tland', in 1803: in the note to the
poem, 'At the grave of Burns', p. 382 of this volume.)

'Which _Copland_ scarce had spoke, but quickly every Hill
Upon her verge that stands, the neighbouring valleys fill;
_Helvillon_ from his height, it through the mountains threw,
From whence as soon again, the sound _Dunbalrase_ drew,
From whose stone-trophed head, it on the _Wendrosse_ went,
Which tow'rds the sea again, resounded it to _Dent_,
That _Brodwater_ therewith within her banks astound,
In sailing to the sea, told it to _Egremound_,
Whose buildings, walks, and streets, with echoes loud and long,
Did mightily commend old _Copland_ for her song.'

'Polyolbion', The Thirtieth Song, ll. 155-164.

Any one who compares this passage with Wordsworth's 'Joanna' will see
the difference between the elaborate fancy of a topographical narrator,
and the vivid imagination of a poetical idealist. A somewhat similar
instance of indebtedness--in which the debt is repaid by additional
insight--is seen when we compare a passage from Sir John Davies's
'Orchestra, or a poem on Dancing' (stanza 49), with one from 'The
Ancient Mariner', Part VI. stanzas 2 and 3--although there was more of
the true imaginative light in Davies than in Drayton.

'For lo, the sea that fleets about the land,
And like a girdle clips her solid waist,
Music and measure both doth understand;
For his great crystal eye is always cast
Up to the moon, and on her fixed fast:
And as she danceth in her palid sphere
So danceth he about his centre here.'

DAVIES

'Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the moon is cast--

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.'

COLERIDGE.

These extracts show how both Wordsworth and Coleridge assimilated past
literary products, and how they glorified them by reproduction. There
was little, however, in the poetic imagery of previous centuries that
Wordsworth reproduced. His imagination worked in a sphere of its own,
free from the trammels of precedent; and he was more original than any
other nineteenth century poet in his use of symbol and metaphor. The
poem 'To Joanna' was probably composed on August 22, 1800, as the
following occurs in Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal under that date:

"Willia