It is probable that all this will continue to be said in vain.
Railways, and mines, and waterworks will have their way, till injury
has become destruction. The natural sanctuary of England, the nurse
of simple and noble natures, "the last region which Astraea touches
with flying feet," will be sacrificed--it is scarcely possible to
doubt it--to the greed of gain. We must seek our consolation in the
thought that no outrage on Nature is mortal; that the ever-springing
affections of men create for themselves continually some fresh abode,
and inspire some new landscape with a consecrating history, and as
it were with a silent soul. Yet it will be long ere round some other
lakes, upon some other hill, shall cluster memories as pure and high
as those which hover still around Rydal and Grasmere, and on
Helvellyn's windy summit, "and by Glenridding Screes and low
Gleneoign."
With, this last word of protest and warning,--uttered, as it may
seem to the reader, with, unexpected force and conviction from out
of the tranquillity of a serene old age,--Wordsworth's mission is
concluded. The prophecy of his boyhood is fulfilled, and the
"dear native regions" whence his dawning genius rose have been
gilded by the last ray of its declining fire.
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