1836.

    Semblance, with straw and pannier’d ass, they made
    Of potters wandering on from door to door: 
    But life of happier sort to me pourtrayed, 1798.

    They with their pannier’d Asses semblance made
    Of Potters ... 1802.]

[Variant 59: 

1836.

    In depth of forest glade, when ... 1798.

    Among the forest glades when ... 1802.]

[Variant 60: 

1802.

    But ill it suited me, in journey dark 1798.]

[Variant 61: 

1802.

    Poor father! ... 1798.]

[Variant 62: 

1842.

    Ill was I ... 1798.]

[Variant 63: 

1842.

    With tears whose course no effort could confine,
    By high-way side forgetful would I sit 1798.

    By the road-side forgetful would I sit 1802.

    In the open air forgetful ... 1836.]

[Variant 64: 

1836.

    ... my ... 1798.]

[Variant 65: 

1836.

    I lived upon the mercy of the fields,
    And oft of cruelty the sky accused;
    On hazard, or what general bounty yields, 1798.

    I led a wandering life among the fields;
    Contentedly, yet sometimes self-accused,
    I liv’d upon what casual bounty yields, 1802.]

[Variant 66: 

1802.

    The fields ... 1798.]

[Variant 67: 

1836.

    Three years a wanderer, often have I view’d,
    In tears, the sun towards that country tend 1798.

    Three years thus wandering, ... 1802.]

[Variant 68: 

1836.

    And now across this moor my steps I bend—­ 1798.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote A:  In the ‘Prelude’, he says it was “three summer days.”  See book xiii. l. 337.—­Ed.]

[Footnote B:  By an evident error, corrected in the first reprint of this edition (1840).  See p. 37.—­Ed.[Footnote D of ‘Descriptive Sketches’, the preceding poem in this text.]]

[Footnote C:  From a short MS. poem read to me when an under-graduate, by my schoolfellow and friend Charles Farish, long since deceased.  The verses were by a brother of his, a man of promising genius, who died young.—­W.  W. 1842.

Charles Farish was the author of ’The Minstrels of Winandermere’.—­Ed.]

[Footnote D:  Compare Milton’s “grinding sword,” ‘Paradise Lost’, vi. l. 329.—­Ed.]

* * * * *

SUB-FOOTNOTE

[Sub-Footnote i:  Several of the Lakes in the north of England are let out to different Fishermen, in parcels marked out by imaginary lines drawn from rock to rock.—­W.  W. 1798.]