Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Rydal

Rydal Mount, June, 1838

By Henry Alford (1810–1871)

THIS day without its record may not pass,

In which I first have seen the lowly roof

That shelters Wordsworth’s age. A love intense,

Born of the power that charmed me in his song,

But grown beyond it into higher moods

And deeper gratitude, bound me to seek

His rural dwelling. Fitting place I found,

Blest with rare beauty, set in deepest calm:

Looking upon still waters, whose expanse

Might tranquillize all thought; and bordered round

By mountains springing from the turfy slopes

That bound the margin, to where heath and fern

Dapple their soaring sides, and higher still

To where the bare crags cleave the vaporous sky.