Part 9

_Friday Morning._--A very cold sunshiny frost. I wrote _The Pedlar_, and finished it before I went to Mrs. Simpson's to drink tea. Miss S. at Keswick, but she came home. Mrs. Jameson came in and stayed supper. Fletcher's carts went past and I let them go with William's letter. Mr. B. S. came nearly home with me. I found letters from Wm., Mary, and Coleridge. I wrote to C. Sat up late, and could not fall asleep when I went to bed.

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_Sunday Morning._--A very fine, clear frost. I stitched up _The Pedlar_; wrote out _Ruth_; read it with the alterations, then wrote Mary H. Read a little German, ... and in came William, I did not expect him till to-morrow. How glad I was. After we had talked about an hour, I gave him his dinner. We sate talking and happy. He brought two new stanzas of _Ruth_....

_Monday Morning._--A soft rain and mist. We walked to Rydale for letters. The Vale looked very beautiful in excessive simplicity, yet, at the same time, in uncommon obscurity. The Church stood alone--mountains behind. The meadows looked calm and rich, bordering on the still lake. Nothing else to be seen but lake and island....

On Friday evening the moon hung over the northern side of the highest point of Silver How, like a gold ring snapped in two, and shaven off at the ends. Within this ring lay the circle of the round moon, as distinctly to be seen as ever the enlightened moon is. William had observed the same appearance at Keswick, perhaps at the very same moment, hanging over the Newland Fells. Sent off a letter to Mary H., also to Coleridge, and Sara, and rewrote in the evening the alterations of _Ruth_, which we sent off at the same time.

_Tuesday Morning._--William was reading in Ben Jonson. He read me a beautiful poem on Love.... We sate by the fire in the evening, and read _The Pedlar_ over. William worked a little, and altered it in a few places....

_Wednesday._-- ... Wm. read in Ben Jonson in the morning. I read a little German. We then walked to Rydale. No letters. They are slashing away in Benson's wood. William has since tea been talking about publishing the Yorkshire Wolds Poem with _The Pedlar_.

_Thursday._--A fine morning. William worked at the poem of _The Singing Bird_.[54] Just as we were sitting down to dinner we heard Mr. Clarkson's voice. I ran down, William followed. He was so finely mounted that William was more intent upon the horse than the rider, an offence easily forgiven, for Mr. Clarkson was as proud of it himself as he well could be....

[Footnote 54: First published in 1807, under the title of _The Sailor's Mother_.--ED.]

_Friday._--A very fine morning. We went to see Mr. Clarkson off. The sun shone while it rained, and the stones of the walls and the pebbles on the road glittered like silver.... William finished his poem of _The Singing Bird_. In the meantime I read the remainder of Lessing. In the evening after tea William wrote _Alice Fell_. He went to bed tired, with a wakeful mind and a weary body....

_Saturday Morning._--It was as cold as ever it has been all winter, very hard frost.... William finished _Alice Fell_, and then wrote the poem of _The Beggar Woman_, taken from a woman whom I had seen in May (now nearly two years ago) when John and he were at Gallow Hill. I sate with him at intervals all the morning, took down his stanzas, etc.... After tea I read to William that account of the little boy belonging to the tall woman, and an unlucky thing it was, for he could not escape from those very words, and so he could not write the poem. He left it unfinished, and went tired to bed. In our walk from Rydale he had got warmed with the subject, and had half cast the poem.

_Sunday Morning._--William ... got up at nine o'clock, but before he rose he had finished _The Beggar Boy_, and while we were at breakfast ... he wrote the poem _To a Butterfly_! He ate not a morsel, but sate with his shirt neck unbuttoned, and his waistcoat open while he did it. The thought first came upon him as we were talking about the pleasure we both always felt at the sight of a butterfly. I told him that I used to chase them a little, but that I was afraid of brushing the dust off their wings, and did not catch them. He told me how he used to kill all the white ones when he went to school because they were Frenchmen.... I wrote it down and the other poems, and I read them all over to him.... William began to try to alter _The Butterfly_, and tired himself....

_Monday Morning._--We sate reading the poems, and I read a little German.... During W.'s absence a sailor who was travelling from Liverpool to Whitehaven called, he was faint and pale when he knocked at the door--a young man very well dressed. We sate by the kitchen fire talking with him for two hours. He told us interesting stories of his life. His name was Isaac Chapel. He had been at sea since he was 15 years old. He was by trade a sail-maker. His last voyage was to the coast of Guinea. He had been on board a slave ship, the captain's name Maxwell, where one man had been killed, a boy put to lodge with the pigs and was half eaten, set to watch in the hot sun till he dropped down dead. He had been away in North America and had travelled thirty days among the Indians, where he had been well treated. He had twice swam from a King's ship in the night and escaped. He said he would rather be in hell than be pressed. He was now going to wait in England to appear against Captain Maxwell. "O he's a Rascal, Sir, he ought to be put in the papers!" The poor man had not been in bed since Friday night. He left Liverpool at 2 o'clock on Saturday morning; he had called at a farm house to beg victuals and had been refused. The woman said she would give him nothing. "Won't you? Then I can't help it." He was excessively like my brother John.

