These lines were written by Wordsworth, after reading a sentence in the Stranger’s Book at “The Station,”--not a railway station!--on the western side of Windermere lake, opposite Bowness. Their poetic merit is slight, but they illustrate the honesty and directness of the writer’s mind. The Stranger’s Book at “The Station” contained the following:-- “Lord and Lady Darlington, Lady Vane, Miss Taylor, and Captain Stamp pronounce this Lake superior to Lac de Genève, Lago de Como, Lago Maggiore, L’Eau de Zurich, Loch Lomond, Loch Katerine, or the Lakes of Killarney.”-ED. My Lord and Lady Darlington, I would not speak in snarling-tone; Nor, to you, good Lady Vane, Would I give one moment’s pain; Nor Miss Taylor, Captain Stamp, 5 Would I your flights of _memory_ cramp. Yet, having spent a summer’s day On the green margin of Loch Tay, And doubled (prospect ever bettering) The mazy reaches of Loch Katerine, 10 And more than once been free at Luss, Loch Lomond’s beauties to discuss, And wished, at least, to hear the blarney Of the sly boatmen of Killarney, And dipped my hand in dancing wave 15 Of Eau de Zurich, Lac Genève, And bowed to many a major domo On stately terraces of Como, And seen the Simplon’s forehead hoary, Reclined on Lago Maggiore 20 At breathless eventide at rest On the broad water’s placid breast, I, not insensible, Heaven knows, To all the charms this Station shows, Must tell you, Captain, Lord, and Ladies-- 25 For honest worth one poet’s trade is-- That your praise appears to me Folly’s own hyperbole. 1833 TO THE UTILITARIANS These lines were written and sent in a letter to Henry Crabb Robinson, dated 5th May 1833.--ED. Avaunt this œconomic rage! What would it bring?--an iron age, Where Fact with heartless search explored Shall be Imagination’s Lord, And sway with absolute controul 5 The god-like Functions of the Soul. Not _thus_ can knowledge elevate Our Nature from her fallen state. With sober Reason Faith unites To vindicate the ideal rights 10 Of human-kind--the tone agreeing Of objects with internal seeing, Of effort with the end of Being. Wordsworth added, in the letter to Robinson, “Is the above intelligible? I fear not! I know, however, my own meaning, and that’s enough for Manuscripts.”--ED. 1835 “THRONED IN THE SUN’S DESCENDING CAR” These lines were placed by Wordsworth amongst the “Evening Voluntaries” in the two editions of _Yarrow Revisited and other Poems_ (1835, 1836); but they were never afterwards reprinted in his life-time.--ED.