Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 1/A talk about Rydal Mount
Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/118 Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/119 Milton, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Spenser. Down the wall hung little miniature engravings of Sir R. Inglis, Mr. Poole, Rogers, Wordsworth, Charles Lamb, and Armstrong. Next to them Chantry’s bust of the poet, an engraving of Haydon’s picture with open collar and bare neck, and some sketches of Sir George Beaumont. Over the old oaken sideboard was a bust of Scott, and near it engravings of the Queen and the royal children, given by her Majesty.
The rarest piece of furniture in the room was an old almery carved over with circles emblematic of the Trinity and the monogram I. H. S. It bore this inscription:
Hoc opus fiebat anno Domino M.CCCXXV. ex sumtu Wilhelmi Wordesworth filii W. Fil. Joh. Fil. W. Fil. Mich. viri Elizabeth Filiæ et Heredis W. Proctor de Penyrston quorum animabus propitietur Deus.
Within reach of the fire-place were Cottonian volumes, and volumes of his own poems, which Wordsworth carried with him, mused over, pencilled, and (unfortunately) altered.
Ascending the staircase, were two pictures of Giordano Bruno, of remarkable tone and beauty; Endymion asleep, with his dogs and hunting-spear; and Godfrey lying wounded, with Armida fondly bending over him; in the blue distance is Jerusalem.
Hush! here is a room which has never been opened for months. Here William Wordsworth died; and here died Mary Wordsworth, in a calm and good old age. The room is of an austere simplicity: on that sofa Wordsworth was lifted out to die: and in a niche close to the window is the cross which blind old Mrs. Wordsworth asked to feel before she died. “Vale, vale, iterumque valete.”
Let us pass into the garden, which glossy laurels make all the year cheerful. To the right a terrace leads to an arbour lined with fir-cones and overhung with pines. You pass along a winding walk, and there the little lake shines below in all its beauty. In spring, daffodils light the ground at your feet, and you hear the wild dove “brooding over his soft voice” in the woods below. Below is a garden flush with anemonies, and below that a field which bears the name of the poet’s daughter. There are the trees which he planted, and his favourite flowers. Over a little pool in which some golden fish were set free, an oak, all knotted and gnarled, hangs. In one of its arms grows a mountain ash and a holly. Everything in the grounds sings of liberty, and a mossy stone records a wish we cannot but echo:—
When here theTime will come
When here the tender-hearted
May heave a gentle sigh for him
As one of the departed.