In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal the following entries occur :"Tuesday (March 16).-William went up into the orchard, and wrote a part of the Emigrant Mother." Wednesday.-William went up into the orchard, and finished the poem. . . I went and sate with W., and walked backwards and forwards in the orchard till dinner-time. He read me his poem.”—ED.

MY HEART LEAPS UP WHEN I BEHOLD;

OR, THE RAINBOW.

Comp. March 26, 1802.

Pub. 1807.

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere.]

My heart leaps up when I behold

A rainbow in the sky:

So was it when my life began;

So is it now I am a man;

So be it when I shall grow old,

Or let me die!

The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be

Bound each to each by natural piety.

"March 26, 1802.-W. wrote the Rainbow" (Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal).

"I am informed that these lines (The Rainbow) have been cited as a specimen of despicable puerility. So much the worse for the citer; not willingly in his presence would I behold the sun setting behind our mountains. But let the dead bury their dead! The poet sang for the living. I was always pleased with the motto placed under the figure of the rosemary in old herbals—

...

'Sus, apage! Haud tibi spiro.'"

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, in The Friend, Vol. I., p. 58.--ED.

AMONG ALL LOVELY THINGS MY LOVE HAD

BEEN.

Pub. 1807.

Comp. April 12, 1802.

AMONG all lovely things my Love had been;
Had noted well the stars, all flowers that grew
About her home; but she had never seen
A glow-worm, never one, and this I knew.

While riding near her home one stormy night
A single glow-worm did I chance to espy;
I gave a fervent welcome to the sight,
And from my horse I lept; great joy had I.

Upon a leaf the glow-worm did I lay,

To bear it with me through the stormy night:
And, as before, it shone without dismay;
Albeit putting forth a fainter light.

When to the dwelling of my Love I came,

I went into the orchard quietly;

And left the glow-worm, blessing it by name,

Laid safely by itself, beneath a tree.

The whole next day, I hoped, and hoped with fear;
At night the glow-worm shone beneath the tree;

I led my Lucy to the spot, "Look here,"

Oh joy it was for her, and joy for me!

This poem-known in the Wordsworth household as The Glowworm— was written on the 12th of April 1802, during a ride from Middleham to Barnard Castle, and was published in the edition of 1807. It was never reproduced. The "Lucy" of this and other poems was his Sister Dorothy. In a letter to Coleridge, written in April 1802, he

thus refers to the poem, and to the incident which gave rise to it :"I parted from M— on Monday afternoon, about six o'clock, a little on this side Rushyford. Soon after I missed my road in the midst of the storm. Between the beginning of Lord Darlington's park at Raby, and two or three miles beyond Staindrop, I composed the poem on the opposite page. I reached Barnard Castle about half-past ten. The incident of this poem took place about seven years ago between my sister and me." In the beginning of the year 1795-seven years before

Wordsworth was at Penrith attending his friend Raisley Calvert in his last illness (having spent most of the previous year in the Lake country). In the autumn of 1795 he settled at Racedown, Dorsetshire, with his sister. The following is Dorothy Wordsworth's account of the composition of the poem :-"Tuesday, April 20, 1802.-We sate in the orchard and repeated the Glowworm, and other poems. Just when William came to a well, or trough, which there is in Lord Darlington's park, he began to write that poem of the Glowworm. He finished it about two miles and a-half beyond Staindrop. . . So much for the Glowworm. It was written coming from Middleham, on Monday, April 12, 1802."-ED.

WRITTEN IN MARCH,

WHILE RESTING ON THE BRIDGE AT THE FOOT OF BROTHER'S WATER,

[Extempore. This little poem was a favourite with Joanna Baillie.]

THE Cock is crowing,

The stream is flowing,

The small birds twitter,

The lake doth glitter,

The green field sleeps in the sun;

The oldest and youngest

Are at work with the strongest ;

The cattle are grazing,

Their heads never raising;

There are forty feeding like one!

Like an army defeated
The snow hath retreated,

And now doth fare ill

On the top of the bare hill;

The Ploughboy is whooping-anon--anon :
There's joy in the mountains;

There's life in the fountains;
Small clouds are sailing,

Blue sky prevailing ;

The rain is over and gone!

This poem, like the two preceding ones, was never altered. It was not "written in March" but on the 16th of April (Good Friday) 1802. The bridge referred to crosses Goldrill Beck, a little below Hartsop in Patterdale. The following is from Dorothy Wordsworth's Diary. It records the walk from Ullswater, over Kirkstone Pass, to Ambleside:-" Friday, 16th April (Good Friday).—When I undrew the curtains in the morning, I was much affected by the beauty of the prospect and the change. The sun shone, the wind had passed away, the hills looked cheerful. 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 three story house: trees in a row in the garden under the wall. 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, and 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, and 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 two years old; sate on the next bridge which we crossed, a single arch. We rested again upon the turf, and 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, and 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; pilewort that shone like stars of gold in the sun; violets, strawberries retired and half buried among the grass. When we came to the foot of Brother's Water, I left William sitting on the bridge, and 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, and the exquisite beauty of the path. There was one grey cottage. I

repeated the Glowworm as I walked along. I hung over the gate, and thought I could have stayed for ever. When I returned, I found William writing a poem descriptive of the sights and sounds we saw and 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 forty-two 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, and sowing; lasses working; a dog barking now and then; cocks crowing, birds twittering; the snow in patches at the top of the highest hills; yellow palms, purple and green twigs on the birches, ashes with their glittering stems quite bare. The hawthorn a bright green, with black stems under the oak. The moss of the oaks glossy. As we went up the vale of Brother's Water, more and more cattle feeding, a hundred of them. William finished his poem before we got to the foot of Kirkstone. There were hundreds of cattle in the vale.

The walk up Kirkstone was very interesting. The becks among the rocks were all alive. William shewed me the little mossy streamlet which he had before loved, when he saw its bright green track in the snow. The view above Ambleside very beautiful. There we sate, and looked down on the green vale. We watched the crows at a little distance from us become white as silver, as they flew in the sunshine; and, when they went still farther, they looked like shapes of water passing over the green fields."—ED.

THE REDBREAST CHASING THE BUTTERFLY.

Comp. April 18, 1802.

Pub. 1807.

[Observed, as described, in the then beautiful orchard, Town-end, Grasmere.]

The edition of 1857 assigns this poem to the year 1806, and it is so placed in the chronological table, in the first volume of the present edition; but, in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, I find, under date "Sunday, 18th" (April 1802), the following note :- "A mild grey morning with rising vapours. We sate in the orchard. William wrote the poem on the Robin and the Butterfly. . . . W. met me at Rydal with the conclusion of the poem to the Robin. I read it to him in bed. We left out some lines." That this was the correct date of the composition of the poem is made more evident by the note two days later :-"Tuesday, 20th.— W. wrote a conclusion to the poem of the Butterfly, 'I've watched you now a full half-hour.""-ED.