A Fingerpost

from Letter: To Bridges  Stonyhurst, Blackburn.  May 30, 1878
...I want the stanza corrected thus:
   Look, foot to forelock, how all things suit! he
   Is strung by duty, is trained to beauty,
         And brown-as-dawning-skinned
   With brine and shine and whirling wind.

   The difficulty about the Milky Way is perhaps because you do not know the allusion: it is in Catholic times Walsingham Way was a name for the Milky Way, as being supposed a fingerpost to our Lady's shrine at Walsingham.
...I shall never have leisure or desire to write much.  There is one thing I should like to get done; an ode on the Vale of Clwyd...     [ibid. The Major Works, pp.233-234]