Is then no nook of English ground secure From rash assault?[278] Schemes of retirement sown In youth, and ’mid the busy world kept pure As when their earliest flowers of hope were blown, Must perish;--how can they this blight endure? 5 And must he too the ruthless change bemoan Who scorns a false utilitarian lure ’Mid his paternal fields at random thrown? Baffle the threat, bright Scene, from Orrest-head[279] Given to the pausing traveller’s rapturous glance: 10 Plead for thy peace, thou beautiful romance Of nature; and, if human hearts be dead, Speak, passing winds; ye torrents, with your strong And constant voice, protest against the wrong. _October 12th, 1844._ [277] In the first edition of his pamphlet “On the projected Kendal and Windermere Railway.”--ED. [278] The degree and kind of attachment which many of the yeomanry feel to their small inheritances can scarcely be over-rated. Near the house of one of them stands a magnificent tree, which a neighbour of the owner advised him to fell for profit’s sake. “Fell it!” exclaimed the yeoman, “I had rather fall on my knees and worship it.” It happens, I believe, that the intended railway would pass through this little property, and I hope that an apology for the answer will not be thought necessary by one who enters into the strength of the feeling.--W.W. 1845. Compare the two letters on the Kendal and Windermere Railway, contributed by Wordsworth to _The Morning Post_ in 1844, at Kendal, revised and reprinted in the same year. See _The Prose Works of Wordsworth_, vol. ii. pp. 383-405.--ED. [279] Orresthead is the height close to Windermere, to the north of the town.--ED. “PROUD WERE YE, MOUNTAINS, WHEN, IN TIMES OF OLD” Composed 1844.--Published 1845[280] One of the “Miscellaneous Sonnets.”--ED. Proud were ye, Mountains, when, in times of old, Your patriot sons, to stem invasive war, Intrenched your brows; ye gloried in each scar: Now, for your shame, a Power, the Thirst of Gold, That rules o’er Britain like a baneful star, 5 Wills that your peace, your beauty, shall be sold, And clear way made for her triumphal car Through the beloved retreats your arms enfold! Heard YE that Whistle? As her long-linked Train Swept onwards, did the vision cross your view? 10 Yes, ye were startled;--and, in balance true, Weighing the mischief with the promised gain, Mountains, and Vales, and Floods, I call on you To share the passion of a just disdain. The following by Canon Rawnsley--suggested by an attempt to introduce a mineral railway into Borrowdale--may be read in connection with Wordsworth’s two sonnets.--ED. A CRY FROM DERWENTWATER