There is a noiseless water, neither rill, Nor spring enclosed in sculptured stone, nor aught MS.
There is a trickling water, neither rill, Fountain inclosed, or rivulet, nor aught MS. 1806.
... It trickles down the hill, So feebly, just for love of power and will, Yet to my mind the nameless thing is brought MS.
... It totters down the hill, So feebly, quite forlorn of power and will; Yet nameless Thing it to my mind is brought MS.
Oftener than mightiest Floods, whose path is wrought Through wastes of sand, and forests dark and chill. 1820.
Do thou, even thou, O faithful Anna! say Why this small Streamlet is to me so dear; Thou know'st, that while enjoyments disappear And sweet remembrances like flowers decay, 1820.
For on that day, now seven years gone, when first Two glad foot-travellers, through sun and shower My Love and I came hither, while thanks burst Out of our hearts ... We from that blessed water slaked our thirst. MS.
... hearts to God for that good hour, Eating a traveller's meal in shady bower, We ... MS.
In few instances is it more evident that the dates which Wordsworth affixed to his poems, in the editions of 1815, 1820, 1836, and 1845,--and those assigned in the Fenwick notes--cannot be absolutely relied upon, than in the case of the poems referring to Coleorton. Trusting to these dates, in the absence of contrary evidence, one would naturally assign the majority of the Coleorton poems to the year 1808. But it is clear that, while the sonnet _To Lady Beaumont_ may have been written in 1806, the "Inscription" _For a Seat in the Groves of Coleorton_, beginning--
Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound,
was written, not in 1808 (as stated by Wordsworth himself), but in 1811; and that the other "Inscription" designed for a Niche in the Winter-garden at Coleorton, belongs (I think) to the same year; a year in which he also wrote the sonnet on Sir George Beaumont's picture of Bredon Hill and Cloud Hill, beginning--
Praised be the Art whose subtle power could stay.
When the dates are so difficult to determine, there is a natural fitness in bringing all the poems referring to Coleorton together, so far as this can be done without seriously interfering with chronological order. The two "Inscriptions" intended for the Coleorton grounds, which were written at Grasmere in 1811, are therefore printed along with the poems of 1807; the precise date of each being given--so far as it can be ascertained--underneath its title.