THIRLMERE.
0 LOVELY lake ! Time was, long years ago,
I knew each inlet of thy happy shore, Thy tributary streamlets score on score, The paths beside thy banks or high or low, Swam thy bright waters, anchor'd on thy breast Passed livelong days a-fishing, watched thy birds, Nutted on Great How, climbed up Eaglesnest.
Armboth and Wythburn !—all were household words- Dark-browed Helvellyn, beetling Ravenscrag !
Sent'nelled by shadows of the mighty dead.
Time was each nodding brake, each water-flag
Among the fells and fields of fair Dalehead
Was precious to me for its own sweet sake.
Long moonlit nights we loitered on the bridge
Which spans thy fairy waist, loitered and sung,—
Voices now still for ever !—every ridge Most musically echoed. Lovely lake !
"Twee English summer-time, and I was young.
Enough of this ! ours is a riper age,—
Poets be damned. The thirsty cotton-lord Wants water, plans a plan, and forms a Board ; Will take the lake in hand, raise it a stage, Make it in bulk and fixings far beyond
.01d Nature's petty Thirlmere—make it pay— Build up a brand-new practicable pond Among these useless hills, which had their day. Then sow some boulders, plant a billion shrubs,
To prove that there is taste in money-grubs. M.
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