’have been ruthlessly overthrown.  One has been uprooted bodily; all the leaders and branches of the others have been wrenched from the main trunk; and the three still standing are bare poles and broken wreckage.  Until one visits the spot one can have no conception of the wholesale destruction that the hurricane has wrought; until he looks on the huge rosy-hearted branches he cannot guess the tremendous force with which the tornado had fallen upon that “sable roof of boughs.”

’For tornado or whirlwind it must needs have been.  The Yews grew under the eastern flank of the hill called Base Brown.  The gale raged from the westward.  One could hardly believe it possible that the trees could have been touched by it; for the barrier hill on which they grew,—­and under whose shelter they have seen centuries of storm,—­goes straight upwards, betwixt them and the west.  It was only realizable when, standing amid the wreckage, and looking across the valley, it was seen that a larch plantation had been entirely levelled, and evidently by a wind that was coming from the east, and directly toward the Yew-trees.  On enquiring at Seathwaite Farm, one found that all the slates blown from the roof of that building on the west side, had been whirled up clean over the roof:  and we can only surmise that the winds rushing from the west and north-west, and meeting the bastions of Glaramara and the Sty-head slopes, were whirled round in the ‘cul-de-sac’ of the valley, and moved with churning motion back from east to west over the Seathwaite Farm, and so in straight line across the beck, and up the slope to the Yew-tree cluster.  With what a wrenching, and with what violence, these trees were in a moment shattered, only those can guess who now witness the ruins of the pillared shade, upon the “grassless floor of red-brown hue."’”

Ed.

* * * * *

“WHO FANCIED WHAT A PRETTY SIGHT”

Composed 1803.—­Published 1807

In the edition of 1807 this poem was No.  VIII. of the series entitled “Moods of my own Mind.”  It was afterwards included among the “Poems of the Fancy,” and in a MS. copy it was named “The Coronet of Snowdrops.”—­Ed.

  Who fancied what a pretty sight
  This Rock would be if edged around
  With living snow-drops? circlet bright! 
  How glorious to this orchard-ground! 
  Who loved the little Rock, and set 5
  Upon its head this coronet?

  Was it the humour of a child? 
  Or rather of some gentle [1] maid,
  Whose brows, the day that she was styled
  The shepherd-queen, were thus arrayed? 10
  Of man mature, or matron sage? 
  Or old man toying with his age?

  I asked—­’twas whispered; The device
  To each and [2] all might well belong: 
  It is the Spirit of Paradise 15
  That prompts such work, a Spirit strong,
  That gives to all the self-same bent
  Where life is wise and innocent.