[1] While working on the poem in 1817, Hunt was staying at the Albion House in Marlow and spent much of his time in the garden or walking through the countryside.
[6] The poem begins with a discussion on health and philosophy:[7] the motes of Bigotry's sick eye, Or the blind feel of false Philosophy The poem describes the nymphs that were part of the landscape:[8] Those are the Naiads, who keep neat The banks from sedge, and from the dull-dropp'd feet Of cattle that break down the fibrous mould.
In particular, the Literary Gazette claimed that the work fell short of the sublime aspects that were part of what they labelled "true poetry".
[12] However, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Hunt's friend and fellow poet, claimed that the work was "truly poetical, in the intense and emphatic sense of the word.
"[13] In 1930, Edmund Blunden stated that the poem was "finer than any of Hunt's previous poetry, and though free and easy in form yet sustained by a strong philosophical design.