A Remembrance of Grasmere

O vale and lake, within your mountain-urn
Smiling so tranquilly, and set so deep!
Oft doth your dreamy loveliness return,
Colouring the tender shadows of my sleep
With light Elysian; for the hues that steep
Your shores in melting lustre, seem to float
On golden clouds from spirit-lands remote,
Isles of the blest; and in our memory keep
Their place with holiest harmonies. Fair scene,
Most loved by evening and her dewy star!
Oh! ne’er may man, with touch unhallow’d, jar
The perfect music of thy charm serene!
Still, still unchanged, may one sweet region wear
Smiles that subdue the soul to love, and tears, and prayer.

“Mourn rather for that holy spirit,
Sweet as the spring, as ocean deep,
For her who, ere her summer faded,
Has sunk into a breathless sleep.”