[Written at Alfoxden.  Founded upon an anecdote which I read in a newspaper, of an ass being found hanging his head over a canal in a wretched posture.  Upon examination a dead body was found in the water, and proved to be the body of its master.  The countenance, gait, and figure of Peter were taken from a wild rover with whom I walked from Builth, on the river Wye, downwards, nearly as far as the town of Hay.  He told me strange stories.  It has always been a pleasure to me through life, to catch at every opportunity that has occurred in my rambles of becoming acquainted with this class of people.  The number of Peter’s wives was taken from the trespasses, in this way, of a lawless creature, who lived in the county of Durham, and used to be attended by many women, sometimes not less than half a dozen, as disorderly as himself, and a story went in the country that he had been heard to say, while they were quarrelling, “Why can’t ye be quiet, there’s none so many of you?” Benoni, or the child of sorrow, I knew when I was a schoolboy.  His mother had been deserted by a gentleman in the neighbourhood, she herself being a gentlewoman by birth.  The circumstances of her story were told me by my dear old dame, Ann Tyson, who was her confidante.  The lady died broken-hearted.  In the woods of Alfoxden I used to take great delight in noticing the habits, tricks, and physiognomy of asses; and I have no doubt that I was thus put upon writing the poem out of liking for the creature that is often so dreadfully abused.  The crescent moon, which makes such a figure in the prologue, assumed this character one evening while I was watching its beauty in front of Alfoxden House.  I intended this poem for the volume before spoken of, but it was not published for more than twenty years afterwards.  The worship of the Methodists, or Ranters, is often heard during the stillness of the summer evening, in the country, with affecting accompaniments of rural beauty.  In both the psalmody and voice of the preacher there is, not unfrequently, much solemnity likely to impress the feelings of the rudest characters under favourable circumstances.—­I.  F.]

Classed by Wordsworth among his “Poems of the Imagination.”—­Ed.

PROLOGUE

  There’s something in a flying horse,
  There’s something [1] in a huge balloon;
  But through the clouds I’ll never float
  Until I have a little Boat,
  Shaped like [2] the crescent-moon. 5

  And now I have a little Boat,
  In shape a very crescent-moon: 
  Fast through the clouds my boat can sail;
  But if perchance your faith should fail,
  Look up—­and you shall see me soon! 10

  The woods, my Friends, are round you roaring,
  Rocking and roaring like a sea;
  The noise of danger’s in [3] your ears,
  And ye have all a thousand fears
  Both for my little Boat and me! 15