But turning to the brighter side of things--to the joys rather than the pains of the sensitive body and spirit--we find, in Wordsworth's later years much of happiness 011 which to dwell. The memories which his name recalls are for the most part of thoughtful kindnesses, of simple-hearted joy in feeling himself at last appreciated, of tender sympathy with the young. Sometimes it is a recollection of some London drawing-room, where youth and beauty surrounded the rugged old man with an eager admiration which fell on no unwilling heart. Sometimes it is a story of some assemblage of young and old, rich and poor, from all the neighbouring houses and cottages, at Rydal Mount, to keep the aged poet's birthday with a simple feast and rustic play. Sometimes it is a report of some fireside gathering at Lancrigg or Foxhow, where the old man grew eloquent as he talked of Burns and Coleridge, of Homer and Virgil, of the true aim of poetry and the true happiness of man. Or we are told of some last excursion to well-loved scenes; of holly-trees planted by the poet's hands to simulate nature's decoration on the craggy hill. Such are the memories of those who best remember him. To those who were young children while his last years went by he seemed a kind of mystical embodiment of the lakes and mountains round him--a presence without which they would not be what they were. And now he is gone, and their untouched and early charm is going too. Heu, tua nobis Pæne simul tecum solatia rapta, Menalea! Rydal Mount, of which he had at one time feared to be deprived, was his to the end. He still paced the terrace-walks--but now the flat terrace oftener than the sloping one--whence the eye travels to lake and mountain across a tossing gulf of green. The doves that so long had been wont to answer with murmurs of their own to his "half-formed melodies" still hung in the trees above his pathway; and many who saw him there must have thought of the lines in which, his favourite poet congratulates himself that he has not been exiled from his home. Calm as thy sacred streams thy years shall flow; Groves which thy youth has known thine age shall know; Here, as of old, Hyblæan bees shall twine Their mazy murmur into dreams of thine,-- Still from the hedge's willow-bloom shall come Through summer silences a slumberous hum,-- Still from the crag shall lingering winds prolong The half-heard cadence of the woodman's song,-- While evermore the doves, thy love and care, Fill the tall elms with sighing in the air.