JOANNA'S ROCK 97 



[NoTE. The above lines are part of one of Wordsworth's 

 Poems on the Naming of Places, published in the end of 1800. 

 They were composed in August of that year, when the poet 

 was in residence at Grasmere. Joanna was the sister of Mary 

 Hutchinson, the poet's wife (1802). The description of Joanna's 

 laugh is, of course, imaginative, and was probably suggested 

 by a similar extravagance of description in Drayton's Polyolbicm, 

 xxx, 11. 155-64. The inscription on the rock has not been 

 discovered ; but the rock itself is identified as part of Helm- 

 crag, the * impressive single mountain at the head of the Vale 

 of Grasmere ', part of which ' bears a striking resemblance to 

 an old woman cowering'. The other mountains mentioned 

 are all quite near, or not very far from, Grasmere Vale. The 

 Rotha is the stream that flows through Grasmere and Rydale 

 lakes, and falls into Windermere a little below Ambleside.] 



ECHOES AMONG THE ALPS 

 DURING A THUNDERSTORM AT NIGHT 



THE sky is changed ! and such a change ! O Night, 

 And Storm, and Darkness, ye are wondrous strong, 

 Yet lovely in your strength as is the light 

 Of a dark eye in woman ! Far along, 

 From peak to peak, the rattling crags among, 

 Leaps the live thunder! not from one lone cloud, 

 But every mountain now hath found a tongue ; 

 And Jura answers through her misty shroud 

 Back to the joyous Alps who call to her aloud ! 



10 And this is in the night. Most glorious Night, 

 Thou wert not sent for slumber ! let me be 

 A sharer in thy fierce and far delight, 

 A portion of the tempest and of thee! 



1643 G 



