Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Rydal

Rydal Mount

By Maria Jane Jewsbury (1800–1833)

(From The Poet’s Home)

LOW and white, yet scarcely seen,

Are its walls for mantling green;

Not a window lets in light

But through flowers clustering bright;

Not a glance may wander there

But it falls on something fair:

Garden choice and fairy mound,

Only that no elves are found;

Winding walk and sheltered nook,

For student grave and graver book;

Or a bird-like bower, perchance,

Fit for maiden and romance.

Then, far off, a glorious sheen

Of wide and sunlit waters seen;

Hills that in the distance lie

Blue and yielding as the sky;

And nearer, closing round the nest,

The home,—of all the “living crest”;

Other rocks and mountains stand

Rugged, yet a guardian band,

Like those that did in fable old

Elysium from the world enfold.

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