to and fro,
    Upward and downward, progress intricate
    Yet unperplex’d, as if one spirit swayed
    Their indefatigable flight.—­’Tis done—­
    Ten times, or more, I fancied it had ceased;
    But lo! the vanish’d company again
    Ascending;—­they approach—­I hear their wings
    Faint, faint, at first, and then an eager sound
    Past in a moment—­and as faint again! 
    They tempt the sun to sport amid their plumes;
    They tempt the water or the gleaming ice,
    To shew them a fair image;—­’tis themselves,
    Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering plain,
    Painted more soft and fair as they descend
    Almost to touch;—­then up again aloft,
    Up with a sally and a flash of speed,
    As if they scorn’d both resting-place and rest!

The ISLANDS, dispersed among these lakes, are neither so numerous nor so beautiful as might be expected from the account that has been given of the manner in which the level areas of the vales are so frequently diversified by rocks, hills, and hillocks, scattered over them; nor are they ornamented (as are several of the lakes in Scotland and Ireland) by the remains of castles or other places of defence; nor with the still more interesting ruins of religious edifices.  Every one must regret that scarcely a vestige is left of the Oratory, consecrated to the Virgin, which stood upon Chapel-Holm in Windermere, and that the Chauntry has disappeared, where mass used to be sung, upon St. Herbert’s Island, Derwent-water.  The islands of the last-mentioned lake are neither fortunately placed nor of pleasing shape; but if the wood upon them were managed with more taste, they might become interesting features in the landscape.  There is a beautiful cluster on Winandermere; a pair pleasingly contrasted upon Eydal; nor must the solitary green island of Grasmere be forgotten.  In the bosom of each of the lakes of Ennerdale and Devockwater is a single rock, which, owing to its neighbourhood to the sea, is—­

    The haunt of cormorants and sea-mews’ clang,

a music well suited to the stern and wild character of the several scenes!  It may be worth while here to mention (not as an object of beauty, but of curiosity) that there occasionally appears above the surface of Derwent-water, and always in the same place, a considerable tract of spongy ground covered with aquatic plants, which is called the Floating, but with more propriety might be named the Buoyant, Island; and, on one of the pools near the lake of Esthwaite, may sometimes be seen a mossy Islet, with trees upon it, shifting about before the wind, a lusus naturae frequent on the great rivers of America, and not unknown in other parts of the world.

        —­fas habeas invisere Tiburis arva,
      Albuneaeque lacum, atque umbras terrasque natantes.[51]

[51] See that admirable Idyllium, the Catillus and Salia of Landor.