Herald of a mighty band,

Of a joyous train ensuing,
Serving at my heart's command,
Tasks that are no tasks renewing,1
I will sing, as doth behove,

Hymns in praise of what I love!

In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal the following occurs, under date April 30:-" We came into the orchard directly after breakfast, and sat there. The lake was calm, the sky cloudy. W. began to write the poem of the Celandine. . . . I walked backwards and forwards with William. He repeated his poem to me. Then he got to work again, and would not give over." Saturday, May 1.-" A heavenly morning. We went into the garden, and sowed the scarlet beans about the house. It was a clear sky. I sowed the flowers, William helped me. We then went and sat in the orchard till dinner time. It was very hot. William wrote the Celandine. We planned a shed, for the sun was too much for us."

We have no other information as to the date of the composition of the two poems To the Small Celandine. Founding on it in the chronological table, I assigned the first of them to the 30th of April, and the second to the 1st of May. The poems resemble each other in theme and structure, and might almost stand as the first and second parts of the same poem. We may at least apply to them what Wordsworth says of his second and third poems To the Daisy, in a note to the edition of 1807: "These poems were overflowings of the mind, in composing the one which stands first in the first volume." The above was written before I had access to Miss Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal. In it I find the conjecture confirmed. "May 1st.-Wm. wrote the Celandine, second part."-ED.

All unheard of as thou art,

Thou must needs, I think, have had,

Celandine and long ago,

Praise of which I nothing know.

I have not a doubt but he,
Whosoe'er the man might be,
Who the first with pointed rays
(Workman worthy to be sainted)
Set the sign-board in a blaze,
When the rising sun he painted,
Took the fancy from a glance
At thy glittering countenance.

Soon as gentle breezes bring
News of winter's vanishing,
And the children build their bowers,
Sticking 'kerchief-plots of mould
All about with full-blown flowers,
Thick as sheep in shepherd's fold!
With the proudest thou art there,
Mantling in the tiny square.

Often have I sighed to measure
By myself a lonely pleasure,
Sighed to think, I read a book,
Only read, perhaps, by me;
Yet I long could overlook
Thy bright coronet and Thee,

And thy arch and wily ways,

And thy store of other praise.

Blithe of heart, from week to week Thou dost play at hide-and-seek;