Em 1790, tinha vinte anos, William Wordsworth fez o primeiro longo passeio a pé. Com o seu amigo Robert Jones caminhou pela França e pela Suíça. Foi dos Alpes - "da parte Sueste do cantão de Berna, não muito longe dos lagos de Thun e Brientz" - que, em 14 de Setembro desse ano, escreveu à irmã, Dorothy Wordsworth:
"I have had during the course of this delightful tour a great deal of uneasiness from an apprehension of your anxiety on my account. I have thought of you perpetually and never have my eyes burst upon a scene of particular loveliness but I have almost instantly wished that you could for a moment be transported to the place where I stood to enjoy it. I have been more particularly induced to form those wishes because the scenes of Swisserland have no resemblance to any I have found in England, and consequently it may probably never be in your power to form any idea of them. We are now as I observed above upon the point of quitting the most sublime and beautiful parts and you cannot imagine the melancholy regret which I feel at the Idea. I am a perfect Enthusiast in my admiration of Nature in all her various forms; and I have looked upon and as it were conversed with the objects which this country has presented to my view so long, and with such encreasing pleasure, that the idea of parting from them oppresses me with a sadness similar to that I have have always felt in quitting a beloved friend."
Daí em diante continuou a escrever: mais cartas, sonetos, outros poemas, o Prelúdio, de tudo. Uns oito anos depois deste passeio saiu a colecção de poemas que haveria de ser considerada o marco do Romantismo na Inglaterra, Lyrical Ballads, escrita com Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Então, sabias ou não sabias, mano?
