With a tumultuous waste of huge hill tops
Before us;* savage region! which I paced
Dispirited: when, all at once, behold!
Beneath our feet, a little lowly vale,†
A lowly vale, and yet uplifted high
Among the mountains; even as if the spot
Had been from eldest time by wish of theirs
So placed, to be shut out from all the world!
Urn-like it was in shape, deep as an urn;†
With rocks encompassed, save that to the south
Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge
Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close;
A quiet treeless nook, with two green fields,§
A liquid pool that glittered in the sun,||
And one bare dwelling; one abode, no more!¶
It seemed the home of poverty and toil,

Though not of want: the little fields, made green

Bowfell, Great End, Shelter Crags, and Pike o' Blisco to the west straight before them, the Langdale Pikes to the north on the right, with Wrynose, Wetherlam, and the Coniston Mountains to the south-west. -ED.

+ The head of little Langdale, with Blea Tarn in the centre, as seen from the top of Lingmoor, the only point, except the summit of Blake Rigg, from which it appears "urn-like."-ED.

The "small opening, where a heath-clad ridge supplied a boundary," is that which leads down into Little Langdale by Fell Foot and Busk. -ED.

§ The "nook" is not now "treeless," but the fir-wood on the western side of the Vale adds to its "quiet," and deepens the sense of seclusion. -ED.

|| Blea Tarn. “The scene in which this small piece of water lies, suggested to the Author the following description (given in his poem of The Excursion), supposing the spectator to look down upon it, not from the road, but from one of its elevated sides." (Wordsworth's Description of the Scenery

of the District of the Lakes.)-Ed.

The solitary cottage, called Blea Tarn house, which is passed on the left of the road under Side Pike.-ED.

By husbandry of many thrifty years,

Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland house.
-There crows the cock, single in his domain :
The small birds find in spring no thicket there
To shroud them; only from the neighbouring vales
The cuckoo, straggling up to the hill tops,
Shouteth faint tidings of some gladder place.

Ah! what a sweet Recess, thought I, is here!
Instantly throwing down my limbs at ease
Upon a bed of heath;-full many a spot
Of hidden beauty have I chanced to espy
Among the mountains; never one like this;
So lonesome, and so perfectly secure ;
Not melancholy-no, for it is green,
And bright, and fertile, furnished in itself
With the few needful things that life requires.1
In rugged arms how softly does it lie,2
How tenderly protected! Far and near
We have an image of the pristine earth,
The planet in its nakedness: were this
Man's only dwelling, sole appointed seat,
First, last, and single, in the breathing world,
It could not be more quiet: peace is here
Or nowhere; days unruffled by the gale
Of public news or private; years that pass
Forgetfully; uncalled upon to pay
The common penalties of mortal life,
Sickness, or accident, or grief, or pain.

In silence musing by my Comrade's side,1
He also silent; when from out the heart
Of that profound abyss a solemn voice,

Or several voices in one solemn sound,
Was heard ascending; mournful, deep, and slow
The cadence, as of psalms—a funeral dirge! *
We listened, looking down upon the hut,2
But seeing no one meanwhile from below
The strain continued, spiritual as before;
And now distinctly could I recognise
These words:

Shall in the grave thy love be known,

In death thy faithfulness?"—"God rest his soul!"s

* The following is from Miss Wordsworth's Grasmere Journal. Wednesday, 3d September 1880.-"I went to a funeral at John Dawson's. About ten men and four women: the dead person buried by the parish: they set the corpse down at the door, and while we stood within the threshold, the men with their hats off sang, with decent and solemn countenances, a verse of a funeral psalm. The corpse was then borne down the hill, and they sang till they had passed the Town-end. I was affected to tears while we stood in the house. There were no near kindred, no children. When we got out of the dark house, the sun was shining and the prospect looked divinely beautiful. It seemed more sacred than I had ever seen it, and When we came to the bridge,

yet more allied to human life. they began to sing again, and stopped during four lines before they Compare this with such phrases in The

entered the church-yard."

Excursion as

"They shaped their course along the sloping side
Of that small valley, singing as they moved:
A sober company and few, the men

Bare-headed."

-(p. 82.)

We heard the hymn they sang,- -a solemn sound

Heard any where; but in a place like this

"Tis more than human."

-(p. 89.)-ED.

Said the old man,1 abruptly breaking silence,"He is departed, and finds peace at last!"

This scarcely spoken, and those holy strains
Not ceasing, forth appeared in view a band.
Of rustic persons, from behind the hut
Bearing a coffin in the midst, with which

*

They shaped their course along the sloping side
Of that small valley, singing as they moved;
A sober company and few, the men
Bare-headed, and all decently attired!

Some steps when they had thus advanced, the dirge
Ended; and, from the stillness that ensued
Recovering, to my Friend I said, "You spake,
Methought, with apprehension that these rites
Are paid to Him upon whose shy retreat
This day we purposed to intrude."—" I did so,
But let us hence, that we may learn the truth:
Perhaps it is not he but some one else2
For whom this pious service is performed;
Some other tenant of the solitude."

So, to a steep and difficult descent

Trusting ourselves, we wound from crag to crag,
Where passage could be won;t and, as the last
Of the mute train, behind the heathy top3

+ Descending from the top of Lingmoor to Blea Tarn.-ED.

Of that off-sloping outlet,* disappeared,
I, more impatient in my downward course,1
Had landed upon easy ground; and there
Stood waiting for my Comrade. When behold

An object that enticed my steps aside!
A narrow, winding, entry opened out 2
Into a platform-that lay, sheepfold-wise,
Enclosed between an upright mass of rock3
And one old moss-grown wall;—a cool recess,
And fanciful! For where the rock and wall
Met in an angle, hung a penthouse, framed
By thrusting two rude staves into the wall
And overlaying them with mountain sods;
To weather-fend a little turf-built seat

Whereon a full-grown man might rest, nor dread
The burning sunshine, or a transient shower;
But the whole plainly wrought by children's hands !†
Whose skill had thronged the floor with a proud show5

Or penthouse, which most quaintly had been framed
By thrusting two rude sticks into the wall

Whose simple skill had thronged the grassy floor

With work of frame less solid, a proud show

1814.

1814.

The upper part of Little Langdale, descending to Fell Foot.-ED. + A spot exactly similar to this can easily be found, about two hundred yards above the house, in the narrow gorge of Blea Tarn Ghyll, below a waterfall, where a moss-grown wall" still approaches the rock on the other side of the stream, and where a "pent-house" might easily be made by children.-ED.

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