But I shall never forget the beauty or the size of the golden feathery spikes of sweet-scented Gallium (lady's bed straw), or the wonderful odour of the self-heal, and the glory of the harebells, as I saw them carpeting the meadows near Cockley Beck, this July day, 1884; and, as I plucked the very faintly scented euphrasia (or eyebright), I wondered much which were the spring-flowers Wordsworth had in his mind that by their breath invited no caress. Would it be the buttercup, the daisy, or which? He must have had some definite flower--scentless, but not less beautiful--in his eye as he wrote Sonnet VI." (H. D. Rawnsley.)] [Footnote 438: This refers to the year 1820, and the sentence only occurs in the edition of 1820.--ED.] VII "CHANGE ME, SOME GOD, INTO THAT BREATHING ROSE!" "Change me, some God, into that breathing rose!" The love-sick Stripling fancifully sighs, The envied flower beholding, as it lies On Laura's breast, in exquisite repose; Or he would pass into her bird, that throws 5 The darts of song from out its wiry cage; Enraptured,--could he for himself engage The thousandth part of what the Nymph bestows; And what the little careless innocent Ungraciously receives. Too daring choice! 10 There are whose calmer mind it would content To be an unculled floweret of the glen, Fearless of plough and scythe; or darkling wren[FF] That tunes on Duddon's banks her slender voice. VIII "WHAT ASPECT BORE THE MAN WHO ROVED OR FLED" What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled, First of his tribe, to this dark dell[FG]--who first In this pellucid Current slaked his thirst? What hopes came with him? what designs were spread Along his path? His unprotected bed 5 What dreams encompassed? Was the intruder nursed In hideous usages, and rites accursed, That thinned the living and disturbed the dead? No voice replies;--both air and earth are mute;[439] And Thou, blue Streamlet, murmuring yield'st no more 10 Than a soft record, that, whatever fruit Of ignorance thou might'st witness heretofore, Thy function was to heal and to restore, To soothe and cleanse, not madden and pollute! VARIANTS: [Footnote 439: 1837. ... the earth, the air is mute; 1820. ] FOOTNOTES: [Footnote FF: "The 'darkling wren' was flitting from bush to bush, tuneless but happy, as I walked towards the stepping-stones spoken of in Sonnets IX., X.; and the timid little sandpiper, with its plaintive note, shot back and forward from shallow to shallow." (H. D. Rawnsley.)]