Written in 1800 and published in the same year. Wordsworth's own note on
the poem is as follows: "Written at Town-end, Grasmere, about the same
time as 'The Brothers.' The Sheepfold, on which so much of the poem
turns, remains, or rather the ruins of it. The character and
circumstances of Luke were taken from a family to whom had belonged,
many years before, the house we lived in at Town-end, along with some
fields and woodlands on the eastern shore of Grasmere. The name of the
Evening Star was not in fact given to this house, but to another on the
same side of the valley, more to the north."
[102] 2. =Greenhead Ghyll=; a ravine near Grasmere.
[103] 134. =Easedale=; a small lake near Grasmere.