Volume 2 — "I travelled among unknown men"
Reading edition
Composed 1799.-Published 1807
One of the "Poems founded on the Affections."—Ed.
The Poem
text variant footnote line number
I travelled among unknown men, In lands beyond the sea; Nor, England! did I know till then What love I bore to thee. 'Tis past, that melancholy dream! Nor will I quit thy shore A second time; for still I seem To love thee more and more. Among thy mountains did I feel The joy of my desire; And she I cherished turned her wheel Beside an English fire. Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed The bowers where Lucy played; And thine too is the last green field That Lucy's eyes surveyed. Contents 1 2 A 5 10 15
Variant 1:
The gladness of desire; MS.
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Variant 2:
1836
And thine is, too, the last green field Which ... 1807
That ... 1815
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Footnote A:
Compare Sara Coleridge's comment on this poem in the Biographia Literaria (1847), vol. ii. chap. ix. p. 173. Also Mrs. Oliphant's remarks in her Literary History of the Nineteenth Century, vol. i. pp. 306-9.—Ed.
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