Note CQ — 1817
Reading edition
Lycoris was the name under which the poet Gallus wrote of his Cytheris, a freed woman of the senator Volumnius, celebrated for her beauty and intrigues. See Virgil's reference to her in Eclogue x. 42, in which he condoles with his friend Gallus for the loss of Lycoris—
Hic gelidi fontes, hic mollia prata, Lycori, Hic nemus; hic ipso tecum consumerer aevo.
Ovid also refers to her, A. A. iii. 537—"The western and the eastern lands know of Lycoris." From the tone of the Fenwick note, it would seem that Wordsworth was doubtful of the fitness of associating the name of Lycoris with the dominant thought of these stanzas; but there is no unfitness in the use he makes of it. This poem, with its reference to the "one soft vernal day," and its prevailing thought of spring, and
the Guest Whose smiles, diffused o'er land and sea, Seem to recal the Deity Of youth into the breast,
appropriately follow the Vernal Ode.—Ed.