I began My story early--not misled, I trust, By an infirmity of love for days Disowned by memory--ere the breath of spring 615 Planting my snowdrops among winter snows: [p] Nor will it seem to thee, O Friend! so prompt In sympathy, that I have lengthened out With fond and feeble tongue a tedious tale. Meanwhile, my hope has been, that I might fetch 620 Invigorating thoughts from former years; Might fix the wavering balance of my mind, And haply meet reproaches too, whose power May spur me on, in manhood now mature To honourable toil. Yet should these hopes 625 Prove vain, and thus should neither I be taught To understand myself, nor thou to know With better knowledge how the heart was framed Of him thou lovest; need I dread from thee Harsh judgments, if the song be loth to quit 630 Those recollected hours that have the charm Of visionary things, those lovely forms And sweet sensations that throw back our life, And almost make remotest infancy A visible scene, on which the sun is shining? [q] 635
One end at least hath been attained; my mind Hath been revived, and if this genial mood Desert me not, forthwith shall be brought down Through later years the story of my life. The road lies plain before me;--'tis a theme 640 Single and of determined bounds; and hence I choose it rather at this time, than work Of ampler or more varied argument, Where I might be discomfited and lost: And certain hopes are with me, that to thee 645 This labour will be welcome, honoured Friend!
[Footnote A: On the authority of the poet's nephew, and others, the "city" here referred to has invariably been supposed to be Goslar, where he spent the winter of 1799. Goslar, however, is as unlike a "vast city" as it is possible to conceive. Wordsworth could have walked from end to end of it in ten minutes.
One would think he was rather referring to London, but there is no evidence to show that he visited the metropolis in the spring of 1799. The lines which follow about "the open fields" (l. 50) are certainly more appropriate to a journey from London to Sockburn, than from Goslar to Gottingen; and what follows, the "green shady place" of l. 62, the "known Vale" and the "cottage" of ll. 72 and 74, certainly refer to English soil.--Ed.]