’Waving his hat, the shepherd from the vale
    Directs his wandering dog the cliffs to scale;
    The dog bounds barking mid the glittering rocks,
    Hunts where his master points, the intercepted flocks.’

I was an eye-witness of this for the first time while crossing the pass of Dunmail Raise.  Upon second thought, I will mention another image: 

    ’And fronting the bright west, yon oak entwines
    Its darkening boughs and leaves in stronger lines.’

This is feebly and imperfectly exprest; but I recollect distinctly the very spot where this first struck me.  It was on the way between Hawkshead and Ambleside, and gave me extreme pleasure.  The moment was important in my poetical history; for I date from it my consciousness of the infinite variety of natural appearances which had been unnoticed by the poets of any age or country, so far as I was acquainted with them; and I made a resolution to supply in some degree the deficiency.  I could not have been at that time above fourteen years of age.  The description of the swans that follows, was taken from the daily opportunities I had of observing their habits, not as confined to the gentleman’s park, but in a state of nature.  There were two pairs of them that divided the lake of Esthwaite and its in-and-out-flowing streams between them, never trespassing a single yard upon each other’s separate domain.  They were of the old magnificent species, bearing in beauty and majesty about the same relation to the Thames swan which that does to a goose.  It was from the remembrance of these noble creatures I took, thirty years after, the picture of the swan which I have discarded from the poem of ‘Dion.’  While I was a school-boy, the late Mr. Curwen introduced a little fleet of these birds, but of the inferior species, to the Lake of Windermere.  Their principal home was about his own islands; but they sailed about into remote parts of the lake, and either from real or imagined injury done to the adjoining fields, they were got rid of at the request of the farmers and proprietors, but to the great regret of all who had become attached to them from noticing their beauty and quiet habits.  I will conclude my notice of this poem by observing that the plan of it has not been confined to a particular walk, or an individual place; a proof (of which I was unconscious at the time) of my unwillingness to submit the poetic spirit to the chains of fact and real circumstance.  The country is idealized rather than described in any one of its local aspects.

FOOT-NOTES.

5a. Intake (l. 49).

    ‘When horses in the sunburnt intake stood.’

The word intake is local, and signifies a mountain-enclosure.

6. Ghyll (l. 54).

    ‘Brightens with water-brooks the hollow ghyll.’

Ghyll is also, I believe, a term confined to this country; ghyll and dingle have the same meaning.