“Before we had crossed the Hambleton Hill and reached the point overlooking Yorkshire it was quite dark.  We had not wanted, however, fair prospects before us, as we drove along the flat plain of the high hill; far, far off from us, in the western sky, we saw shapes of castles, ruins among groves—­a great, spreading wood, rocks, and single trees—­a Minster with its Tower unusually distinct, Minarets in another quarter, and a round Grecian Temple also; the colours of the sky of a bright grey, and the forms of a sober grey, with a dome.  As we descended the hill there was no distinct view, but of a great space, only near us, we saw the wild (and as the people say) bottomless Tarn in the hollow at the side of the hill.  It seemed to be made visible to us only by its own light, for all the hill about us was dark.”

Wordsworth and his sister crossed over the Hambleton (or Hamilton) Hills, on their way from Westmoreland to Gallow Hill, Yorkshire, to visit the Hutchinsons, before they went south to London and Calais, where they spent the month of August, 1802.  But after his marriage to Mary Hutchinson, on the 4th of October, Wordsworth, his wife, and sister, recrossed these Hambleton Hills on their way to Grasmere, which they reached on the evening of the 6th October.  The above sonnet was composed on the evening of the 4th October, as the Fenwick note indicates.—­Ed.

* * * * *

TO H. C.

SIX YEARS OLD

Composed 1802.—­Published 1807

One of the “Poems referring to the Period of Childhood.”—­Ed.

  O thou! whose fancies from afar are brought;
  Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
  And fittest to unutterable thought
  The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
  Thou faery voyager! that dost float 5
  In such clear water, that thy boat
  May rather seem
  To brood on air [A] than on an earthly stream;
  Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,
  Where earth and heaven do make one imagery; 10
  O blessed vision! happy child! 
  Thou [1] art so exquisitely wild,
  I think of thee with many fears
  For what may be thy lot in future years.

  I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest, 15
  Lord of thy house and hospitality;
  And Grief, uneasy lover! never rest
  But when she sate within the touch of thee. 
  O too industrious folly! 
  O vain and causeless melancholy! 20
  Nature will either end thee quite;
  Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
  Preserve for thee, by individual right,
  A young lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks. 
  What hast thou to do with sorrow, 25
  Or the injuries of to-morrow?