Journals of Dorothy Wordsworth, Vol. 1 (of 2)

Sunday Morning.--William ... got up at nine o'clock, but before he rose he had finished The Beggar Boy, and while we were at breakfast ... he wrote the poem To a Butterfly! He ate not a morsel, but sate with his shirt neck unbuttoned, and his waistcoat open while he did it. The thought first came upon him as we were talking about the pleasure we both always felt at the sight of a butterfly. I told him that I used to chase them a little, but that I was afraid of brushing the dust off their wings, and did not catch them. He told me how he used to kill all the white ones when he went to school because they were Frenchmen.... I wrote it down and the other poems, and I read them all over to him.... William began to try to alter The Butterfly, and tired himself....