1803

These poems were first collected, under the above title, in the edition of 1827.  In 1807, nine of them—­viz.  ‘Rob Roy’s Grave’, ’The Solitary Reaper’, ‘Stepping Westward’, ‘Glen Almain, or, The Narrow Glen’, ’The Matron of Jedborough and her Husband’, ‘To a Highland Girl’, ‘Sonnet’, ‘To the Sons of Burns after visiting the Grave of their Father’, ’Yarrow Unvisited’,—­were printed under the title, “Poems written during a Tour in Scotland.”  This group begins the second volume of the edition of that year.  But in 1815 and 1820—­when Wordsworth began to arrange his poems in groups—­they were distributed with the rest of the series in the several artificial sections.  Although some were composed after the Tour was finished—­and the order in which Wordsworth placed them is not the order of the Scotch Tour itself—­it is advisable to keep to his own method of arrangement in dealing with this particular group, for the same reason that we retain it in such a series as the Duddon Sonnets.—­Ed.

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DEPARTURE FROM THE VALE OF GRASMERE.  AUGUST, 1803 [A]

Composed 1811.—­Published 1827

[Mr. Coleridge, my sister, and myself started together from Town-end to make a tour in Scotland.  Poor Coleridge was at that time in bad spirits, and somewhat too much in love with his own dejection; and he departed from us, as is recorded in my Sister’s Journal, soon after we left Loch Lomond.  The verses that stand foremost among these Memorials were not actually written for the occasion, but transplanted from my ’Epistle to Sir George Beaumont’.—­I.  F.]

  The gentlest Shade that walked Elysian plains
  Might sometimes covet dissoluble chains;
  Even for the tenants of the zone that lies
  Beyond the stars, celestial Paradise,
  Methinks ’twould heighten joy, to overleap 5
  At will the crystal battlements, and peep
  Into some other region, though less fair,
  To see how things are made and managed there. 
  Change for the worse might please, incursion bold
  Into the tracts of darkness and of cold; 10
  O’er Limbo lake with aery flight to steer,
  And on the verge of Chaos hang in fear. 
  Such animation often do I find,
  Power in my breast, wings growing in my mind,
  Then, when some rock or hill is overpast, 15
  Perchance without one look behind me cast,
  Some barrier with which Nature, from the birth
  Of things, has fenced this fairest spot on earth. 
  O pleasant transit, Grasmere! to resign
  Such happy fields, abodes so calm as thine; 20
  Not like an outcast with himself at strife;
  The slave of business, time, or care for life,
  But moved by choice; or, if constrained in part,
  Yet still with Nature’s freedom at the heart;—­
  To cull contentment upon wildest shores,