In thoughtless gaiety I coursed the plain, And hope itself was all I knew of pain; For then, the inexperienced heart would beat At times, while young Content forsook her seat, And wild Impatience, pointing upward, showed, Through passes yet unreached, a brighter road. Alas! the idle tale of man is found Depicted in the dial's moral round; Hope with reflection blends her social rays To gild the total tablet of his days; Yet still, the sport of some malignant power, He knows but from its shade the present hour.

*These lines are only applicable to the middle part of that lake.

In the beginning of winter, these mountains are frequented by woodcocks, which in dark nights retire into the woods.

But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain? To show what pleasures yet to me remain, Say, will my Friend, with unreluctant ear, The history of a poet's evening hear?

When, in the south, the wan noon, brooding still, Breathed a pale steam around the glaring hill, And shades of deep-embattled clouds were seen, Spotting the northern cliffs with lights between; When crowding cattle, checked by rails that make A fence far stretched into the shallow lake, Lashed the cool water with their restless tails, Or from high points of rock looked out for fanning gales;

When school-boys stretched their length upon the green;

And round the broad-spread oak, a glimmering

scene,

In the rough fern-clad park, the herded deer
Shook the still-twinkling tail and glancing ear;
When horses in the sunburnt intake stood,
And vainly eyed below the tempting flood,
Or tracked the passenger, in mute distress,
With forward neck the closing gate to press
Then, while I wandered where the huddling rill
Brightens with water-breaks the hollow ghyll +
As by enchantment, an obscure retreat
Opened at once, and stayed my devious feet.
While thick above the rill the branches close,
In rocky basin its wild waves repose,
Inverted shrubs, and moss of gloomy green,
Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds be

tween ;

And its own twilight softens the whole scene,
Save where aloft the subtle sunbeams shine
On withered briars that o'er the crags recline;
Save where, with sparkling foam, a small cascade
Illumines, from within, the leafy shade;
Beyond, along the vista of the brook,
Where antique roots its bustling course o'erlook,
The eye reposes on a secret bridge‡
Half grey, half shagged with ivy to its ridge;
There, bending o'er the stream, the listless swain
Lingers behind his disappearing wain.
-Did Sabine grace adorn my living line,
Blandusia's praise, wild stream, should yield

thine!

* The word intake is local, and signifies a mountai

inclosure.

+ Ghyll is also, I believe, a term confined to this cou try: ghyll, and dingle, have the same meaning.

The reader who has made the tour of this country, w recognise, in this description, the features which chara terise the lower waterfall in the grounds of Rydal