the hill, and the green fields; Rydale, with a lake all alive and glittering, yet but little stirred by breezes; and our own dear Grasmere, making a little round lake of Nature’s own, with never a house, never a green field, but the copses and the bare hills enclosing it, and the river flowing out of it.  Above rose the Coniston Fells, in their own shape and colour, ... the sky, and the clouds, and a few wild creatures.  Coleridge went to search for something new.  We saw him climbing up towards a rock.  He called us, and we found him in a bower,—­the sweetest that was ever seen.  The rock on one side is very high, and all covered with ivy, which hung loosely about, and bore bunches of brown berries.  On the other side, it was higher than my head.  We looked down on the Ambleside vale, that seemed to wind away from us, the village lying under the hill.  The fir tree island was reflected beautifully....  About this bower there is mountain-ash, common ash, yew tree, ivy, holly, hawthorn, roses, flowers, and a carpet of moss.  Above at the top of the rock there is another spot.  It is scarce a bower, a little parlour, not enclosed by walls, but shaped out for a resting-place by the rocks, and the ground rising about it.  It had a sweet moss carpet.  We resolved to go and plant flowers, in both these places to-morrow.”

This extract is taken from the “Journal” as originally transcribed by me in 1889.  When it appears in this edition it will be greatly enlarged.—­Ed.

* * * * *

THE OAK AND THE BROOM

A PASTORAL

Composed 1800.—­Published 1800

[Suggested upon the mountain pathway that leads from Upper Rydal to Grasmere.  The ponderous block of stone, which is mentioned in the poem, remains, I believe, to this day, a good way up Nab-Scar.  Broom grows under it, and in many places on the side of the precipice.—­I.F.]

One of the “Poems of the Fancy.”—­Ed.

  I His simple truths did Andrew glean
          Beside the babbling rills;
          A careful student he had been
          Among the woods and hills. 
          One winter’s night, when through the trees 5
          The wind was roaring, [1] on his knees
          His youngest born did Andrew hold: 
          And while the rest, a ruddy quire,
          Were seated round their blazing fire,
          This Tale the Shepherd told. 10

  II “I saw a crag, a lofty stone
          As ever tempest beat! 
          Out of its head an Oak had grown,
          A Broom out of its feet. 
          The time was March, a cheerful noon—­15
          The thaw wind, with the breath of June,
          Breathed gently from the warm south-west: 
          When, in a voice sedate with age,
          This Oak, a giant and a sage, [2]
          His neighbour thus addressed:—­20