"I am informed that these lines have been cited as a specimen of despicable puerility. So much the worse for the citer; not willingly in _his_ presence would I behold the sun setting behind our mountains.... But let the dead bury their dead! The poet sang for the living.... I was always pleased with the motto placed under the figure of the rosemary in old herbals: 'Sus, apage! Haud tibi spiro.'" Compare the passage in 'The Excursion' (book ix. l. 36) beginning: '... Ah! why in age Do we revert so fondly, etc.' also that in 'The Prelude' (book v. l. 507) beginning: 'Our childhood sits.' * * * * * WRITTEN IN MARCH, WHILE RESTING ON THE BRIDGE AT THE FOOT OF BROTHERS WATER Composed April 16, 1802.--Published 1807 [Extempore. This little poem was a favourite with Joanna Baillie.--I.F.] One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--Ed. The Cock is crowing, The stream is flowing, The small birds twitter, The lake doth glitter, The green field sleeps in the sun; 5 The oldest and youngest Are at work with the strongest; The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one! 10 Like an army defeated The snow hath retreated, And now doth fare ill On the top of the bare hill; The Ploughboy is whooping--anon--anon: [A] 15 There's joy in the mountains; There's life in the fountains; Small clouds are sailing, Blue sky prevailing; The rain is over and gone! 20 * * * * * FOOTNOTE ON THE TEXT [Footnote A: This line was an afterthought.--Ed.] The text of this poem was never altered. It was not "written in March" (as the title states), but on the 16th of April (Good Friday) 1802. The bridge referred to crosses Goldrill Beck, a little below Hartsop in Patterdale. The following, from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal, records the walk from Ullswater, over Kirkstone Pass, to Ambleside: