After tea at Patterdale, set out again:—­a fine evening; the seven stars close to the mountain-top; all the stars seemed brighter than usual.  The steeps were reflected in Brotherswater, and, above the lake, appeared like enormous black perpendicular walls.  The Kirkstone torrents had been swoln by the rains, and now filled the mountain pass with their roaring, which added greatly to the solemnity of our walk.  Behind us, when we had climbed to a great height, we saw one light, very distinct, in the vale, like a large red star—­a solitary one in the gloomy region.  The cheerfulness of the scene was in the sky above us.

Reached home a little before midnight.  The following verses (from the Author’s Miscellaneous Poems,) after what has just been read may be acceptable to the reader, by way of conclusion to this little Volume.

ODE.

THE PASS OF KIRKSTONE.

    I.

    Within the mind strong fancies work,
    A deep delight the bosom thrills,
    Oft as I pass along the fork
    Of these fraternal hills: 
    Where, save the rugged road, we find
    No appanage of human kind;
    Nor hint of man, if stone or rock
    Seem not his handy-work to mock
    By something cognizably shaped;
    Mockery—­or model roughly hewn,
    And left as if by earthquake strewn,
    Or from the Flood escaped: 
    Altars for Druid service fit;
    (But where no fire was ever lit,
    Unless the glow-worm to the skies
    Thence offer nightly sacrifice;)
    Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
    Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent;
    Tents of a camp that never shall be raised;
    On which four thousand years have gazed!

    II.

    Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes! 
    Ye snow-white lambs that trip
    Imprisoned ’mid the formal props
    Of restless ownership! 
    Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall
    To feed the insatiate Prodigal! 
    Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields,
    All that the fertile valley shields;
    Wages of folly—­baits of crime,—­
    Of life’s uneasy game the stake,
    Playthings that keep the eyes awake
    Of drowsy, dotard Time;
    O care!  O guilt!—­O vales and plains,
    Here, ’mid his own unvexed domains,
    A Genius dwells, that can subdue
    At once all memory of You,—­
    Most potent when mists veil the sky,
    Mists that distort and magnify;
    While the hoarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze,
    Sigh forth their ancient melodies!

    III.

    List to those shriller notes!—­that march
    Perchance was on the blast,
    When through this Height’s inverted arch,
    Rome’s earliest legion passed! 
    —­They saw, adventurously impelled,
    And older eyes than theirs beheld,
    This block—­and