PUBLISHED 1807

"This was written immediately after my return from France to London, when
I could not but be struck, as here described, with the vanity and parade
of our own country, especially in great towns and cities, as contrasted
with the quiet, I may say the desolation, that the Revolution had
produced in France. This must be borne in mind, or else the Reader may
think that in this and the succeeding Sonnets I have exaggerated the
mischief engendered and fostered among us by undisturbed wealth."



LONDON, 1802

This sonnet was written in 1803 and published in 1807.



"DARK AND MORE DARK THE SHADES OF EVENING FELL"

This sonnet was written after a journey across the Hambleton Hills,
Yorkshire. Wordsworth says: "It was composed October 4th, 1802, after a
journey on a day memorable to me--the day of my marriage. The horizon
commanded by those hills is most magnificent." Dorothy Wordsworth,
describing the sky-prospect, says: "Far off from us in the western sky we
saw the shapes of castles, ruins among groves, a great spreading wood,
rocks and single trees, a minster with its tower unusually distinct,
minarets in another quarter, and a round Grecian temple also; the colours
of the shy of a bright gray, and the forms of a sober gray, with dome."