[Illustration: WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE.]
An item in the Church Book at Grasmere, dating from the seventeenth
century, recorded the cost of "Ye ale bestowed on ye Rush Bearers,"
while in 1830 gingerbread appeared to have been substituted or added as
a luxury to "ye ale."
We passed alongside the pretty lakes of Grasmere and Rydal Water amid
beautiful scenery. Mrs. Hemans, in her sonnet, "A remembrance of
Grasmere," wrote:
O vale and lake, within your mountain urn,
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return.
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep.
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit-lands, remote
Isles of the blest:--and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies. Fair scene
Most loved by Evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne'er may man, with touch unhallow'd, jar
The perfect music of the charm serene:
Still, still unchanged, may _one_ sweet region wear
Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer!
On our way to Ambleside we passed Rydal Mount, Wordsworth's residence
until his death in 1850 in the eightieth year of his age.
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