Yarrow poems (Wordsworth)

The Yarrow poems are a series of three poems composed by the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth comprising "Yarrow Unvisited" (1803), "Yarrow Visited" (1814) and "Yarrow Revisited" (1831). "Yarrow Unvisited" presents a justification for his failure to take a detour to see the Yarrow Water, a river much celebrated in earlier Scottish verse, during a tour of Scotland with his sister Dorothy; this, according to the poem, allowed him to retain his imagined idea of the river rather than be disappointed by the reality. It was partly written for his friend Walter Scott, whose friendship with him began during this same tour. The second poem records his impressions on finally seeing the Yarrow in company with the poet James Hogg. The third, a tribute to his friend Walter Scott, was inspired by the poets' last visit to the Yarrow the year before Scott's death. All three draw on the rich heritage of earlier poems and ballads set in the Yarrow Valley. "Yarrow Unvisited" is one of Wordsworth's most famous short poems,^[1] and has been judged one of his finest. Modern critical evaluation of the two later works has been more mixed.