SONG.—AMBLESIDE VALE.
[_]
Air—“The Meeting of the Waters.”
There's a vale in the lakeland, a Westmoreland vale,
Where a bright river runs the Winander to hail;
With a voice from Helvellyn
it warbles along,
But reserves for that valley the pride of its song.
As it winds out of Rydal, in mazes it steals
To the rock of Fieldfoot,
that so shyly conceals
How the spirit of nature, though ever so wild,
By the genius of taste may be led like a child.
Flowing on, the bright river sweeps round by the Ghyll,
Where the fairies by moonlight yet wander at will;
Then turns to the How,
—there the rings may be seen
Where the feet of the Fairies have danced out the green.
Now it takes to its bosom the nymph-haunted brook,
That to Lesketh
comes down from the wells of the Nook,
Loth to leave its green hills, and that exquisite brow
Where it brawls through the oaks by the lawns of Scale How.
Sweet vale of the Rotha! no beauty like thine!
Even sorrow but lends thee a grace more divine;
There's a light from the past on thy meadows and streams,
And this Garden of Eden is more than it seems!
