Sometimes it is a story of some assemblage of young and old, rich
and poor, from all the neighbouring houses and cottages, at Rydal
Mount, to keep the aged poet's birthday with a simple feast and
rustic play. Sometimes it is a report of some fireside gathering at
Lancrigg or Foxhow, where the old man grew eloquent as he talked of
Burns and Coleridge, of Homer and Virgil, of the true aim of poetry
and the true happiness of man. Or we are told of some last excursion
to well-loved scenes; of holly-trees planted by the poet's hands to
simulate nature's decoration on the craggy hill.
Such are the memories of those who best remember him. To those who
were young children while his last years went by he seemed a kind of
mystical embodiment of the lakes and mountains round him--a presence
without which they would not be what they were. And now he is gone,
and their untouched and early charm is going too.
Heu, tua nobis
Paene simul tecum solatia rapta, Menalea!
Rydal Mount, of which he had at one time feared to be deprived, was
his to the end. He still paced the terrace-walks--but now the flat
terrace oftener than the sloping one--whence the eye travels to lake
and mountain across a tossing gulf of green.
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