RYDAL.

ADIEU, Rydalian laurels! that have grown

And spread as if ye knew that days might come
When ye would shelter in a happy home,
On this fair mount, a poet of your own,

One who ne'er ventured for a Delphic crown
To sue the god; but, haunting your green shade
All seasons through, is humbly pleased to braid
Ground-flowers, beneath your guardianship self-sown.
Farewell! no minstrels now with harp new-strung
For summer wandering quiet their household bowers;
Yet not for this wants Poesy a tongue

To cheer the itinerant on whom she pours
Her spirit, while he crosses lonely moors
Or, musing, sits forsaken halls among.

William Wordsworth.

COMPOSED AT RYDAL, SEPTEMBER, 1860.

To these our noisy and self-boasting days

HE last great man by manlier times bequeathed

In this green valley rested, trod these ways,
With deep calm breast this air inspiring breathed;
True bard, because true man, his brow he wreathed
With wild-flowers only, singing Nature's praise;
But Nature turned, and crowned him with her bays,
And said, "Be thou my Laureate." Wisdom sheathed
In song love-humble; contemplations high,

That built like larks their nests upon the ground;

Insight and vision; sympathies profound

That spanned the total of humanity,

These were the gifts which God poured forth at large On men through him; and he was faithful to his charge. Aubrey de Vere.

RYDAL MOUNT, JUNE, 1838.

HIS day without its record may not pass,

THIS

In which I first have seen the lowly roof That shelters Wordsworth's age. A love intense, Born of the power that charmed me in his song, But grown beyond it into higher moods And deeper gratitude, bound me to seek His rural dwelling. Fitting place I found, Blest with rare beauty, set in deepest calm: Looking upon still waters, whose expanse Might tranquillize all thought; and bordered round By mountains springing from the turfy slopes That bound the margin, to where heath and fern Dapple their soaring sides, and higher still To where the bare crags cleave the vaporous sky. Henry Alford.

RYDAL MOUNT.

Low and white, yet scarcely seen,

Are its walls for mantling green;

Not a window lets in light

But through flowers clustering bright;

Not a glance may wander there

But it falls on something fair:

Garden choice and fairy mound,
Only that no elves are found;
Winding walk and sheltered nook,
For student grave and graver book;
Or a bird-like bower, perchance,
Fit for maiden and romance.
Then, far off, a glorious sheen
Of wide and sunlit waters seen;
Hills that in the distance lie
Blue and yielding as the sky;
And nearer, closing round the nest,
The home, — of all the "living crest";
Other rocks and mountains stand
Rugged, yet a guardian band,
Like those that did in fable old

Elysium from the world enfold.

Maria Jane Jewsbury.

INSCRIPTION

INTENDED FOR A STONE IN THE GROUNDS OF RYDAL MOUNT.

IN

these fair vales hath many a tree

At Wordsworth's suit been spared;
And from the builder's hand this stone,
For some rude beauty of its own,
Was rescued by the bard:

So let it rest; and time will come
When here the tender-hearted
May heave a gentle sigh for him,
As one of the departed.

William Wordsworth.

Rylstone Hall.

RYLSTONE.

'TIS night: in silence looking down,

The moon from cloudless ether sees
A camp, and a beleaguered town,
And castle like a stately crown

On the steep rocks of winding Tees;
And southward far, with moor between,
Hill-top, and flood, and forest green,
The bright moon sees that valley small
Where Rylstone's old sequestered Hall
A venerable image yields

Of quiet to the neighboring fields,
While from one pillared chimney breathes
The smoke, and mounts in silver wreaths.
The courts are hushed; for timely sleep
The greyhounds to their kennel creep;
The peacock in the broad ash-tree
Aloft is roosted for the night,
He who in proud prosperity
Of colors manifold and bright
Walked round, affronting the daylight;
And higher still, above the bower

-

Where he is perched, from you lone tower
The hall-clock in the clear moonshine

With glittering finger points at nine.

William Wordsworth.

HIGH

NORTON TOWER.

TIGH on a point of rugged ground
Among the wastes of Rylstone Fell,
Above the loftiest ridge or mound
Where foresters or shepherds dwell,
An edifice of warlike frame

Stands single, Norton Tower its name;
It fronts all quarters, and looks round
O'er path and road, and plain and dell,
Dark moor, and gleam of pool and stream,
Upon a prospect without bound.

William Wordsworth.

St. Bees.

STANZAS

SUGGESTED IN A STEAMBOAT OFF ST. BEES HEADS, ON THE

I

COAST OF CUMBERLAND.

life were slumber on a bed of down,

Toil unimposed, vicissitude unknown,

Sad were our lot: no hunter of the hare
Exults like him whose javelin from the lair
Has roused the lion; no one plucks the rose,
Whose proffered beauty in safe shelter blows
Mid a trim garden's summer luxuries,

With joy like his who climbs, on hands and knees,
For some rare plant, yon headland of St. Bees.