_Tuesday._-- ... William went up into the orchard, ... and wrote a part of _The Emigrant Mother_. After dinner I read him to sleep. I read Spenser.... We walked to look at Rydale. The moon was a good height above the mountains. She seemed far distant in the sky. There were two stars beside her, that twinkled in and out, and seemed almost like butterflies in motion and lightness. They looked to be far nearer to us than the moon.

_Wednesday._--William went up into the orchard and finished the poem. I went and sate with W. and walked backwards and forwards in the orchard till dinner time. He read me his poem. I read to him, and my Beloved slept. A sweet evening as it had been a sweet day, and I walked quietly along the side of Rydale lake with quiet thoughts--the hills and the lake were still--the owls had not begun to hoot, and the little birds had given over singing. I looked before me and saw a red light upon Silver How as if coming out of the vale below,

There was a light of most strange birth, A light that came out of the earth, And spread along the dark hill-side.

Thus I was going on when I saw the shape of my Beloved in the road at a little distance. We turned back to see the light but it was fading--almost gone. The owls hooted when we sate on the wall at the foot of White Moss; the sky broke more and more, and we saw the moon now and then. John Gill passed us with his cart; we sate on. When we came in sight of our own dear Grasmere, the vale looked fair and quiet in the moonshine, the Church was there and all the cottages. There were huge slow-travelling clouds in the sky, that threw large masses of shade upon some of the mountains. We walked backwards and forwards, between home and Olliff's, till I was tired. William kindled, and began to write the poem. We carried cloaks into the orchard, and sate a while there. I left him, and he nearly finished the poem. I was tired to death, and went to bed before him. He came down to me, and read the poem to me in bed. A sailor begged here to-day, going to Glasgow. He spoke cheerfully in a sweet tone.

_Thursday._--Rydale vale was full of life and motion. The wind blew briskly, and the lake was covered all over with bright silver waves, that were there each the twinkling of an eye, then others rose up and took their place as fast as they went away. The rocks glittered in the sunshine. The crows and the ravens were busy, and the thrushes and little birds sang. I went through the fields, and sate for an hour afraid to pass a cow. The cow looked at me, and I looked at the cow, and whenever I stirred the cow gave over eating.... A parcel came in from Birmingham, with Lamb's play for us, and for C.... As we came along Ambleside vale in the twilight, it was a grave evening. There was something in the air that compelled me to various thoughts--the hills were large, closed in by the sky.... Night was come on, and the moon was overcast. But, as I climbed the moss, the moon came out from behind a mountain mass of black clouds. O, the unutterable darkness of the sky, and the earth below the moon, and the glorious brightness of the moon itself! There was a vivid sparkling streak of light at this end of Rydale water, but the rest was very dark, and Loughrigg Fell and Silver How were white and bright, as if they were covered with hoar frost. The moon retired again, and appeared and disappeared several times before I reached home. Once there was no moonlight to be seen but upon the island-house and the promontory of the island where it stands. "That needs must be a holy place," etc. etc. I had many very exquisite feelings, and when I saw this lofty Building in the waters, among the dark and lofty hills, with that bright, soft light upon it, it made me more than half a poet. I was tired when I reached home, and could not sit down to reading. I tried to write verses, but alas! I gave up, expecting William, and went soon to bed.

_Friday._--A very rainy morning. I went up into the lane to collect a few green mosses to make the chimney gay against my darling's return. Poor C., I did not wish for, or expect him, it rained so.... Coleridge came in. His eyes were a little swollen with the wind. I was much affected by the sight of him, he seemed half-stupefied. William came in soon after. Coleridge went to bed late, and William and I sate up till four o'clock. A letter from Sara sent by Mary. They disputed about Ben Jonson. My spirits were agitated very much.

_Saturday._-- ... When I awoke the whole vale was covered with snow. William and Coleridge walked.... We had a little talk about going abroad. After tea William read _The Pedlar_. Talked about various things--christening the children, etc. etc. Went to bed at 12 o'clock.

_Sunday._--Coleridge and William lay long in bed. We sent up to George Mackareth's for the horse to go to Keswick, but we could not have it. Went with C. to Borwick's where he left us. William very unwell. We had a sweet and tender conversation. I wrote to Mary and Sara.

