This was written when we dwelt in the Parsonage at Grasmere. The principal features of the picture are Bredon Hill and Cloud Hill near Coleorton. I shall never forget the happy feeling with which my heart was filled when I was impelled to compose this Sonnet. We resided only two years in this house; and during the last half of the time, which was after this poem had been written, we lost our two children, Thomas and Catharine. Our sorrow upon these events often brought it to my mind, and cast me upon the support to which the last line of it gives expression

"The appropriate calm of blest eternity." It is scarcely necessary to add that we still possess the Picture.

Soul-soothing Art! whom Morning, Noontide, Even,

Do serve with all their changeful pageantry; Thou, with ambition modest yet sublime, Here, for the sight of mortal man, hast given

To one brief moment caught from fleeting time

The appropriate calm of blest eternity.

INSCRIPTIONS

IN THE GROUNDS OF COLEORTON, THE SEAT OF SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT, BART., LEICESTERSHIRE

1808. 1815

In the grounds of Coleorton these verses are engraved on a stone placed near the Tree, which was thriving and spreading when I saw it in the summer of 1841.

THE embowering rose, the acacia, and the pine,

Will not unwillingly their place resign; If but the Cedar thrive that near them stands,

Planted by Beaumont's and by Wordsworth's hands.

One wooed the silent Art with studious pains:

These groves have heard the Other's pensive strains;

Devoted thus, their spirits did unite
By interchange of knowledge and delight.
May Nature's kindliest powers sustain the
Tree,

And Love protect it from all injury!
And when its potent branches, wide out-
thrown,

Darken the brow of this memorial Stone, Here may some Painter sit in future

IN A GARDEN OF SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT, BART.

1811. 1815

This Niche is in the sandstone-rock in the winter-garden at Coleorton, which garden, as has been elsewhere said, was made under our direction out of an old unsightly quarry. While the labourers were at work, Mrs. Wordsworth, my Sister, and I used to amuse ourselves occasionally in scooping this seat out of the soft stone. It is of the size, with something of the appearance, of a Stall in a Cathedral. This inscription is not engraven, as the former and the two following are, in the grounds.

OFT is the medal faithful to its trust When temples, columns, towers, are laid in dust;

And 't is a common ordinance of fate That things obscure and small outlive the great:

Hence, when yon mansion and the flowery

trim

Of this fair garden, and its alleys dim,
And all its stately trees, are passed away,
This little Niche, unconscious of decay,
Perchance may still survive. And be it
known

That it was scooped within the living

stone,

Not by the sluggish and ungrateful pains Of labourer plodding for his daily gains, But by an industry that wrought in love; With help from female hands, that proudly

strove

To aid the work, what time these walks and bowers

Were shaped to cheer dark winter's lonely hours.

WRITTEN AT THE REQUEST OF SIR GEORGE BEAUMONT, BART., AND IN HIS NAME, FOR AN URN, PLACED BY HIM AT THE TERMINATION OF A NEWLY-PLANTED AVENUE, IN THE SAME GROUNDS

1808. 1815

YE Lime-trees, ranged before this hallowed Urn,

Shoot forth with lively power at Spring's

return;

And be not slow a stately growth to rear Of pillars, branching off from year to year,

High as the level of the mountain-tops)
A circuit ampler than the lake beneath
Their own domain; but ever, while intent
On tracing and retracing that large round,
Their jubilant activity evolves

Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro,
Upward and downward, progress intricate
Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed
Their indefatigable flight. T is done
Ten times, or more, I fancied it had
ceased;

But lo! the vanished company_again Ascending; they approach-I hear their wings,

Faint, faint at first; and then an eager sound, Past in a moment and as faint again! They tempt the sun to sport amid their plumes;

They tempt the water, or the gleaming ice, To show them a fair image; 't is themselves, Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering

plain,

The circumstance alluded to at the conclusion of these verses was told me by Dr. Satterthwaite, who was Incumbent of Bootle, a small town at the foot of Black Comb. He had the particulars from one of the engineers who was employed in making trigonometrical surveys of that region.

STAY, bold Adventurer; rest awhile thy limbs

On this commodious Seat! for much remains

Of hard ascent before thou reach the top Of this huge Eminence, from blackness named,

And, to far-travelled storms of sea and land,

A favourite spot of tournament and war! But thee may no such boisterous visitants Molest; may gentle breezes fan thy brow; And neither cloud conceal, nor misty air Bedim, the grand terraqueous spectacle, From centre to circumference, unveiled! Know, if thou grudge not to prolong thy rest,

That on the summit whither thou art bound, A geographic Labourer pitched his tent, With books supplied and instruments of art,

To measure height and distance; lonely task,

Week after week pursued! - To him was

given

Full many a glimpse (but sparingly bestowed

On timid man) of Nature's processes
Upon the exalted hills. He made report
That once, while there he plied his studious
work

Within that canvas Dwelling, colours, lines,