Page:The Excursion, Wordsworth, 1814.djvu/93

67 Renowned for splendid prospect far and wide.

We clomb without a track to guide our steps;

And, on the summit, reached a heathy plain,

With a tumultuous waste of huge hill tops

Before us; savage region! and I walked

In weariness: when, all at once, behold!

Beneath our feet, a little lowly Vale,

A lowly Vale, and yet uplifted high

Among the mountains; even as if the spot

Had been, from eldest time by wish of theirs,

So placed,—to be shut out from all the world!

Urn-like it was in shape, deep as an Urn;

With rocks encompassed, save that to the South

Was one small opening, where a heath-clad ridge

Supplied a boundary less abrupt and close.

A quiet treeless nook, with two green fields,

A liquid pool that glittered in the sun,

And one bare Dwelling; one Abode, no more!

It seemed the home of poverty and toil

Though not of want: the little fields, made green

By husbandry of many thrifty years,

Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland House.

—There crows the Cock, single in his domain: