There is nothing more of special interest on the road to Keswick until we reach a height called Castle Rigg, a mile from the town. Here we get a beautiful view of Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite lakes, with the valley of the Derwent between them, the two peaks of Skiddaw, and the Newland Mountains. Southey and Coleridge thought this the finest part of the Lake Region; and the poet Gray declared that, on leaving Keswick, when he turned round at this place to take a parting look at the landscape, he was so charmed that he had almost a mind to go back again.' Derwentwater (p. 57) is half a mile from Keswick. It is about three miles long, and a mile and a half wide, "expanding within an amphitheatre of mountains, rocky but not vast, broken into many fantastic shapes, peaked, splintered, impending, sometimes pyramidal, opening by narrow valleys to the view of rocks that rise immediately beyond, and are again everlooked by others." Greta Hall, long the residence of Southey, is near Keswick, and he lies buried in the Crosthwaite churchyard, about three quarters of a mile distant. A favourite excursion from Keswick is by the east side of Derwentwater to Borrowdale, the valley through which the Derwent flows into the lake. The Lodore empties at nearly the same point, and a little way up the stream is the fall that Southey has immortalized; but only after heavy rains is it at all true to his description. Eagle Crag (p. 93) is seen towering on the left as we go up the Borrowdale valley. Farther on the steep ascent of Borrowdale Hause begins. The pass is 1190 feet high, and commands admirable views of the valley we have left. On the other side Honister Crag (p. iv.), the grandest in the district, lifts an almost perpendicular wall of rock to the height of 1500 feet. The road descends rapidly into the Buttermere valley to the lake (p. 75) from which it derives its name. This is but a little more than a mile in length and half a mile in breadth, and hemmed in by some of the highest and steepest of the Cumbrian mountains. A small brook connects it with the larger lake of Crummock. The return to Keswick is usually made by a more direct but less beautiful road through the Newlands Valley. Ulleswater (p. 145) is generally visited either from Ambleside or Keswick. The lake, which has been compared to the Swiss Lucerne, is nine miles long, with an extreme breadth of three quarters of a mile. It is zigzag in shape, forming three "reaches" of unequal length, closed in by mountains. It disputes the palm with Derwentwater for varied wildness and beauty. The Eamont (p. 228) is the outlet of Ulleswater. The Langdale Pikes (p. 87) are a pair of mountains known respectively as Harrison Stickle (2401 feet) and Pike o' Stickle (2323 feet). Though neither so lofty nor so massive as many heights in the district, they are conspicuous from so many points that none are more familiar to the tourist. They are a little north of west from Ambleside, at a distance of about seven miles, and are oftenest visited from that town. Stickle Tarn (p. 256) lies at the base of Harrison Stickle. TO THE CUCKOO. O BLITHE new-comer! I have heard, While I am lying on the grass Though babbling only to the vale Of sunshine and of flowers, Thrice welcome, darling of the Spring! No bird, but an invisible thing, A voice, a mystery; The same whom in my schoolboy days I listened to-that cry Which made me look a thousand ways To seek thee did I often rove Through woods and on the green; And I can listen to thee yet, That golden time again. O blessed bird! the earth we pace An unsubstantial, faery place, That is fit home for thee! The above poem (see preface) should have followed Yarrow Unvisited, p. 106. It was composed in 1804 in the orchard at Town-end, and published in 1807. Of all his poems this was Wordsworth's special favourite; but the critics of the time regarded it as ridiculous and affected. Pulgrave says of it: "This poem has an exaltation and a glory, joined with an exquisiteness of expression, which place it in the highest rank amongst the many masterpieces of its illustrious author." 3, 4. Shall I call thee bird, etc. In the preface to the ed. of 1815, Wordsworth cites these lines as an example of imagination: "This concise interrogation characterizes the seeming ubiquity of the voice of the cuckoo, and dispossesses the creature almost of a corporeal existence; the imagination being tempted to this exertion of her power by a consciousness in the memory that the cuckoo is almost perpetually heard throughout the season of spring, but seldom becomes an object of sight." 6-8. Thy twofold shout, etc. The reading of 1807 was: "I hear thy restless shout: That of 1815 was: From hill to hill it seems to pass "Thy loud note smites my ear!- At once far off and near !" In 1820 it was changed to the present text, which was restored in 1845 after having been changed in 1832 to "Thy twofold shout I hear, That seems to fill the whole air's space, As loud far off as near." 9-11. Though babbling only, etc. The ed. of 1807 reads: "To me, no babbler with a tale That of 1815 has: Of sunshine and of flowers, Thou tellest, cuckoo! in the vale," etc. "I hear thee babbling to the vale Of sunshine and of flowers, And unto me thou bring'st a tale," etc. That of 1820 reads the same except that And in the last line is changed to But. In 1827 the text was finally settled as it now stands. 66 17. The same whom. The same that" would be better, aside from the use of whom for a bird, which may be justified by the personification, as in Brougham Castle, 16. HART-LEAP WELL (p. 191).-The locality is close to a wayside inn called the Halfpenny House, which is on the direct road from Leyburn to Richmond. All the stones have now disappeared, and only one of the trees overhanging the well was left a few years ago. Very likely this last relic of Sir Walter's pleasure-house may now be gone. |