"
'For tornado or whirlwind it must needs have been.
'For tornado or whirlwind it must needs have been.
William Wordsworth
16 and 20, 1816.
"The pride of Lorton Vale" is now a ruin, and has lost all its ancient
majesty: but, until the close of 1883, the "fraternal four" of
Borrowdale were still to be seen "in grand assemblage. " Every one who
has felt the power of Wordsworth's poetry,--and especially those who
had visited the Seathwaite valley, and read the 'Yew-Trees' under the
shade of that once "solemn and capacious grove" before 1884,--must
have felt as if they had lost a personal friend, when they heard that
the "grove" was gone. The great gale of December 11, 1883, smote it
fiercely, uprooting one of the trees, and blowing the others to
ribbands. The following is Mr. Rawnsley's account of the disaster:
'Last week the gale that ravaged England did the Lake country much
harm. We could spare many of the larch plantations, and could hear
(with a sigh) of the fall of the giant Scotch firs opposite the
little Scafell Inn at Rosthwaite, and that Watendlath had lost its
pines; but who could spare those ancient Yews, the great
". . . fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved. "
'For beneath their pillared shade since Wordsworth wrote his poem,
that Yew-tree grove has suggested to many a wanderer up Borrowdale,
and visitant to the Natural Temple,
"an ideal grove in which the ghostly masters of mankind meet, and
sleep, and offer worship to the Destiny that abides above them,
while the mountain flood, as if from another world, makes music to
which they dimly listen. "
'These Yew-trees, seemingly
"Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed,"
'have been ruthlessly overthrown. One has been uprooted bodily; all
the leaders and branches of the others have been wrenched from the
main trunk; and the three still standing are bare poles and broken
wreckage. Until one visits the spot one can have no conception of
the wholesale destruction that the hurricane has wrought; until he
looks on the huge rosy-hearted branches he cannot guess the
tremendous force with which the tornado had fallen upon that "sable
roof of boughs.
"
'For tornado or whirlwind it must needs have been. The Yews grew
under the eastern flank of the hill called Base Brown. The gale
raged from the westward. One could hardly believe it possible that
the trees could have been touched by it; for the barrier hill on
which they grew,--and under whose shelter they have seen centuries
of storm,--goes straight upwards, betwixt them and the west. It was
only realizable when, standing amid the wreckage, and looking across
the valley, it was seen that a larch plantation had been entirely
levelled, and evidently by a wind that was coming from the east, and
directly toward the Yew-trees. On enquiring at Seathwaite Farm, one
found that all the slates blown from the roof of that building on
the west side, had been whirled up clean over the roof: and we can
only surmise that the winds rushing from the west and north-west,
and meeting the bastions of Glaramara and the Sty-head slopes, were
whirled round in the 'cul-de-sac' of the valley, and moved with
churning motion back from east to west over the Seathwaite Farm, and
so in straight line across the beck, and up the slope to the
Yew-tree cluster. With what a wrenching, and with what violence,
these trees were in a moment shattered, only those can guess who now
witness the ruins of the pillared shade, upon the "grassless floor
of red-brown hue. "'"
Ed.
* * * * *
"WHO FANCIED WHAT A PRETTY SIGHT"
Composed 1803. --Published 1807
In the edition of 1807 this poem was No. VIII. of the series entitled
"Moods of my own Mind. " It was afterwards included among the "Poems of
the Fancy," and in a MS. copy it was named "The Coronet of
Snowdrops. "--Ed.
Who fancied what a pretty sight
This Rock would be if edged around
With living snow-drops?
"The pride of Lorton Vale" is now a ruin, and has lost all its ancient
majesty: but, until the close of 1883, the "fraternal four" of
Borrowdale were still to be seen "in grand assemblage. " Every one who
has felt the power of Wordsworth's poetry,--and especially those who
had visited the Seathwaite valley, and read the 'Yew-Trees' under the
shade of that once "solemn and capacious grove" before 1884,--must
have felt as if they had lost a personal friend, when they heard that
the "grove" was gone. The great gale of December 11, 1883, smote it
fiercely, uprooting one of the trees, and blowing the others to
ribbands. The following is Mr. Rawnsley's account of the disaster:
'Last week the gale that ravaged England did the Lake country much
harm. We could spare many of the larch plantations, and could hear
(with a sigh) of the fall of the giant Scotch firs opposite the
little Scafell Inn at Rosthwaite, and that Watendlath had lost its
pines; but who could spare those ancient Yews, the great
". . . fraternal Four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;
Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine
Up-coiling, and inveterately convolved. "
'For beneath their pillared shade since Wordsworth wrote his poem,
that Yew-tree grove has suggested to many a wanderer up Borrowdale,
and visitant to the Natural Temple,
"an ideal grove in which the ghostly masters of mankind meet, and
sleep, and offer worship to the Destiny that abides above them,
while the mountain flood, as if from another world, makes music to
which they dimly listen. "
'These Yew-trees, seemingly
"Produced too slowly ever to decay;
Of form and aspect too magnificent
To be destroyed,"
'have been ruthlessly overthrown. One has been uprooted bodily; all
the leaders and branches of the others have been wrenched from the
main trunk; and the three still standing are bare poles and broken
wreckage. Until one visits the spot one can have no conception of
the wholesale destruction that the hurricane has wrought; until he
looks on the huge rosy-hearted branches he cannot guess the
tremendous force with which the tornado had fallen upon that "sable
roof of boughs.
"
'For tornado or whirlwind it must needs have been. The Yews grew
under the eastern flank of the hill called Base Brown. The gale
raged from the westward. One could hardly believe it possible that
the trees could have been touched by it; for the barrier hill on
which they grew,--and under whose shelter they have seen centuries
of storm,--goes straight upwards, betwixt them and the west. It was
only realizable when, standing amid the wreckage, and looking across
the valley, it was seen that a larch plantation had been entirely
levelled, and evidently by a wind that was coming from the east, and
directly toward the Yew-trees. On enquiring at Seathwaite Farm, one
found that all the slates blown from the roof of that building on
the west side, had been whirled up clean over the roof: and we can
only surmise that the winds rushing from the west and north-west,
and meeting the bastions of Glaramara and the Sty-head slopes, were
whirled round in the 'cul-de-sac' of the valley, and moved with
churning motion back from east to west over the Seathwaite Farm, and
so in straight line across the beck, and up the slope to the
Yew-tree cluster. With what a wrenching, and with what violence,
these trees were in a moment shattered, only those can guess who now
witness the ruins of the pillared shade, upon the "grassless floor
of red-brown hue. "'"
Ed.
* * * * *
"WHO FANCIED WHAT A PRETTY SIGHT"
Composed 1803. --Published 1807
In the edition of 1807 this poem was No. VIII. of the series entitled
"Moods of my own Mind. " It was afterwards included among the "Poems of
the Fancy," and in a MS. copy it was named "The Coronet of
Snowdrops. "--Ed.
Who fancied what a pretty sight
This Rock would be if edged around
With living snow-drops?
