How does the water Come down at Lodore? My little boy ask'd me Thus, once on a time; And moreover he task'd me To tell him in rhyme. * * * * * Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting, Delaying and straying and playing and spraying, Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling, And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming, And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing, And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping, And curling and whirling and purling and twirling, And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping, And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing; And so never ending, but always descending, Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending, All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, And this way the water comes down at Lodore. SOUTHEY. [Illustration: LODORE AND DERWENTWATER.] DERWENTWATER AND BASSENTHWAITE Greta Hall, which was the residence of S. T. Coleridge from 1800 to 1804 and for a short time in 1806, as well as of R. Southey from Sept. 1803 to his death in March 1843, commands a view of both these lakes. Coleridge in a letter to Southey from Greta Hall, dated 13th April 1801, describes the situation of the house as follows:-- Behind the house is an orchard, and a small wood on a steep slope, at the foot of which flows the river Greta, which winds round and catches the evening lights in the front of the house. In front we have a giant's camp--an encamped army of tent-like mountains, which, by an inverted arch, gives a view of another vale. On our right the lovely vale and the wedge-shaped lake of Bassenthwaite; and on our left Derwentwater and Lodore in view, and the fantastic mountains of Borrowdale. Behind us the massy Skiddaw, smooth, green, high, with two chasms and a tent-like ridge in the larger. A fairer scene you have not seen in all your wanderings. _Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey_, By the REV. C. SOUTHEY. [Illustration: DERWENTWATER AND BASSENTHWAITE LAKE.] WASTWATER There is a lake hid far among the hills, That raves around the throne of solitude, Not fed by gentle streams, or playful rills, But headlong cataract and rushing flood. There gleam no lovely hues of hanging wood, No spot of sunshine lights her sullen side; For horror shaped the wild in wrathful mood, And o'er the tempest heaved the mountains' pride. Written, on the banks of Wastwater during a storm, by CHRISTOPHER NORTH (Professor Wilson). SCAWFELL I stood upon the mountain, whose vast brow Looks down his four concentrate vales below; Here Esk smiles coyly thro' his woody glade; There Wastdale's chaos flings its length of shade; Next in bright contrast with that gloomy vale, The life and loveliness of Borrowdale; And last, that wild and deep and swampy dell, Where Langdale's summits frown upon Bowfell. _Storm on Scawfell_, T. E. HANKINSON.