The English Lake District Part 3

There gleam no lovely hues of hanging wood, No spot of suns.h.i.+ne lights her sullen side; For horror shaped the wild in wrathful mood, And o'er the tempest heaved the mountains' pride.

Written, on the banks of Wast.w.a.ter during a storm, by CHRISTOPHER NORTH (Professor Wilson).

SCAWFELL

I stood upon the mountain, whose vast brow Looks down his four concentrate vales below; Here Esk smiles coyly thro' his woody glade; There Wastdale's chaos flings its length of shade; Next in bright contrast with that gloomy vale, The life and loveliness of Borrowdale; And last, that wild and deep and swampy dell, Where Langdale's summits frown upon Bowfell.

_Storm on Scawfell_, T. E. HANKINSON.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WASt.w.a.tER AND SCAWFELL.]

THE RIVER DUDDON

Return Content! for fondly I pursued, Even when a child, the Streams--unheard, unseen; Through tangled woods, impending rocks between; Or, free as air, with flying inquest viewed The sullen reservoirs whence their bold brood-- Pure as the morning, fretful, boisterous, keen, Green as the salt-sea billows, white and green-- Poured down the hills, a choral mult.i.tude!

Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide; The Form remains, the Function never dies; While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise, We Men, who in our morn of youth defied The elements, must vanish;--be it so!

Enough if something from our hands have power To live, and act, and serve the future hour; And if, as toward the silent tomb we go, Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower, We feel that we are greater than we know.

_The River Duddon_, WORDSWORTH.