2. Samuel Daniel's long poem Musophilits: Con- 3. For a journey to Keswick, to visit Coleridge. taining a General Defense of Learning (1599).
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39 6 / DOROTHY WORDSWORTH
suppose the wind of Wednesday night. I read German after my return till tea time. After tea I worked & read the LB, enchanted with the Idiot Boy. Wrote to Wm then went to Bed. It snowed when I went to Bed.
>* s $
Monday [Mar. 22]. A rainy day?William very poorly. Mr Luff came in after dinner & brought us 2 letters from Sara H. & one from poor Annette. I read Sara's letters while he was here. I finished my letters to M. & S. & wrote to my Br Richard. We talked a good deal about C. & other interesting things. We resolved to see Annette, & that Wm should go to Mary.4 We wrote to Coleridge not to expect us till Thursday or Friday.
Tuesday [Mar. 23]. A mild morning William worked at the Cuckow poem.5 I sewed beside him. After dinner he slept I read German, & at the closing in of day went to sit in the Orchard?he came to me, & walked backwards & forwards. We talked about C?Wm repeated the poem to me?I left him there & in 20 minutes he came in, rather tired with attempting to write?he is now reading Ben Jonson I am going to read German it is about 10 o'clock, a quiet night. The fire flutters & the watch ticks I hear nothing else save the Breathing of my Beloved & he now & then pushes his book forward & turns over a leaf. Fletcher is not come home. No letter from C.
* $ $ Thursday [Apr.] 15th. It was a threatening misty morning?but mild. We set off after dinner from Eusemere?Mrs Clarkson went a short way with us but turned back. The wind was furious & we thought we must have returned. We first rested in the large Boat-house, then under a furze Bush opposite Mr Clarksons, saw the plough going in the field. The wind seized our breath the Lake was rough. There was a Boat by itself floating in the middle of the Bay below Water Millock?We rested again in the Water Millock Lane. The hawthorns are black & green, the birches here & there greenish but there is yet more of purple to be seen on the Twigs. We got over into a field to avoid some cows?people working, a few primroses by the roadside, wood-sorrel flower, the anemone, scentless violets, strawberries, & that starry yellow flower which Mrs C calls pile wort. When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side.6 We fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore & that the little colony had so sprung up?But as we went along there were more & yet more & at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about & about them, some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness & the rest tossed & reeled & danced & seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake, they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here & there a little knot & a few stragglers a few yards higher up but they were so few as not to disturb the
4. It had been arranged several months earlier that from his family, or from Mary Hutchinson. William was to marry Mary Hutchinson ('Sara H' 5. 'To the Cuckoo.'
is Mary's sister, with whom Coleridge had fallen in 6. William did not compose his poem on the daf
love). Now the Wordsworths resolve to go to fodils, 'I wandered lonely as a cloud,' until two
France to settle affairs with Annette Vallon, years later. Comparison with the poem will show
mother of William's daughter, Caroline. William how extensive was his use of Dorothy's prose
did not conceal the facts of his early love affair description (see p. 305).
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THE GRASMERE JOURNALS / 397
simplicity & unity & life of that one busy highway?We rested again & again. The Bays were stormy & we heard the waves at different distances & in the middle of the water like the sea?Rain came on, we were wet when we reached Luffs but we called in. Luckily all was chearless & gloomy so we faced the storm?-we must have been wet if we had waited?put on dry clothes at Dobson's. I was very kindly treated by a young woman, the Landlady looked sour but it is her way. She gave us a goodish supper. Excellent ham & potatoes. We paid 7/ when we came away. William was sitting by a bright fire when I came downstairs. He soon made his way to the Library piled up in a corner of the window. He brought out a volume of Enfield's Speaker,7 another miscellany, & an odd volume of Congreve's plays. We had a glass of warm rum & water?We enjoyed ourselves & wished for Mary. It rained & blew when we went to bed. NB Deer in Gowbarrow park like skeletons.
Friday 16th April (Good Friday). When I undrew my curtains in the morning, I was much affected by the beauty of the prospect & the change. The sun shone, the wind has passed away, the hills looked chearful, the river was very bright as it flowed into the lake. The Church rises up behind a little knot of Rocks, the steeple not so high as an ordinary 3 story house. Bees, in a row in the garden under the wall. After Wm had shaved we set forward. The valley is at first broken by little rocky woody knolls that make retiring places, fairy valleys in the vale, the river winds along under these hills travelling not in a bustle but not slowly to the lake. We saw a fisherman in the flat meadow on the other side of the water. He came towards us & threw his line over the two arched Bridge. It is a Bridge of a heavy construction, almost bending inwards in the middle, but it is grey & there is a look of ancientry in the architecture of it that pleased me. As we go on the vale opens out more into one vale with somewhat of a cradle Bed. Cottages with groups of trees on the side of the hills. We passed a pair of twin Children 2 years old?& Sate on the next bridge which we crossed a single arch. We rested again upon the Turf & looked at the same Bridge. We observed arches in the water occasioned by the large stones sending it down in two streams?a Sheep came plunging through the river, stumbled up the Bank & passed close to us, it had been frightened by an insignificant little Dog on the other side, its fleece dropped a glittering shower under its belly?Primroses by the roadside, pile wort that shone like stars of gold in the Sun, violets, strawberries, retired & half buried among the grass. When we came to the foot of Brothers water I left William sitting on the Bridge & went along the path on the right side of the Lake through the wood?I was delighted with what I saw. The water under the boughs of the bare old trees, the simplicity of the mountains & the exquisite beauty of the path. There was one grey cottage. I repeated the Glowworm8 as I walked along?I hung over the gate, & thought I could have stayed for ever. When I returned I found William writing a poem descriptive of the sights & sounds we saw & heard. There was the gentle flowing of the stream, the glittering lively lake, green fields without a living creature to be seen on them, behind us, a flat pasture with 42 cattle feeding to our left the road leading to the hamlet, no smoke there, the sun shone on the bare roofs. The people were at work ploughing, harrowing & sowing?Lasses spreading dung, a dog's barking now & then, cocks crowing, birds twittering, the snow in patches at the top
7. William Enfield's The Speaker {1774), a volume things my Love had been,' composed four days of
