WILD-FOWL The order’d troops In spiral circles mount aloft, and soar In prospect far above the denser air That hangs o’er the moist plain. Again they view The glorious sun, and while the light of day Still gleams upon their polish’d plumes--the bright Sonorous squadrons sing their evening hymn. WRITTEN IN A GROTTO Published in _The Morning Post_, March 9, 1802 I cannot affirm, with any certainty, that these lines were written by Wordsworth; but I agree with Mr. Ernest Coleridge in thinking that they were. He showed them to his relative--the late Chief Justice--who said that he did not know who else _could_ have written them, at that time. Lord Coleridge said the same to myself.--ED. O moon! if e’er I joyed when thy soft light Danc’d to the murmuring rill on Lomond’s wave, Or sighed for thy sweet presence some dark night When thou wert hidden in thy monthly grave,[357] If e’er on wings which active fancy gave 5 I sought thy golden vale with dancing flight Then stretcht at ease in some sequestered cave Gaz’d on thy lovely Nymphs with fond delight, Thy Nymphs with more than earthly beauty bright, If e’er thy beam, as Smyrna’s shepherds tell, 10 Soft as the gentle kiss of amorous maid On the closed eye of young Endymion fell[358] That he might wake to clasp thee in the shade, Each night while I recline within this cell Guide hither, O sweet Moon, the maid I love so well. 15 The shepherds of Smyrna show a cave, where, as they say, Luna descended to Endymion, laid on a bed under a large oak which was the scene of their loves. See Chandler’s _Travels in Asia Minor_. [357] Compare _To the Moon_, vol. viii. p. 15, l. 64.--ED. [358] Compare, in the “Evening Voluntaries,” _To Lucca Giordano_ (1846), p. 183.--ED. HOME AT GRASMERE The canto of Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem, unpublished in _The Prelude_ (1851), and first given to the world in 1888, is appropriately entitled “Home at Grasmere.”