Sunday on Grasmere Lake
On peaceful Grasmere Lake we idly rowed:
Before us, matchless beauty lay revealed
In sky and hill and gently sloping wood.
The myriad thoughts that to our lips came thronging
We could not speak, but all entrancéd sat
While at our boat in tender rhythmic cadence
The laughing, dancing wavelets softly tapped.
No scene in all creation could be sweeter!
The tiny cloud that o'er the hill-top hung,
The quiet vale, the brown dove-cote * half hidden
Would fire to song even the most halting tongue.
Small wonder that the poet was inspired
To sing of this fair spot he loved so well!
Not Bobbie Burns nor yet the Bard of Avon
Could of his haunts a lovelier story tell.
Then suddenly in voice deep and subdued
One began the "Ode" of Wordsworth's to repeat,
"On Immortality," thus ending fitly
A holy day with holy joy complete.
* [Author's note] Wordsworth's home is called Dove Cottage