148 FRESH FIELDS 



achievements, but his poems can never minister to 

 the spirit in the way Wordsworth's do. 



One can hardly appreciate the extent to which 

 the latter poet has absorbed and reproduced the 

 spirit of the Westmoreland scenery until he has 

 visited that region. I paused there a few days in 

 early June, on my way south, and again on my 

 return late in July. I walked up from Windermere 

 to Grasmere, where, on the second visit, I took up 

 my abode at the historic Swan Inn, where Scott 

 used to go surreptitiously to get his mug of beer 

 when he was stopping with Wordsworth. 



The call of the cuckoo came to me from over 

 Rydal Water as I passed along. I plucked my first 

 foxglove by the roadside; paused and listened to 

 the voice of the mountain torrent; heard 



" The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep; " 

 caught many a glimpse of gree.ii, unpeopled hills, 

 urn-shaped dells, treeless heights, rocky promonto- 

 ries, secluded valleys, and clear, swift - running 

 streams. The scenery was sombre; there were but 

 two colors, green and brown, verging on black; 

 wherever the rock cropped out of the green turf on 

 the mountain- sides, or in the vale, it showed a dark 

 face. But the tenderness and freshness of the green 

 tints were something to remember, the hue of 

 the first springing April grass, massed and wide- 

 spread in midsummer. 



Then there was a quiet splendor, almost gran- 

 deur, about Grasmere vale, such as I had not seen 

 elsewhere, a kind of monumental beauty and dig- 



