From An Evening Walk

(English Lakes)

FAR

AR from my dearest Friend, 'tis mine to rove Through bare gray dell, high wood, and pastoral cove;

His wizard course where hoary Derwent takes,
Thro' crags and forest glooms and opening lakes,
Staying his silent waves, to hear the roar

That stuns the tremulous cliffs of high Lodore;
Where peace to Grasmere's lonely island leads,
To willowy hedge-rows and to emerald meads:
Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottaged
grounds,

Her rocky sheepwalks, and her woodland bounds;
Where, bosom'd deep, the shy Winander peeps
'Mid clustering isles, and holly-sprinkled steeps:
Where twilight glens endear my Esthwaite's shore,
And memory of departed pleasures more.

There was a Boy

(English Lakes)

William Wordsworth.

HERE was a boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs

THE

And islands of Winander! Many a time,

At evening, when the earliest stars began

To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Press'd closely palm to palm, and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,

Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,

That they might answer him. And they would shout

Across the watery vale, and shout again,

Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild

Of mirth and jocund din! And, when it chanced
That pauses of deep silence mock'd his skill,
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

This boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot,
The vale where he was born; the Churchyard
hangs

Upon a slope above the village school;

And there, along that bank, when I have pass'd At evening, I believe that oftentimes

A long half-hour together I have stood

Mute - looking at the grave in which he lies!

William Wordsworth.

Island on the Lake

(English Lakes)

(From The Excursion, Book IX)

RATEFUL task! to me

GRA

Pregnant with recollections of the time When on thy bosom, spacious Windermere ! A Youth, I practised this delightful art; Tossed on the waves alone, or 'mid a crew Of joyous comrades. Now the reedy marge Cleared, with a strenuous arm I dipped the oar Free from obstruction; and the boat advanced Through crystal water, smoothly as a hawk That, disentangled from the shady boughs Of some thick wood, her place of covert, cleaves With corresponding wings the abyss of air. -"Observe," the vicar said, "yon rocky isle With birch trees fringed; my hand shall guide the helm,

While thitherward we bend our course; or

while

We seek that other, on the western shore,
Where the bare columns of those lofty firs,

Supporting gracefully a massy dome
Of sombre foliage, seem to imitate

A Grecian temple rising from the Deep."

William Wordsworth.

Brathay Church

(English Lakes)

(From The Excursion, Book V)

we descend, and winding round a rock, Attain a point that showed the valley stretched

In length before us; and, not distant far,
Upon a rising ground a gray Church-tower,
Whose battlements were screened by tufted

trees.

And towards a crystal Mere, that lay beyond Among steep hills and woods embosomed, flowed A copious stream with boldly-winding course; Here traceable, there hidden there again

To sight restored, and glittering in the sun. On the stream's bank, and everywhere, appeared

Fair dwellings, single, or in social knots;

Some scattered o'er the level, others perched
On the hillsides, a cheerful quiet scene,

Now in its morning purity arrayed.

William Wordsworth.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

(English Lakes)

(Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The daffodils grew and still grow on the margin of Ullswater, and probably may be seen to this day as beautiful in the month of March, nodding their golden heads beside the dancing and foaming waves. Wordsworth.)

WANDERED lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company;

I gazed and gazed- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought;

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,