RYDAL WATER AND GRASMERE LAKE,
THE RESIDENCE OF WORDSWORTH.
Not for the glory on their heads
Those stately hill-tops wear,
Although the summer sunset sheds
Its constant crimson there.
Not for the gleaming lights that break
The purple of the twilight lake,
Half dusky and half fair,
Does that sweet valley seem to be
A sacred place on earth to me.
The influence of a moral spell
Is found around the scene,
Giving new shadows to the dell,
New verdure to the green.
With every mountain-top is wrought
The presence of associate thought,
A music that has been;
Calling that loveliness to life,
With which the inward world is rife.
His home—our English poet's home—
Amid these hills is made;
Here, with the morning, hath he come,
There, with the night delayed.
On all things is his memory cast,
For every place wherein he past,
Is with his mind arrayed,
That, wandering in a summer hour,
Asked wisdom of the leaf and flower.
Great poet, if I dare to throw
My homage at thy feet,
’Tis thankfulness for hours which thou
Hast made serene and sweet;
As wayfarers have incense thrown
Upon some mighty altar-stone,
Unworthy, and yet meet,
The human spirit longs to prove
The truth of its uplooking love.
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