_Monday._--A rainy day. William very poorly. 2 letters from Sara, and one from poor Annette. Wrote to my brother Richard. We talked a good deal about C. and other interesting things. We resolved to see Annette, and that Wm. should go to Mary. Wm. wrote to Coleridge not to expect us till Thursday or Friday.

_Tuesday._--A mild morning. William worked at _The Cuckoo_ poem. I sewed beside him.... I read German, and, at the closing-in of day, went to sit in the orchard. William came to me, and walked backwards and forwards. We talked about C. Wm. repeated the poem to me. I left him there, and in 20 minutes he came in, rather tired with attempting to write. He is now reading Ben Jonson. I am going to read German. It is about 10 o'clock, a quiet night. The fire flickers, and the watch ticks. I hear nothing save the breathing of my Beloved as he now and then pushes his book forward, and turns over a leaf....

_Wednesday._--It was a beautiful spring morning, warm, and quiet with mists. We found a letter from M. H. I made a vow that we would not leave this country for G. Hill.[55] ... William altered _The Butterfly_ as we came from Rydale....

[Footnote 55: Gallow Hill, Yorkshire.--ED.]

_Thursday._-- ... No letter from Coleridge.

_Friday._-- ... William wrote to Annette, then worked at _The Cuckoo_.... After dinner I sate 2 hours in the orchard. William and I walked together after tea, to the top of White Moss. I left Wm. and while he was absent I wrote out poems. I grew alarmed, and went to seek him. I met him at Mr. Olliff's. He has been trying, without success, to alter a passage--his _Silver How_ poem. He had written a conclusion just before he went out. While I was getting into bed, he wrote _The Rainbow_.

_Saturday._--A divine morning. At breakfast William wrote part of an ode.... We sate all day in the orchard.

_Sunday._--We went to Keswick. Arrived wet to the skin....

_Monday._--Wm. and C. went to Armathwaite.

_Tuesday, 30th March._--We went to Calvert's.

_Wednesday, 31st March._-- ... We walked to Portinscale, lay upon the turf, and looked into the Vale of Newlands; up to Borrowdale, and down to Keswick--a soft Venetian view. Calvert and Wilkinsons dined with us. I walked with Mrs. W. to the Quaker's meeting, met Wm., and we walked in the field together.

_Thursday, 1st April._--Mrs. C, Wm. and I went to the How. We came home by Portinscale.

_Friday, 2nd._--Wm. and I sate all the morning in the field.

_Saturday, 3rd._--Wm. went on to Skiddaw with C. We dined at Calvert's....

_Sunday, 4th._--We drove by gig to Water End. I walked down to Coleridge's. Mrs. Calvert came to Greta Bank to tea. William walked down with Mrs. Calvert, and repeated his verses to them....

_Monday, 5th._--We came to Eusemere. Coleridge walked with us to Threlkeld....

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_Monday, 12th._-- ... The ground covered with snow. Walked to T. Wilkinson's and sent for letters. The woman brought me one from William and Mary. It was a sharp, windy night. Thomas Wilkinson came with me to Barton, and questioned me like a catechiser all the way. Every question was like the snapping of a little thread about my heart. I was so full of thought of my half-read letter and other things. I was glad when he left me. Then I had time to look at the moon while I was thinking my own thoughts. The moon travelled through the clouds, tinging them yellow as she passed along, with two stars near her, one larger than the other. These stars grew and diminished as they passed from, or went into, the clouds. At this time William, as I found the next day, was riding by himself between Middleham and Barnard Castle....

_Tuesday, 13th April._--Mrs. C. waked me from sleep with a letter from Coleridge.... I walked along the lake side. The air was become still, the lake was of a bright slate colour, the hills darkening. The bays shot into the low fading shores. Sheep resting. All things quiet. When I returned _William_ was come. The surprise shot through me....

