrace,