136. I wandered lonely as a Cloud. [XII.] [= ‘The Daffodils.’]

Town-End, 1804.  ‘The Daffodils.’  The two best lines in it are by Mary.  The daffodils grew and still grow on the margin of Ulswater, and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves. [In pencil on opposite page—­Mrs. Wordsworth—­but which?  See the answer to this, infra.]

137. The Daffodils. [xii.]

Grasmere, Nov. 4.

MT DEAR WRANGHAM,

I am indeed much pleased that Mrs. Wrangham and yourself have been gratified by these breathings of simple nature; the more so, because I conclude from the character of the Poems which you have particularised that the Volumes cannot but improve upon you.  I see that you have entered into the spirit of them.  You mention ‘The Daffodils.’  You know Butler, Montagu’s friend:  not Tom Butler, but the Conveyancer:  when I was in town in spring, he happened to see the Volumes lying on Montagu’s mantle-piece, and to glance his eye upon the very poem of ’The Daffodils.’  ‘Aye,’ says he, ‘a fine morsel this for the Reviewers.’  When this was told me (for I was not present), I observed that there were two lines in that little poem which, if thoroughly felt, would annihilate nine-tenths of the reviews of the kingdom, as they would find no readers; the lines I alluded to were these: 

    ’They flash upon that inward eye
    Which is the bliss of solitude.’

[These two lines were composed by Mrs. Wordsworth:  Memoirs, i. 183-4.]

138. *_The Reverie of poor Susan_. [XIII.]

Written 1801 or 1802.  This arose out of my observations of the affecting music of these birds, hanging in this way in the London streets during the freshness and stillness of the Spring morning.

139. *_Power of Music_. [XIV.]

Taken from life, 1806.

140. *_Star-gazers_. [XV.] Observed by me in Leicester Square, as here described, 1806.

141. *_Written in March_. [XVI.]

Extempore, 1801.  This little poem was a favourite with Joanna Baillie.

142. *_Beggars_. [XVIII.]

Town-End, 1802.  Met and described by me to my sister near the Quarry at the head of Rydal Lake—­a place still a chosen resort of vagrants travelling with their families.

143. *_Gipsies_. [XX.]

Composed at Coleorton, 1807.  I had observed them, as here described, near Castle Donnington on my way to and from Derby.

144. *_Ruth_.

Written in Germany, 1799.  Suggested by an account I had of a wanderer in
Somersetshire.

145. *_Resolution and Independence_. [XXII.]

Town-End, 1807.  This old man I met a few hundred yards from my cottage at Town-End, Grasmere; and the account of him is taken from his own mouth.  I was in the state of feeling described in the beginning of the poem, while crossing over Barton Fell from Mr. Clarkson’s at the foot of Ullswater, towards Askham.  The image of the hare I then observed on the ridge of the Fell.