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_Thursday, 15th._--It was a threatening, misty morning, but mild. We set off after dinner from Eusemere. Mrs. Clarkson went a short way with us, but turned back. The wind was furious, and we thought we must have returned. We first rested in the large boathouse, then under a furze bush opposite Mr. Clarkson's. Saw the plough going in the field. The wind seized our breath. The lake was rough. There was a boat by itself floating in the middle of the bay below Water Millock. We rested again in the Water Millock Lane. The hawthorns are black and green, the birches here and there greenish, but there is yet more of purple to be seen on the twigs. We got over into a field to avoid some cows--people working. A few primroses by the roadside--woodsorrel flower, the anemone, scentless violets, strawberries, and that starry, yellow flower which Mrs. C. calls pile wort. When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park we saw a few daffodils close to the water-side. We fancied that the sea had floated the seeds ashore, and that the little colony had so sprung up. But as we went along there were more and yet more; and at last, under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road. I never saw daffodils so beautiful. They grew among the mossy stones about and above them; some rested their heads upon these stones, as on a pillow, for weariness; and the rest tossed and reeled and danced, and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind, that blew upon them over the lake; they looked so gay, ever glancing, ever changing. This wind blew directly over the lake to them. There was here and there a little knot, and a few stragglers higher up; but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity, unity, and life of that one busy highway. We rested again and again. The bays were stormy, and we heard the waves at different distances, and in the middle of the water, like the sea.... All was cheerless and gloomy, so we faced the storm. At Dobson's I was very kindly treated by a young woman. The landlady looked sour, but it is her way.... William was sitting by a good fire when I came downstairs. He soon made his way to the library, piled up in a corner of the window. He brought out a volume of Enfield's _Speaker_, another miscellany, and an odd volume of Congreve's plays. We had a glass of warm rum and water. We enjoyed ourselves, and wished for Mary. It rained and blew, when we went to bed.

_Friday, 16th April_ (_Good Friday_).--When I undrew curtains in the morning, I was much affected by the beauty of the prospect, and the change. The sun shone, the wind had passed away, the hills looked cheerful, the river was very bright as it flowed into the lake. The church rises up behind a little knot of rocks, the steeple not so high as an ordinary three-story house. Trees in a row in the garden under the wall. The valley is at first broken by little woody knolls that make retiring places, fairy valleys in the vale, the river winds along under these hills, travelling, not in a bustle but not slowly, to the lake. We saw a fisherman in the flat meadow on the other side of the water. He came towards us, and threw his line over the two-arched bridge. It is a bridge of a heavy construction, almost bending inwards in the middle, but it is grey, and there is a look of ancientry in the architecture of it that pleased me. As we go on the vale opens out more into one vale, with somewhat of a cradle bed. Cottages, with groups of trees, on the side of the hills. We passed a pair of twin children, two years old. Sate on the next bridge which we crossed--a single arch. We rested again upon the turf, and looked at the same bridge. We observed arches in the water, occasioned by the large stones sending it down in two streams. A sheep came plunging through the river, stumbled up the bank, and passed close to us. It had been frightened by an insignificant little dog on the other side. Its fleece dropped a glittering shower under its belly. Primroses by the road-side, pile wort that shone like stars of gold in the sun, violets, strawberries, retired and half-buried among the grass. When we came to the foot of Brothers Water, I left William sitting on the bridge, and went along the path on the right side of the lake through the wood. I was delighted with what I saw. The water under the boughs of the bare old trees, the simplicity of the mountains, and the exquisite beauty of the path. There was one grey cottage. I repeated _The Glow-worm_, as I walked along. I hung over the gate, and thought I could have stayed for ever. When I returned, I found William writing a poem descriptive of the sights and sounds we saw and heard.[56] There was the gentle flowing of the stream, the glittering, lively lake, green fields without a living creature to be seen on them; behind us, a flat pasture with forty-two cattle feeding; to our left, the road leading to the hamlet. No smoke there, the sun shone on the bare roofs. The people were at work ploughing, harrowing, and sowing; ... a dog barking now and then, cocks crowing, birds twittering, the snow in patches at the top of the highest hills, yellow palms, purple and green twigs on the birches, ashes with their glittering stems quite bare. The hawthorn a bright green, with black stems under the oak. The moss of the oak glossy. We went on. Passed two sisters at work (they first passed us), one with two pitchforks in her hand, the other had a spade. We had come to talk with them. They laughed long after we were gone, perhaps half in wantonness, half boldness. William finished his poem.[56] Before we got to the foot of Kirkstone, there were hundreds of cattle in the vale. There we ate our dinner. The walk up Kirkstone was very interesting. The becks among the rocks were all alive. William showed me the little mossy streamlet which he had before loved when he saw its bright green track in the snow. The view above Ambleside very beautiful. There we sate and looked down on the green vale. We watched the crows at a little distance from us become white as silver as they flew in the sunshine, and when they went still further, they looked like shapes of water passing over the green fields. The whitening of Ambleside church is a great deduction from the beauty of it, seen from this point. We called at the Luffs, the Roddingtons there. Did not go in, and went round by the fields. I pulled off my stockings, intending to wade the beck, but I was obliged to put them on, and we climbed over the wall at the bridge. The post passed us. No letters. Rydale Lake was in its own evening brightness: the Island, and Points distinct. Jane Ashburner came up to us when we were sitting upon the wall.... The garden looked pretty in the half-moonlight, half-daylight, as we went up the vale....