No More Learning

. . . which . . . 1800. ]


[Variant 4:

1800.

. . . for You. 1802.

The text of 1815 returns to that of 1800. ]


To find the pool referred to in the Fenwick note, I have carefully
examined the course of Rydal beck, all the way up to the foot of the
Fell.
There is a pool beyond the enclosures of the Hall property, about
five hundred feet above Rydal Mount, which partly corresponds to the
description in the poem, but there is no wood around it now; and the
trees which skirt its margin are birch, ash, oak, and hazel, but there
are no beeches. It is a short way below some fine specimens of ice-worn
rocks, which are to the right of the stream as you ascend it, and above
these rocks is a well-marked moraine. It is a deep crystal pool, and has
a "firm margin" of (artificially placed) stones. This may be the spot
described in the poem; or another, within the grounds of the Hall, may
be the place referred to. It is a sequestered nook, beside the third
waterfall as you ascend the beck--this third cascade being itself a
treble fall. Seen two or three days after rain, when the stream is full
enough to break over the whole face of the rock in showers of snowy
brightness, yet low enough to shew the rock behind its transparent veil,
it is specially beautiful. Trees change so much in eighty years that the
absence of "beeches" now would not make this site impossible. In a MS.
copy of the poem (of date Dec. 28, 1800), the last line is

'With all its poplars, we have named from you. '

Of the circular pool beneath this fall it may be said, as Wordsworth
describes it, that

'. . . both flocks and herds might drink
On its firm margin, even as from a well;'

and a "small slip of lawn" might easily have existed there in his time.
We cannot, however, be confident as to the locality, and I add the
opinion of several, whose judgment may be deferred to. Dr.