1803.  Town-End.  I remember the instant my sister Sarah Hutchinson called me to the window of our cottage saying, ’Look, how beautiful is yon star!  It has the sky all to itself.’  I composed the verses immediately.

156. French Revolution. [XXVIII.]

An extract from the long poem on my own poetical education.  It was first published by Coleridge in his Friend, which is the reason of its having had a place in every edition of my poems since.

157. *_Yes, it was the Mountain Echo_. [XXIX.]

Town-End, 1806.  The Echo came from Nabscar, when I was walking on the opposite side of Rydal Mere.  I will here mention, for my dear sister’s sake, that while she was sitting alone one day, high up on this part of Loughrigg Fell, she was so affected by the voice of the cuckoo, heard from the crags at some distance, that she could not suppress a wish to have a stone inscribed with her name among the rocks from which the sound proceeded.  On my return from my walk I recited those verses to Mary, who was then confined with her son Thomas, who died in his seventh year, as recorded on his headstone in Grasmere Churchyard.

158. To a Skylark. [XXX.]

Rydal Mount, 1825. [In pencil—­Where there are no skylarks; but the poet is everywhere.]

159. *_Laodamia_. [XXXI.]

Rydal Mount, 1814.  Written at the same time as ‘Dion,’ and ‘Artegal,’ and ‘Elidure.’  The incident of the trees growing and withering put the subject into my thoughts, and I wrote with the hope of giving it a loftier tone than, so far as I know, has been given it by any of the ancients who have treated of it.  It cost me more trouble than almost anything of equal length I have ever written.

160. Withered Trees (foot-note).

    ‘The trees’ tall summits withered at the sight’ (l. 73).

For the account of long-lived trees, see King’s [Natural] History, lib. xvi. cap. 44; and for the features in the character of Protesilaus, see the Iphigenia in Aulis of Euripides.

161. *_Dion_. [XXXII.]

This poem was first introduced by a stanza that I have since transferred to the notes, for reasons there given; and I cannot comply with the request expressed by some of my friends, that the rejected stanza should be restored.  I hope they will be content if it be hereafter immediately attached to the poem, instead of its being degraded to a place in the notes.

The ‘reasons’ (supra) are thus given:  This poem began with the following stanza, which has been displaced on account of its detaining the reader too long from the subject, and as rather precluding, than preparing for, the due effect of the allusion to the genius of Plato.

162. Fair is the Swan, &c. [XXXIII.] (See supra, 161.)

163. *_The Pass of Kirkstone_.

Rydal Mount, 1817.  Thoughts and feelings of many walks in all weathers by day and night over this Pass alone, and with beloved friends.