ould not do without me; and
as to the man who was put in my place, no good could come out of him; he
was a man of no _ideas_.'

The fact of my discarded hero's getting the horses out of a difficulty
with a word, as related in the poem, was told me by an eye-witness.

124. _The Dor-Hawk_.

'The buzzing Dor-hawk round and round is wheeling' (c. i. l. 3).

When the Poem was first written the note of the bird was thus
described:--

'The Night-hawk is singing his frog-like tune,
Twirling his watchman's rattle about'--

but from unwillingness to startle the reader at the outset by so bold a
mode of expression, the passage was altered as it now stands.

125. _Helmcrag_ (c. i. l. 168).

A mountain of Grasmere, the broken summit of which presents two figures,
full as distinctly shaped as that of the famous Cobbler near Arroquhar
in Scotland.

126. _Merrynight_ (c. ii. l. 30).

A term well known in the North of England, and applied to rural
festivals where young persons meet in the evening for the purpose of
dancing.

'The fiddles squeak--that call to bliss' (c. ii. l. 97).

At the close of each strathspey, or jig, a particular note from the
fiddle summons the Rustic to the agreeable duty of saluting his partner.

127. _Ghimmer-Crag _(c. iii. l. 21).

The crag of the ewe-lamb.

VI. POEMS OF THE IMAGINATION.

128. *_There was a Boy_. [I.]

Written in Germany, 1799. This is an extract from the Poem on my own
poetical education. This practice of making an instrument of their own
fingers is known to most boys, though some are more skilful at it than
others. William Raincock of Rayrigg, a fine spirited lad, took the lead
of all my schoolfellows in this art.

129. *_To the Cuckoo_. [II.] Composed in the Orchard at Town-End, 1804.

130. *_A Night-piece_. [III.]

Composed on the road between Nether Stowey and Alfoxden, extempore. I
distinctly remember the very moment when I was struck, as described, 'He
looks up at the clouds,' &c.

131. *_Yew-trees_. [V.]

Grasmere, 1803. These Yew-trees are still standing, but the spread of
that at Lorton is much diminished by mutilation. I will here mention
that a little way up the hill on the road leading from Rossthwaite to
Stonethwaite lay the trunk of a yew-tree which appeared as you
approached, so vast was its diameter, like the entrance of a cave, and
not a small one. Calculating upon what I have observed of the slow
growth of thi