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t locality I need not more minutely indicate.--ED. VARIANTS: [1] 1827. Yes! full surely 'twas the Echo, Solitary, clear, profound, Answering to Thee, shouting Cuckoo! Giving to thee Sound for Sound. 1807. [2] Whence the Voice? from air or earth? This the Cuckoo cannot tell; But a startling sound had birth, As the Bird must know full well; Only in the edition of 1807. [3] 1815. Like the voice through earth and sky By the restless Cuckoo sent; 1807. [4] _Italics_ were first used in the edition of 1836. [5] 1836. Such within ourselves we hear Oft-times, ours though sent from far; 1807. Such rebounds our inward ear Often catches from afar;-- 1827. Often as thy inward ear Catches such rebounds, beware,-- 1832. [6] 1807. Giddy Mortals! hold them dear; 1827. The edition of 1832 returns to the text of 1807. FOOTNOTES: [A] Writing to Barron Field about this stanza of the poem in 1827, Wordsworth said, "The word 'rebounds' I wish much to introduce here; for the imaginative warning turns upon the echo, which ought to be revived as near the conclusion as possible."--ED. "NUNS FRET NOT AT THEIR CONVENT'S NARROW ROOM" Composed 1806.--Published 1807 [In the cottage, Town-end, Grasmere, one afternoon in 1801, my sister read to me the sonnets of Milton. I had long been well acquainted with them, but I was particularly struck on that occasion with the dignified simplicity and majestic harmony that runs through most of them,--in character so totally different from the Italian, and still more so from Shakspeare's fine sonnets. I took fire, if I may be allowed to say so, and produced three sonnets the same afternoon, the first I ever wrote, except an irregular one at school. Of these three, the only one I distinctly remember is--"I grieved for Buonaparte." One was never written down; the third, which was, I believe, preserved, I cannot particularise.--I. F.] From 1807 to 1820 this was named _Prefatory Sonnet_, as introducing the series of "Miscellaneous Sonnets" in these editions. In 1827 it took its place as the first in that series, following the Dedication _To ----_.--ED. Nuns fret not at their convent's narrow room; And hermits are contented
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