Mountain of Black Comb 281

November, 1813 282

WORDSWORTH'S POETICAL WORKS

1806

Wordsworth left Grasmere with his household for Coleorton in November
1806, and there is no evidence that he returned to Westmoreland till
April 1808; although his sister spent part of the winter of 1807-8 at
Dove Cottage, while he and Mrs. Wordsworth wintered at Stockton with the
Hutchinson family. Several of the sonnets which are published in the
"Poems" of 1807 refer, however, to Grasmere, and were probably composed
there. I have conjecturally assigned a good many of them to the year
1806. Some may have been composed earlier than 1806, but it is not
likely that any belong to a later year.

In addition to these, the poems of 1806 include the _Character of the
Happy Warrior_, unless it should be assigned to the close of the
previous year (see the note to the poem, p. 11), _The Horn of Egremont
Castle_, the three poems composed in London in the spring of the year
(April or May)--viz. _Stray Pleasures_, _Power of Music_, and
_Star-gazers_--the lines on the Mountain Echo, those composed in
expectation of the death of Mr. Fox, and the _Ode, Intimations of
Immortality_.[A] Southey, in writing to Sir Walter Scott, on the 4th of
February 1806, said, "Wordsworth has of late been more employed in
correcting his poems than in writing others."--ED.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] For reasons stated in the preface to vol. i. this Ode is printed in
vol. viii. at the close of the poems.--ED.

TO THE SPADE OF A FRIEND

(AN AGRICULTURIST)

COMPOSED WHILE WE WERE LABOURING[A] TOGETHER IN HIS PLEASURE-GROUND

Composed 1806.--Published 1807

[This person was Thomas Wilkinson, a Quaker by religious profession; by
natural constitution of mind--or, shall I venture to say, by God's
grace? he was something better. He had inherited a small estate, and
built a house upon it, near Yanwath, upon the banks of the Emont. I have
heard him say that his heart used to beat, in his boyhood, when he heard
the sound of a drum and fife. Nevertheless the spirit of adventure in
him confined itself in tilling his ground, and conquering such obstacles
as stood in the way of its fertility. Persons of his religious
persuasion do now, in a far greater degree than formerly, attach
themselves to trade and commerce. He kept the old track. As represented
in this poem, he