but never found
  Myself so satisfied in heart before. 
  Europe is yet in bonds; but let that pass,
  Thought for another moment.  Thou art free, 10
  My Country! and ’tis joy enough and pride
  For one hour’s perfect bliss, to tread the grass
  Of England once again, and hear and see,
  With such a dear Companion at my side.

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 

1827.

  Dear fellow Traveller! here we are once more. 1807.]

[Variant 2: 

1820.

  ... that ... 1807.]

[Variant 3: 

1815.

  In white sleev’d shirts are playing by the score,
  And even this little River’s gentle roar, 1807.]

* * * * *

FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT

[Footnote A:  At the beginning of Dorothy Wordsworth’s ’Journal of a Tour on the Continent’ in 1820, she writes (July 10, 1820): 

“When within a mile of Dover saw crowds of people at a cricket match, the numerous combatants dressed in ‘white-sleeved shirts;’ and it was in the very same field, where, when we ’trod the grass of England once again,’ twenty years ago, we had seen an assemblage of youths, engaged in the same sport, so very like the present that all might have been the same. (See my brother’s sonnet.)”

Ed.]

Dorothy Wordsworth writes in her Journal,

“On Sunday, the 29th of August, we left Calais, at twelve o’clock in the morning, and landed at Dover at one on Monday the 30th.  It was very pleasant to me, when we were in the harbour at Dover, to breathe the fresh air, and to look up and see the stars among the ropes of the vessel.  The next day was very hot, we bathed, and sat upon the Dover Cliffs, and looked upon France with many a melancholy and tender thought.  We could see the shores almost as plain as if it were but an English lake.  We mounted the coach, and arrived in London at six, the 30th August.”

Ed.

* * * * *

SEPTEMBER 1, 1802

Composed September 1, 1802.—­Published 1807 [A]

Among the capricious acts of Tyranny that disgraced these times, was the chasing of all Negroes from France by decree of the Government:  we had a Fellow-passenger who was one of the expelled.—­W.  W. 1827.

  We had a female Passenger who came [1]
  From Calais with us, spotless [2] in array,
  A white-robed Negro, [3] like a lady gay,
  Yet downcast [4] as a woman fearing blame;
  Meek, destitute, as seemed, of hope or aim [5] 5
  She sate, from notice turning not away,
  But on all proffered intercourse did lay