In February 1794, he succeeds in meeting up with his sister who is staying at the house of William Rawson, the new husband of Dorothy's former foster mother 'Aunt' Threlkeld, in Sowerby Bridge near Halifax, They stay here until early April, then make their way to the Lake District together, partly on foot.
Dorothy writes later: I walked with my brother at my side, from Kendal to Grasmere, eighteen miles, and afterwards from Grasmere to Keswick, fifteen miles, through the most delightful country that ever was seen. After three years of separation, the delight at being together again is clearly intense. Wordsworth later writes a sonnet in recollection of that happy ramble, that most happy day and hour.
There is a little unpretending Rill
Of limpid water, humbler far than aught
That ever among Men or Naiads sought
Notice of name! - It quivers down the hill,
Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will:
Yet to my mind this scanty stream is brought
Oftener than Ganges or the Nile; a thought
Of private recollection sweet and still!
For on that day, now seven years back, when first
Two glad Foot-travellers through sun and shower,
My Love and I came hither while thanks burst
Out of our hearts to God for that good hour,
Eating a traveller's meal in shady bower,
We from that blessed water slaked our thirst.
Miscellaneous Sonnets VI: Ed Thomas Hutchinson: The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, p200, Oxford University Press, 1904 (with original sestet)
Somewhat surprisingly, he writes from Keswick on 7 November to William Matthews: I begin to wish much to be in Town. Cataracts and mountains are good occasional society, but they will not do for constant companions .... This is a country for poetry it is true; but the muse is not to be won but by the sacrifice of time, and time I have not to spare.. What he thought he should be doing with his time is not entirely clear, though he speculates a great deal on the possiblity of perhaps becoming a journalist of some sort, at the same time setting out numerous conditions concerning what he would and would not undertake to write.