Think what the home must be if it were thine,
Even thine, though few thy wants! Roof, window, door,
The very flowers are sacred to the Poor,
The roses to the porch which they entwine:
Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day
On which it should be touched, would melt, and melt away.
The _Poems on the Naming of Places_ belong for the most part to this
neighbourhood. _Emma's Dell_ on Easdale Beck, _Point Rash-Judgment_
on the eastern shore of Grasmere, _Mary's Pool_ in Rydal Park,
_William's Peak_ on Stone Arthur, _Joanna's Rock_ on the banks of
Rotha, and _John's Grove_ near White Moss Common, have been
identified by the loving search of those to whom every memorial of
that simple-hearted family group has still a charm.
It is on Greenhead Ghyll--"upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale"--
that the poet has laid the scene of _Michael_, the poem which paints
with such detailed fidelity both the inner and the outward life of a
typical Westmoreland "statesman." And the upper road from Grasmere
to Rydal, superseded now by the road along the lake side, and left
as a winding footpath among rock and fern, was one of his most
habitual haunts. Of another such haunt his friend Lady Richardson
says, "The _Prelude_ was chiefly composed in a green mountain terrace,
on the Easdale side of Helm Crag, known by the name of Under Lancrigg,
a place which he used to say he knew by heart.
Pages:
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77