Ed.]

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1800

Towards the close of December 1799, Wordsworth came to live at Dove Cottage, Town-end, Grasmere.  The poems written during the following year (1800), are more particularly associated with that district of the Lakes.  Two of them were fragments of a canto of ‘The Recluse’, entitled “Home at Grasmere,” referring to his settlement at Dove Cottage.  Others, such as ‘Michael’, and ’The Brothers’—­classed by him afterwards among the “Poems founded on the Affections,”—­deal with incidents in the rural life of the dalesmen of Westmoreland and Cumberland.  Most of the “Poems on the Naming of Places” were written during this year; and the “Places” are all in the neighbourhood of Grasmere.  To these were added several “Pastoral Poems”—­such as ’The Idle Shepherd Boys; or, Dungeon-Ghyll Force’—­sundry “Poems of the Fancy,” and one or two “Inscriptions.”  In all, twenty-five poems were written in the year 1800; and, with the exception of the two fragments of ‘The Recluse’, they were published during the same year in the second volume of the second edition of “Lyrical Ballads.”  It is impossible to fix the precise date of the composition of the fragments of ‘The Recluse’; but, as they refer to the settlement at Dove Cottage—­where Wordsworth went to reside with his sister, on the 21st of December 1799—­they may fitly introduce the poems belonging to the year 1800.  They were first published in 1851 in the ‘Memoirs of Wordsworth’ (vol. i. pp. 157 and 155 respectively), by the poet’s nephew, the late Bishop of Lincoln.  The entire canto of ’The Recluse’, entitled “Home at Grasmere,” will be included in this edition.

The first two poems which follow, as belonging to the year 1800, are parts of ‘The Recluse’, viz.  “On Nature’s invitation do I come,” (which is ll. 71-97, and 110-125), and “Bleak season was it, turbulent and bleak,” (which is ll. 152-167).  They are not reprinted from the ‘Memoirs’ of 1851, because the text there given was, in several instances, inaccurately reproduced from the original MS., which has been re-examined.  They were printed here, in ’The Recluse ’(1888), and in my ‘Life of Wordsworth’ (vol. i. 1889).—­Ed.

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“ON NATURE’S INVITATION DO I COME”

Composed (probably) in 1800.—­Published 1851

  On Nature’s invitation do I come,
  By Reason sanctioned.  Can the choice mislead,
  That made the calmest, fairest spot of earth,
  With all its unappropriated good,
  My own, and not mine only, for with me 5
  Entrenched—­say rather peacefully embowered—­
  Under yon orchard, in yon humble cot,
  A younger orphan of a home extinct,
  The only daughter of my parents dwells: 
  Aye, think on that, my heart, and cease to stir; 10
  Pause upon that, and let the breathing