The English Lake District Part 2

On the right, Striden-edge round the Red-tarn was bending, And Catchedicam its left verge was defending, One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending, When I mark'd the sad spot where the wanderer had died.

Dark green was that spot 'mid the brown mountain-heather, Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretch'd in decay, Like the corpse of an outcast abandon'd to weather, Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay.

Not yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, For, faithful in death, his mute favourite attended, The much-loved remains of her master defended, And chased the hill-fox and the raven away.

_Helvellyn_, SCOTT.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THIRLMERE AND HELVELLYN.]

THE MOUNTAIN GLORY

They seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and cathedrals; full of treasures of illuminated ma.n.u.script for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons to the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper.

_Modern Painters, Vol. iv.,_ RUSKIN.

O rock and torrent, lake and hill, Halls of a home austerely still, Remote and solemn view!

O valley, where the wanderer sees Beyond the towering arch of trees Helvellyn and the blue!

Great Nature! on our love was shed From thine abiding goodlihead Majestic fostering; We wondered, half afraid to own In hardly-conscious hearts upgrown So infinite a thing.

Within, without, whate'er hath been, In cosmic deeps the immortal scene Is mirrored, and shall last:-- Live the long looks, the woodland ways, That twilight of enchanted days,-- The imperishable Past.

FREDERICK W. MYERS

[Ill.u.s.tration: RAVEN CRAG, THIRLMERE.]

DERWENt.w.a.tER

Once more, O Derwent! to thy awful sh.o.r.es I come, insatiate of the accustomed sight, And, listening as the eternal torrent roars, Drink in with eye and ear a fresh delight; For I have wandered far by land and sea, In all my wanderings still remembering thee.

SOUTHEY.

FRIAR'S CRAG

The first thing which I remember, as an event in life, was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwent.w.a.ter; the intense joy mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag, into the dark lake, has a.s.sociated itself more or less with all twining roots of trees ever since.

_Modern Painters, Volume iii.,_ RUSKIN.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DERWENt.w.a.tER FROM CASTLE HEAD. This view is taken looking up Borrowdale, with Lodore in the centre of the picture.

Friar's Crag is just outside the view to the right of the foreground.]

THE FALLS OF LODORE

DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY.

How does the water Come down at Lodore?

My little boy ask'd me Thus, once on a time; And moreover he task'd me To tell him in rhyme.

Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling, And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming, And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing, And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping, And curling and whirling and purling and twirling, And thumping and plumping and b.u.mping and jumping, And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing; And so never ending, but always descending, Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending, All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, And this way the water comes down at Lodore.

SOUTHEY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LODORE AND DERWENt.w.a.tER.]

DERWENt.w.a.tER AND Ba.s.sENTHWAITE

Greta Hall, which was the residence of S. T. Coleridge from 1800 to 1804 and for a short time in 1806, as well as of R. Southey from Sept.

1803 to his death in March 1843, commands a view of both these lakes.

Coleridge in a letter to Southey from Greta Hall, dated 13th April 1801, describes the situation of the house as follows:--

Behind the house is an orchard, and a small wood on a steep slope, at the foot of which flows the river Greta, which winds round and catches the evening lights in the front of the house. In front we have a giant's camp--an encamped army of tent-like mountains, which, by an inverted arch, gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely vale and the wedge-shaped lake of Ba.s.senthwaite; and on our left Derwent.w.a.ter and Lodore in view, and the fantastic mountains of Borrowdale. Behind us the ma.s.sy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms and a tent-like ridge in the larger. A fairer scene you have not seen in all your wanderings.

_Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey_, By the REV. C. SOUTHEY.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DERWENt.w.a.tER AND Ba.s.sENTHWAITE LAKE.]

WASt.w.a.tER

There is a lake hid far among the hills, That raves around the throne of solitude, Not fed by gentle streams, or playful rills, But headlong cataract and rushing flood.