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The Grasmere Journals, 1802
Grasmere. A journal kept for her brother, of walks, weather, neighbours, the poor at the door, and the daffodils by the lake before the poem. I wrote it because I shall give William pleasure by it.
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Kept by Substance · the quoted lines are theirs, the rest written after them · The Grasmere Journals
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“And that great house!
Mercy upon us! if it could be concealed, it would be well for all who are not pained to see the pleasantest of earthly spots deformed by man.”
I mean the sharp ache we feel when a place made for peace is ruined by greed or vanity. The island at Windermere was once wild and green, but men have cut its trees and laid down smooth grass where sheep used…
“The Elbe in the vicinity of Hamburgh is so divided, and spread out, that the country looks more like a plain overflowed by heavy rain than the bed of a great river.”
I walked with William along the sandy roads beyond Altona, where the causeway felt dry under our boots though the air was thick with moisture. The water did not hold itself in a single channel but lay scattered…