And all the fertile valley shields;
Wages of folly-baits of crime,
Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard Time ;—

O care! O guilt!-O vales and plains,
Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains,
A Genius dwells, that can subdue
At once all memory of You,-

Most potent when mists veil the sky,
Mists that distort and magnify;

While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze,
Sigh forth their ancient melodies!

III.

List to those shriller notes !-that march

Perchance was on the blast,

When, through this Height's inverted arch,
Rome's earliest legion passed!

-They saw, adventurously impelled,

And older eyes than theirs beheld,

This block-and yon, whose church-like frame
Gives to this savage Pass its name.
Aspiring Road! that lov'st to hide
Thy daring in a vapoury bourn,
Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my guide:
And I (as all men may find cause,
When life is at a weary pause,
And they have panted up the hill
Of duty with reluctant will)

Be thankful, even though tired and faint,
For the rich bounties of constraint;
Whence oft invigorating transports flow
That choice lacked courage to bestow !

IV.

My Soul was grateful for delight
That wore a threatening brow;

A veil is lifted-can she slight
The scene that opens now?
Though habitation none appear,

The greenness tells, man must be there :
The shelter-that the perspective

Is of the clime in which we live :
Where Toil pursues his daily round :
Where Pity sheds sweet tears—and Love,
In woodbine bower or birchen grove,
Inflicts his tender wound.

-Who comes not hither ne'er shall know
How beautiful the world below;

Nor can he guess how lightly leaps
The brook adown the rocky steeps.
Farewell, thou desolate Domain !
Hope, pointing to the cultured plain,
Carols like a shepherd-boy :
And who is she?-Can that be Joy!
Who, with a sunbeam for her guide,
Smoothly skims the meadows wide:

While Faith, from yonder opening cloud,

To vale and hill proclaims aloud,

"Whate'er the weak may dread, the wicked dare, Thy lot, O Man, is good, thy portion fair!"1

1 Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 168.

CHAPTER V.

AMBLESIDE, LANGDALE, BLEA TARN, ETC.

DESCENDING to Ambleside by Stock Ghyll, the mountain in front, across the valley, is Wansfell; thus addressed by Wordsworth, as it is seen from Rydal Mount:

:

Wansfell! this Household has a favoured lot,
Living with liberty on thee to gaze,

To watch while Morn first crowns thee with her rays,
Or when along thy breast serenely float

Evening's angelic clouds. Yet ne'er a note
Hath sounded (shame upon the Bard!) thy praise
For all that thou, as if from heaven, hast brought
Of glory lavished on our quiet days.

Bountiful Son of Earth! when we are gone
From every object dear to mortal sight,

As soon we shall be, may these words attest

How oft, to elevate our spirits, shone

Thy visionary majesties of light,

How in thy pensive glooms our hearts found rest.1

To this may be added the sonnet referring to Ambleside, which follows it :

While beams of orient light shoot wide and high,
Deep in the vale a little rural Town

1 Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 317.

Breathes forth a cloud-like creature of its own,
That mounts not toward the radiant morning sky,
But, with a less ambitious sympathy,

Hangs o'er its Parent waking to the cares,
Troubles and toils that every day prepares.
So Fancy, to the musing Poet's eye

Endears that Lingerer. And how blest her sway
(Like influence never may my soul reject)

If the calm Heaven, now to its zenith decked
With glorious forms in numberless array,
To the lone shepherd on the hills disclose
Gleams from a world in which the saints repose.1

The forty-fifth sonnet in the third section of the same series (the Miscellaneous Sonnets) is not inappropriate here.

ON THE PROJECTED KENDAL AND WINDERMERE RAILWAY,

Is then no nook of English ground secure
From rash assault! Schemes of retirement sown
In youth, and 'mid the busy world kept pure
As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown,
Must perish ;-how can they this blight endure?
And must he too the ruthless change bemoan
Who scorns a false utilitarian lure

'Mid his paternal fields at random thrown?
Baffle the threat, bright Scene, from Orrest-head
Given to the pausing traveller's rapturous glance :
Plead for thy peace, that beautiful romance
Of nature; and, if human hearts be dead,
Speak, passing winds; ye torrents, with your strong
And constant voice, protest against the wrong.2

After reading this sonnet one naturally wonders what its author would have thought of the appropriation 2 Ibid. p. 319.

1 Poetical Works, vol. ii. p. 318.

of Thirlmere by Manchester. Wordsworth appends the following note to this sonnet :— "The degree and kind of attachment which many of the yeomanry feel to their small inheritances can scarcely be overrated. Near the house of one of them stands a magnificent tree, which a neighbour of the owner advised him to fell for profit's sake. 'Fell it!' exclaimed the yeoman, 'I had rather fall on my knees and worship it.'" Dr. Cradock says, "The yeoman was, I believe, Mr. Birkett, owner of a farm which lies a few fields back on the left of the road, between Waterhead and Troutbeck Bridge. My informant was the Reverend Mr. Jefferies of Grasmere, who was living in the country at the time of the occurrence which provoked the sonnet. I am told that the tree (an oak) is still standing, but I have not seen it."

Another sonnet, number six of the first series, refers to a spot in this part of the district, very easily identified, and yet, I suspect, hardly known. The following "note upon it occurs in the I. F. MSS. "This rill trickles down the hill-side into Windermere near Low Wood. My sister and I, on our first visit together to this part of the country, walked from Kendal, and we rested to refresh ourselves by the side of the lake where the streamlet falls into it. This sonnet was written some years after in recollection of that happy ramble, that most happy day and hour."1

There is a little unpretending Rill

Of limpid water, humbler far than aught
That ever among Men or Naiads sought
Notice or name !—It quivers down the hill,
Furrowing its shallow way with dubious will:

1 Prose Works, vol. iii. p. 53.