1799. Composed in the Hartz Forest. [In pencil on opposite page—Who?]
136. I wandered lonely as a Cloud. [XII.] [= 'The Daffodils.']
Town-End, 1804. 'The Daffodils.' The two best lines in it are by Mary. The daffodils grew and still grow on the margin of Ulswater, and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves. [In pencil on opposite page—Mrs. Wordsworth—but which? See the answer to this, infra.]
137. The Daffodils. [xii.]
Grasmere, Nov. 4.
MT DEAR WRANGHAM,
I am indeed much pleased that Mrs. Wrangham and yourself have been gratified by these breathings of simple nature; the more so, because I conclude from the character of the Poems which you have particularised that the Volumes cannot but improve upon you. I see that you have entered into the spirit of them. You mention 'The Daffodils.' You know Butler, Montagu's friend: not Tom Butler, but the Conveyancer: when I was in town in spring, he happened to see the Volumes lying on Montagu's mantle-piece, and to glance his eye upon the very poem of 'The Daffodils.' 'Aye,' says he, 'a fine morsel this for the Reviewers.' When this was told me (for I was not present), I observed that there were two lines in that little poem which, if thoroughly felt, would annihilate nine-tenths of the reviews of the kingdom, as they would find no readers; the lines I alluded to were these:
'They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.'
[These two lines were composed by Mrs. Wordsworth: Memoirs, i. 183-4.]