“The greater part of those originally committed to the press were written down, for the first time, from memory.”

He insists the printed sonnets were recovered afterwards, not composed on the spot · Preface to the Sonnets, 1805

• Memory
• Poetry
• Writing

“Numberless poetical trifles of the same kind have occurred to him, when perhaps, in his solitary rambles, he has been chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy; but they have been forgotten as he left the places which gave rise to them.”

Memory and place decide which fleeting thoughts survive as verse · Preface to the Sonnets, 1805

• Memory
• Solitude
• Writing