267. To William Wordsworth Address: M. Wordsworth, | Chez Madame la Veuve Dippermaer, [Deppermann] | Dans la Grande Rue, | Goslar, Basse Saxe. Pub. Memoirs of Wordsworth, i. 137. Ratzeburg, Dec. 10. 1798 . . . The blank lines gave me as much direct pleasure as was possible in the general bustle of pleasure with which I received and read your letter. I observed, I remember, that the 'fingers woven,' 2 &c., only puzzled me; and though I liked the twelve or fourteen first lines very well, yet I like the remainder much better. Well, now I have read them again, they are very beautiful, and leave an affecting impression. That Uncertain heaven received Into the bosom of the steady lake, 3 ____________________ 1 False metre. [Note by S. T. C.] 2 There was a Boy, line 7, Wordsworth, Poet. Works, ii. 206. 3 Ibid. , lines 24-25. -452- I should have recognised any where; and had I met these lines running wild in the deserts of Arabia, I should have instantly screamed out 'Wordsworth!'. . .