button to main menu  Wordsworth's Guide 1810, edn 1835
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page 20
hue, and in other parts bordering the lake, groves, if I may so call them, of reeds and bulrushes; or plots of water-lilies lifting up their large target-shaped leaves to the breeze, while the white flower is heaving upon the wave.
To these may naturally be added the birds that enliven the waters. Wild-ducks in springtime hatch their young in the islands, and upon reedy shores; - the sand-piper, flitting along the stony margins, by its restless note attracts the eye to motions as restless: - upon some jutting rock, or at the edge of a smooth meadow, the stately heron may be descried with folded wings, that might seem to have caught their delicate hue from the blue waters, by the side of which she watches for her sustenance. In winter, the lakes are sometimes resorted to by wild swans; and in that season habitually by widgeons, goldings, and other aquatic fowl of the smaller species. Let me be allowed the aid of a verse to describe the evolutions which these visitants sometimes perform, on a fine day towards the close of winter.

Mark how the feather'd tenants of the flood,
With grace of motion that might scarcely seem
Inferior to angelical, prolong
Their curious pastime! shaping in mid air
(And sometimes with ambitious wing that soars
High as the level of the mountain tops,)
A circuit ampler than the lake beneath,
Their own domain; - but ever, while intent
On tracing and retracing that large round,
Their jubilant activity evolves
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