No More Learning

But I would call thee beautiful; for mild,
And soft, and gay, and beautiful thou art,
Dear valley, having in thy face a smile,
Though peaceful, full of gladness. Thou art pleased, 35
Pleased with thy crags, and woody steeps, thy lake,
Its one green island, and its winding shores,
The multitude of little rocky hills,
Thy church, and cottages of mountain-stone
Clustered like stars some few, but single most, 40
And lurking dimly in their shy retreats,
Or glancing at each other cheerful looks,
Like separated stars with clouds between.




This Grasmere cottage is identified, much more than Rydal Mount, with
Wordsworth's "poetic prime. " It had once been a public-house, bearing
the sign of the Dove and Olive Bough--and as such is referred to in 'The
Waggoner'--from which circumstance it was for a long time, and is now
usually, called "Dove Cottage. " A small two storied house, it is
described somewhat minutely--as it was in Wordsworth's time--by De
Quincey, in his 'Recollections of the Lakes', and by the late Bishop of
Lincoln, in the 'Memoirs' of his uncle.

"The front of it faces the lake; behind is a small plot of orchard and
garden ground, in which there is a spring and rocks; the enclosure
shelves upwards towards the woody sides of the mountains above it. "
[A]

The following is De Quincey's description of it, as he saw it in the
summer of 1807.

"A white cottage, with two yew trees breaking the glare of its white
walls" (these yews still stand on the eastern side of the cottage). "A
little semi-vestibule between two doors prefaced the entrance into
what might be considered the principal room of the cottage. It was an
oblong square, not above eight and a half feet high, sixteen feet
long, and twelve broad; wainscoted from floor to ceiling with dark
polished oak, slightly embellished with carving. One window there
was--a perfect and unpretending cottage window, with little diamond
panes, embowered at almost every season of the year with roses; and,
in the summer and autumn, with a profusion of jasmine, and other
fragrant shrubs. . . . I was ushered up a little flight of stairs,
fourteen in all, to a little drawing-room, or whatever the reader
chooses to call it.
Wordsworth himself has described the fireplace of
this room as his

'Half-kitchen and half-parlour fire. '

It was not fully seven feet six inches high, and in other respects
pretty nearly of the same dimensions as the rustic hall below. There
was, however, in a small recess, a library of perhaps three hundred
volumes, which seemed to consecrate the room as the poet's study and
composing room, and such occasionally it was. But far oftener he both
studied, as I found, and composed on the high road. " [B]

Other poems of later years refer, much more fully than the above, to
this cottage, and its orchard ground, where so many of Wordsworth's
lyrics were composed.

The "orchard ground," which was for the most part in grass, sloped
upwards; but a considerable portion of the natural rock was exposed; and
on its face, some rough stone steps were cut by Wordsworth, helped by a
near neighbour of his--John Fisher--so as more conveniently to reach the
upper terrace, where the poet built for himself a small arbour. All this
garden and orchard ground is not much altered since 1800. The short
terrace walk is curved, with a sloping bank of grass above, shaded by
apple trees, hazel, holly, laburnum, laurel, and mountain ash. Below the
terrace is the well, which supplied the cottage in Wordsworth's time;
and there large leaved primroses still grow, doubtless the successors of
those planted by his own and his sister's hands. Above, and amongst the
rocks, are the daffodils, which they also brought to their
"garden-ground;" the Christmas roses, which they planted near the well,
were removed to the eastern side of the garden, where they flourished
luxuriantly in 1882; but have now, alas! disappeared. The box-wood
planted by the poet grows close to the cottage. The arbour is now gone;
but, in the place where it stood, a seat is erected. The hidden brook
still sings its under-song, as it used to do, "its quiet soul on all
bestowing," and the green linnet may doubtless be seen now, as it used
to be in 1803. The allusions to the garden ground at Dove Cottage, in
the poems which follow, will be noted as they occur. --Ed.