150. *_Ibid._
See the note attached. This poem was composed at Coleorton, while I was walking to and fro along the path that led from Sir George Beaumont’s farm-house, where we resided, to the Hall, which was building at that time.
151. Sir John Beaumont.
‘Earth helped him with the cry of blood’ (l. 27).
This line is from ‘The Battle of Bosworth Field,’ by Sir John Beaumont (brother to the dramatist), whose poems are written with much spirit, elegance, and harmony; and have deservedly been reprinted in Chalmers’ Collection of English Poets.
152. The undying Fish of Bowscale Tarn (l. 122).
It is believed by the people of the country that there are two immortal fish, inhabitants of this Tarn, which lies in the mountains not far from Threlkeld—Blencathara, mentioned before, is the old and proper name of the mountain vulgarly called Saddle-back.
153. The Cliffords.
’Armour rusting in his
Halls
On the blood of Clifford calls’
(ll. 142-3).
The martial character of the Cliffords is well known to the readers of English history; but it may not be improper here to say, by way of comment on these lines and what follows, that besides several others who perished in the same manner, the four immediate Progenitors of the Person in whose hearing this is supposed to be spoken all died on the Field.
154. *_Tintern Abbey_. [XXVI.]
July 1798. No poem of mine was composed under circumstances more pleasant for me to remember than this. I began it upon leaving Tintern, after crossing the Wye, and concluded it just as I was entering Bristol in the evening, after a ramble of four or five days with my sister. Not a line of it was altered, and not any part of it written down till I reached Bristol. It was published almost immediately after in the little volume of which so much has been said in these notes, the ’Lyrical Ballads,’ as first published at Bristol by Cottle.
155. *_It is no Spirit, &c._ [XXVII.]