Each hut, perchance, might have its own; And to the Boy they all were known—

He knew and prized them all.

The rarest was a Turtle-shell

Which he, poor Child, had studied well;
A shell of ample size, and light
As the pearly car of Amphitrite,
That sportive dolphins drew.

And, as a Coracle that braves

On Vaga's breast the fretful waves,
This shell upon the deep would swim,

And gaily lift its fearless brim

Above the tossing surge.

And this the little blind Boy knew
And he a story strange yet true
Had heard, how in a shell like this
An English Boy, O thought of bliss!

Had stoutly launched from shore

Launched from the margin of a bay
Among the Indian isles, where lay

His father's ship, and had sailed far-
To join that gallant ship of war,
In his delightful shell.

Our Highland Boy oft visited

The house that held this prize; and, led
By choice or chance, did thither come
One day when no one was at home,
And found the door unbarred.

While there he sate, alone and blind,
That story flashed upon his mind ;-
A bold thought roused him, and he took
The shell from out its secret nook,
And bore it on his head.

He launched his vessel,-and in pride
Of spirit, from Loch-Leven's side,
Stepped into it-his thoughts all free
As the light breezes that with glee

Sang through the adventurer's hair."

After stanza xxxi. (“And quickly with a silent crew," etc.) were added, in 1815, the two following:

"But soon they move with softer pace;
So have ye seen the fowler chase

On Grasmere's clear unruffled breast
A youngling of the wild duck's nest
With deftly-lifted oar.

Or as the wily sailors crept

To seize (while on the Deep it slept)
The hapless creature which did dwell
Erewhile within the dancing shell,

They steal upon their prey."

And in the same year the following final stanza was added:

"And in the lonely Highland dell

Still do they keep the Turtle shell;
And long the story will repeat
Of the blind Boy's adventurous feat,
And how he was preserved."

How carefully Wordsworth weighed the animadversions of his critics is well seen from the change which he effected in stanza iii. This was held up to ridicule in the Simpliciad:

"High land 'tis called, because it is not low, And land because it is not sea, I trow."

Wordsworth disarms criticism here by getting rid of the word 'land' in l. 3, which he rewrites happily, thus (1836):

66 That, under hills which rise like towers," etc.

For the substitution of' safely' for 'sweetly' (1827) in stanza xiv., see note on ll. 10, 13 of The Solitary Reaper. A few minor textual changes are here

unnoticed.

The Green Linnet (page 79).-Composed 1803 (W.-1836). Stanza i. was recast as follows in 1815-doubtless to get rid of the phrase: "the toy that doth my fancy tether," derided by Jeffrey and in the Simpliciad:

"Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed

Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread

Of spring's unclouded weather,

In this sequestered nook how sweet

To sit upon my orchard-seat!

And birds and flowers once more to greet,

My last year's friends together."

(Flowers and birds,' edd. 1815, 1820; 'birds and flowers,' edd. 1827, 1849-50.) The last stanza gave the Poet much trouble. Both Jeffrey and the

author of the Simpliciad underscored "teems." In a letter (Knight's Life, iii., p. 153), in which he discusses with Barron Field the textual changes made in ed. 1827, Wordsworth says, of the whole stanza, that it is " very faulty. Forth he teems' is a provincialism; Dr. Johnson says, a low word, when used in this sense.' But my main motive for altering the stanza was the wholly unjustifiable use of the word train, as applied to leaves attached to a tree. A train of withered leaves, driven in the wind along the gravel, as I have often seen them, might be said. 'Did feign' is an awkward expletive for an elegant poem, as this is generally allowed to be." The stanza was rewritten in 1827, and 11. 1 and 2 rehandled in 1832, 1840, and 1845. We quote the version of 1845: