tinging them yellow as she passed along, with two stars near her, one larger than the other....  At this time William, as I found the next day, was riding by himself between Middleham and Barnard Castle.”

I don’t know where else to find the vague torment of thought, its way of enhancing colour and form in nature, more intensely observed.  Next day:  “When I returned William was come. The surprise shot through me.” This woman was not so much poet as crystal vase.  You can see the thought cloud and take shape.

The twin life was resumed for yet a little while.  In the same month came her descriptions of the daffodils in Gowbarrow Park, and of the scene by Brothers Water, which prove to anybody in need of proof that she was William’s well-spring of poesy.  Not that the journal is necessarily involved.  No need to suppose that he even read it.  But that she could make him see, and be moved by, what she had seen is proved by this:  “17th.—­ ...  I saw a robin chasing a scarlet butterfly this morning”; and “Sunday, 18th.—­ ...  William wrote the poem on The Robin and the Butterfly.”  No, beautiful beyond praise as the journals are, it is certain that she was more beautiful than they.  And what a discerning, illuminative eye she had!  “As I lay down on the grass, I observed the glittering silver line on the ridge of the backs of the sheep, owing to their situation respecting the sun, which made them look beautiful, but with something of strangeness, like animals of another kind, as if belonging to a more splendid world....”  What a woman to go a-gipsying through the world with!

Then comes the end....  “Thursday, 8th July.—­ In the afternoon, after we had talked a little, William fell asleep.  I read The Winter’s Tale; then I went to bed but did not sleep.  The swallows stole in and out of their nest, and sat there, whiles quite still; whiles they sung low for two minutes or more at a time, just like a muffled robin.  William was looking at The Pedlar when I got up.  He arranged it, and after tea I wrote it out—­280 lines....  The moon was behind....  We walked first to the top of the hill to see Rydale.  It was dark and dull, but our own vale was very solemn—­the shape of Helm Crag was quite distinct though black.  We walked backwards and forwards on the White Moss path; there was a sky like white brightness on the lake....  O beautiful place!  Dear Mary, William.  The hour is come....  I must prepare to go.  The swallows, I must leave them, the wall, the garden, the roses, all.  Dear creatures, they sang last night after I was in bed; seemed to be singing to one another, just before they settled to rest for the night.  Well, I must go.  Farewell.”

Next day she set out with William to meet her secret dread, knowing that life in Rydale could never be the same again.  Wordsworth married Mary Hutchinson on the 4th October, 1802.  The secret is no secret now, for Dorothy was a crystal vase.