( from Wordsworth's 'poems on the naming of places')
Close to the spot where
with my rod and line
angling beside the margin
of the lake,
Sole-sitting by the shores
of old romance
a bed of water in the
woods did wake.
The spot was made by
nature for herself,
this glade of water and
this one green field,
And if a man should plant
his cottage near
a cloistered place, of
refuge, shade and shield.
In that perennial shade of
unencumbered floor
a single beech tree grew
and on the fork
a thrush's nest
conspicuously built,
Sentry on a tranquil spot,
a solitary stork.
From the remotest
outskirts of the grove
a few sheep, stragglers
from some mountain flock
sought protection from the
nipping blast
in playgrounds of their
youth, on footloose rock.
Full many an hour here did
I lose,
Well worn the track,
unwearied and alone,
Muttering the verses which
I muttered first
on blooming heath, my
couch and mine alone.
