This walk and conversation took place in October 1836.  If any one is surprised that Wordsworth, supposing him to have been then looking into the very dell on which he wrote the above poem in 1800, did not name it to Mr. Coleridge, he must remember that he was not in the habit of speaking of the places he had memorialised in verse, and that in 1836 his “Sister Emmeline” had for a year been a confirmed invalid at Rydal.  I have repeatedly followed Easdale beck all the way up from its junction with the Rothay to the Tarn, and found no spot corresponding so closely to the realistic detail of this poem as the one suggested by Dr. Cradock.  There are two places further up the dale where the “sallies of glad sound” such as are referred to in the poem, are even more distinctly audible; but they are not at “a sudden turning,” as is the spot above Goody Bridge.  If one leaves the Easdale road at this bridge, and keeps to the side of the beck for a few hundred yards, till he reaches the turning,—­especially if it be a bright April morning, such as that described in the poem,—­and remembers that this path by the brook was a favourite resort of Wordsworth and his sister, the probability of Dr. Cradock’s suggestion will be apparent.  Lady Richardson, who knew the place, and appreciated the poem as thoroughly as any of Wordsworth’s friends, told me that she concurred in this identification of the “dell.”—­Ed.

* * * * *

TO JOANNA

Composed 1800.—­Published 1800

[Written at Grasmere.  The effect of her laugh is an extravagance, though the effect of the reverberation of voices in some parts of the mountains is very striking.  There is, in ‘The Excursion’, an allusion to the bleat of a lamb thus re-echoed, and described without any exaggeration, as I heard it, on the side of Stickle Tarn, from the precipice that stretches on to Langdale Pikes.—­I.F.]

  Amid the smoke of cities did you pass
  The time [1] of early youth; and there you learned,
  From years of quiet industry, to love
  The living Beings by your own fire-side,
  With such a strong devotion, that your heart 5
  Is slow to meet [2] the sympathies of them
  Who look upon the hills with tenderness,
  And make dear friendships with the streams and groves. 
  Yet we, who are transgressors in this kind,
  Dwelling retired in our simplicity 10
  Among the woods and fields, we love you well,
  Joanna! and I guess, since you have been
  So distant from us now for two long years,
  That you will gladly listen to discourse,
  However trivial, if you thence be taught [3] 15
  That they, with whom you once were happy, talk
  Familiarly of you and of old times.