A few months after the battle of Waterloo, which had so deeply moved Southey, he started with his wife, a rare voyager from Keswick, and his little daughter Edith May, on a pilgrimage to the scene of victory. The aunts remained to take care of Bertha, Kate, and Isabel, with the nine-years-old darling of all, the only boy, Herbert. With Bruges, “like a city of Elizabeth’s age—you expect to see a head with a ruff looking from the window,” Southey was beyond measure delighted. At Ghent he ransacked bookshops, and was pleased to see in the Beguinage the realization of his own and Rickman’s ideas on Sisterhoods. On a clear September day the travellers visited the battlefield; the autumnal sunshine with soft airs, and now and again a falling leaf, while the bees were busy with the year’s last flowers, suited well with the poet’s mood of thankfulness, tempered by solemn thought. When, early in December, they returned with a lading of toys to their beloved lake-country, little Edith had hardly recovered from an illness which had attacked her at Aix. It was seven o’clock in the evening by the time they reached Rydal, and to press forward and arrive while the children were asleep would be to defraud everyone of the first reward earned by so long absence. “A return home under fortunate circumstances has something of the character of a triumph, and requires daylight.” The glorious presence of Skiddaw, and Derwent bright under the winter sky, asked also for a greeting at noon rather than at night. A depth of grave and tender thankfulness lay below Southey’s joy that morning; it was twelve years since he had pitched his tent here beside the Greta; twelve years had made him feel the touch of time; but what blessings they had brought! all his heart’s desire was here—books, children, leisure, and a peace that passeth understanding. The instant hour, however, was not for meditation but for triumph:— “O joyful hour, when to our longing home The long-expected wheels at length drew nigh! When the first sound went forth, ‘they come! they come!’ And hope’s impatience quicken’d every eye! ‘Never had man whom Heaven would heap with bliss More glad return, more happy hour than this.’ “Aloft on yonder bench, with arms dispread, My boy stood, shouting there his father’s name, Waving his hat around his happy head; And there a younger group his sisters came: Smiling they stood with looks of pleased surprise While tears of joy were seen in elder eyes. “Soon all and each came crowding round to share The cordial greeting, the beloved sight; What welcomings of hand and lip were there! And when those overflowings of delight Subsided to a sense of quiet bliss, Life hath no purer, deeper happiness.