Coleorton), "My brother works very
hard at his poems, preparing them for the press. Miss Hutchinson is the
transcriber." In a subsequent letter from Coleorton, undated, but
bearing the post-mark February 18, 1807, she is speaking of her
brother's poetical labour, and says, "He must go on, when he begins: and
any interruptions (such as attending to the progress of the workmen and
planning the garden) are of the greatest use to him; for, after a
certain time, the progress is by no means proportioned to the labour in
composition; and if he is called from it by other thoughts, he returns
to it with ten times the pleasure, and the work goes on proportionately
the more rapidly." From this we may infer that the years 1806-7 were
productive ones, but it is disappointing that the dates of the
composition of the poems are so difficult to determine.--ED.

TO LADY BEAUMONT

Composed 1807.--Published 1807

[The winter garden of Coleorton, fashioned out of an old quarry, under
the superintendence and direction of Mrs. Wordsworth and my sister
Dorothy, during the winter and spring we resided there.--I. F.]

One of the "Miscellaneous Sonnets."--ED.

Lady! the songs of Spring were in the grove
While I was shaping beds for[1] winter flowers;
While I was planting green unfading bowers,
And shrubs--to hang upon the warm alcove,
And sheltering wall; and still, as Fancy wove 5
The dream, to time and nature's blended powers
I gave this paradise for winter hours,
A labyrinth, Lady! which your feet shall rove.
Yes! when the sun of life more feebly shines,
Becoming thoughts, I trust, of solemn gloom 10
Or of high gladness you shall hither bring;
And these perennial bowers and murmuring pines
Be gracious as the music and the bloom
And all the mighty ravishment of spring.

The title, _To Lady Beaumont_, was first given in 1845. In 1807 it was
_To the ----_; in 1815, _To the Lady ----_; and from 1820 to 1843, _To
the Lady Beaumont_.

This winter garden, fashioned by the Wordsworths out of the old quarry
at Coleorton, during Sir George and Lady Beaumont's absence in 1807,
exists very much as it was at the beginning of the century. The
"perennial bowers and murmuring pines" may still be seen, little altered
since 1807. The late Sir George Beaumont (whose grandfather was
first-cousin to the artist Sir George, Wordsworth's friend), with strong