Wood-notes and Church-bells By the Rev. Richard Wilton |
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GRAY AT GRASMERE
(1769)
AND WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE (1869.)
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GRAY AT GRASMERE (1769) AND WORDSWORTH'S GRAVE (1869.)
A CENTENARY SONNET.
Since that still Autumn 'tis the hundredth year,When from this eminence a Poet's eyes
Welcomed an “unsuspected Paradise”—
Green vale, grey church, and azure waters clear:
For sweetest “Elegy” that name is dear;
But not more dear than his who yonder lies,
To guard whose fame the mountains round him rise,
And to reflect it, smiles his loved Grasmere.
There, in that “country churchyard” we may hail
The “heaving turf” where a great Poet slumbers;
While lake and island, village, rock, and vale,
Resound for ever his melodious numbers,
Who o'er this Paradise shed fairer beauty
With deathless songs of Nature, Man, and Duty.
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