THE POETICAL WORKS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH EDITED BY WILLIAM KNIGHT VOL. I 1896 CONTENTS Extract from the Conclusion of a Poem, composed in Anticipation of leaving School Written in very Early Youth An Evening Walk Lines written while Sailing in a Boat at Evening Remembrance of Collins Descriptive Sketches taken during a Pedestrian Tour among the Alps Guilt and Sorrow; or, Incidents upon Salisbury Plain Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree, which stands near the lake of Esthwaite, on a desolate part of the shore, commanding a beautiful prospect The Borderers The Reverie of Poor Susan 1798 A Night Piece We are Seven Anecdote for Fathers "A whirl-blast from behind the hill" The Thorn Goody Blake and Harry Gill Her Eyes are Wild Simon Lee, the Old Huntsman Lines written in Early Spring To my Sister Expostulation and Reply The Tables Turned The Complaint of a Forsaken Indian Woman The Last of the Flock The Idiot Boy The Old Cumberland Beggar Animal Tranquillity and Decay APPENDIX I. APPENDIX II. APPENDIX III. APPENDIX IV. APPENDIX V. APPENDIX VI. APPENDIX VII. APPENDIX VIII. PREFACE During the decade between 1879 and 1889 I was engaged in a detailed study of Wordsworth; and, amongst other things, edited a library edition of his Poetical Works in eight volumes, including the "Prefaces" and "Appendices" to his Poems, and a few others of his Prose Works, such as his 'Description of the Scenery of the Lakes in the North of England'. This edition was published by Mr. Paterson, Edinburgh, at intervals between the years 1882 and 1886: and it was followed in 1889 by a 'Life of Wordsworth', in three volumes, which was a continuation of the previous eight. The present edition is not a reproduction of those eleven volumes of 1882-9. It is true that to much of the editorial material included in the latter--as well as in my 'Memorials of Coleorton', and in 'The English Lake District as interpreted in the Poems of Wordsworth'--I can add little that is new; but the whole of what was included in these books has been revised, corrected, and readjusted in this one [1]. 'Errata' in the previous volumes are corrected: several thousand new notes have been added, many of the old ones are entirely recast: the changes of text, introduced by Wordsworth into the successive editions of his Poems, have all been revised; new readings--derived from many MS. sources--have been added: while the chronological order of the Poems has, in several instances, been changed, in the light of fresh evidence. The distinctive features of my edition of 1882-6 were stated in the Preface to its first volume. So far as these features remain in the present edition, they may be repeated as follows: