They melt, and soon must vanish;
One hour is theirs, nor more is mine--
Sad thoughts, which I would banish,
But that I know, where'er I go,
Thy genuine image, Yarrow!
Will dwell with me--to heighten joy,
And cheer my mind in sorrow.

It may interest many to read Wordsworth's own comment on the two
following poems. 'On Tuesday morning,' he says, 'Sir Walter Scott
accompanied us and most of the party to Newark Castle, on the Yarrow.
When we alighted from the carriages he walked pretty stoutly, and had
great pleasure in revisiting there his favourite haunts. Of that
excursion the verses "Yarrow Revisited" are a memorial. Notwithstanding
the romance that pervades Sir Walter's works, and attaches to many of his
habits, there is too much pressure of fact for these verses to harmonize,
as much as I could wish, with the two preceding poems. On our return in
the afternoon, we had to cross the Tweed, directly opposite Abbotsford.
The wheels of our carriage grated upon the pebbles in the bed of the
stream, that there flows somewhat rapidly. A rich but sad light, of
rather a purple than a golden hue, was spread over the Eildon Hills at
that moment; and thinking it probable that it might be the last time Sir
Walter would cross the stream, I was not a little moved, and expressed
some of my feelings in the sonnet beginning

"A trouble not of clouds," etc.

At noon on Thursday we left Abbotsford, and on the morning of that day
Sir Walter and I had a serious conversation, _tete-a-tete_, when he spoke
with gratitude of the happy life which, upon the whole, he had led.

* * * * *

'In this interview also it was, that, upon my expressing a hope of his
health being benefited by the climate of the country to which he was
going, and by the interest he would take in the classic remembrances of
Italy, he made use of the quotation from "Yarrow Unvisited," as recorded
by me in the "Musings near Aquapendente," six years afterwards. . . .
Both the "Yarrow Revisited" and the "Sonnet" were sent him before his
departure from England.'

YARROW REVISITED.

The gallant Youth, who may have gained,
Or seeks, a 'winsome Marrow,'
Was but an Infant in the lap
When first I looked on Yarrow;
Once more, by Newark's Castle-gate
Long left without a warder,
I stood, looked, listened, and with Thee,
Great Minstrel of the Border!

Grave thoug