Were fastened to the affections.

I began
My story early--not misled, I trust,
By an infirmity of love for days
Disowned by memory--ere the breath of spring 615
Planting my snowdrops among winter snows: [p]
Nor will it seem to thee, O Friend! so prompt
In sympathy, that I have lengthened out
With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale.
Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch 620
Invigorating thoughts from former years;
Might fix the wavering balance of my mind,
And haply meet reproaches too, whose power
May spur me on, in manhood now mature
To honourable toil. Yet should these hopes 625
Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught
To understand myself, nor thou to know
With better knowledge how the heart was framed
Of him thou lovest; need I dread from thee
Harsh judgments, if the song be loth to quit 630
Those recollected hours that have the charm
Of visionary things, those lovely forms
And sweet sensations that throw back our life,
And almost make remotest infancy
A visible scene, on which the sun is shining? [q] 635

One end at least hath been attained; my mind
Hath been revived, and if this genial mood
Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down
Through later years the story of my life.
The road lies plain before me;--'tis a theme 640
Single and of determined bounds; and hence
I choose it rather at this time, than work
Of ampler or more varied argument,
Where I might be discomfited and lost:
And certain hopes are with me, that to thee 645
This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES TO BOOK THE FIRST

[Footnote A: On the authority of the poet's nephew, and others, the
"city" here referred to has invariably been supposed to be Goslar, where
he spent the winter of 1799. Goslar, however, is as unlike a "vast city"
as it is possible to conceive. Wordsworth could have walked from end to
end of it in ten minutes.

One would think he was rather referring to London, but there is no
evidence to show that he visited the metropolis in the spring of 1799.
The lines which follow about "the open fields" (l. 50) are certainly
more appropriate to a journey from London to Sockburn, than from