--But, see, the evening star comes forth! 45 To bed the children must depart; A moment's heaviness they feel, A sadness at the heart: 'Tis gone--and in a merry fit They run up stairs in gamesome race; 50 I, too, infected by their mood, I could have joined the wanton chase. Five minutes past--and, O the change! Asleep upon their beds they lie; Their busy limbs in perfect rest, 55 And closed the sparkling eye. The Fenwick note is inaccurate. These lines were written by Dorothy Wordsworth at Coleorton, on the eve of her brother and sister's return from London, in the spring of 1807, whither they had gone for a month--Dorothy remaining at Coleorton, in charge of the children. Previous to 1845, the poem was attributed to "a female Friend of the Author."--ED. GIPSIES Composed 1807.--Published 1807 [Composed at Coleorton. I had observed them, as here described, near Castle Donnington, on my way to and from Derby.--I. F.] One of the "Poems of the Imagination."--ED. Yet are they here the same unbroken knot Of human Beings, in the self-same spot! Men, women, children, yea the frame Of the whole spectacle the same! Only their fire seems bolder, yielding light, 5 Now deep and red, the colouring of night; That on their Gipsy-faces falls, Their bed of straw and blanket-walls. --Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours are gone, while I Have been a traveller under open sky, 10 Much witnessing of change and cheer, Yet as I left I find them here! The weary Sun betook himself to rest;-- Then issued Vesper from the fulgent west, Outshining like a visible God 15 The glorious path in which he trod. And now, ascending, after one dark hour And one night's diminution of her power, Behold the mighty Moon! this way She looks as if at them--but they 20 Regard not her:--oh better wrong and strife (By nature transient) than this torpid life; Life which the very stars reprove[A] As on their silent tasks they move![1][B] Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven or[2] earth! 25 In scorn I speak not;--they are what their birth And breeding suffer[3] them to be; Wild outcasts of society![4] See S. T. Coleridge's criticism of this poem in his _Biographia Literaria_, vol. ii. p. 156 (edition 1847).--ED. VARIANTS: [1] 1836. Regard not her:--oh better wrong and strife Better vain deeds or evil than such life! The silent Heavens have goings on;[C] The stars have tasks--but these have none. 1807.