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Wordsworth poems

Wordsworth describes the lower waterfall in An Evening Walk, and it appears again in a late and little known poem, 'Lyre! Though such power do in thy magic live' (1840), whose imagery was 'supplied,' said Wordsworth, 'by frequent, I might say intense, observation of the Rydal torrent.'

The Wordsworths often took guests to see the falls: on December 6 1800, for example, Dorothy notes, 'Sara [Hutchinson] and Wm. walked to the waterfalls at Rydale'. The parkland which stretches from here almost to Ambleside was also a favorite place for Wordsworth walks. 'To M H' ('Our walk was far among the ancient trees'), the first poem Wordsworth completed after moving to Dove Cottage, describes a walk in Rydal Park with Mary Hutchinson, who was to become the poet's wife, along A track, that brought us to a slip of lawn, And a small bed of water in the woods ... The spot was made by nature for herself; The travelers know it not, and 'twill remain Unknown to them; but it is beautiful; And therefore, my sweet Mary, this still Nook, With all its beeches, we have named from You! Mary's Nook is still unknown to travelers, for noone has identified the pool with certainty. Equally elusive is 'The Haunted Tree', a 'time dismantled Oak' in the Park about which Wordsworth wrote a poem in 1819.

The Park makes a fictional appearance in Marjorie Lloyd's Fell Farm Campers (1960), which gives a lively account of the Hound Trails which are still held here. A little uphill from the Rydal Hall gate is Rydal Mount (open March to October 9.305; November to February 104, closed Tuesdays; admission charge), home of William Wordsworth and his family from 1813 to 1850. Originally a farmhouse called Keens, it was enlarged in the eighteenth century and renamed in 1803. Wordsworth rented it from Lady Diana Le Fleming of Rydal Hall.

Socially, the house represented a large step up from Dove Cottage, putting the poet on calling terms with the local gentry. Simple pleasures, however appealed as much as ever; in summer he often spent days gardening or haymaking and The River Duddon describes with gusto the Christmas minstrels' visit to Rydal Mount in 1819.

The house is still lived in but is displayed much as it was in Wordsworth's day, with elegant but comfortable furnishings and fine gardens. The dining room has chair seats embroidered by Mary and Dorothy Wordsworth and Sara Hutchinson; the Drawing Room displays a small statuette of a boy holding a shell to his ear, which suggested a passage in The Excursion Book IV: I have seen A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract Of upland ground, applying to his ear The convolutions of a smooth lipped shell ... Even such a shell the universe itself Is to the ear of faith.

There is a good range of portraits of the poet and his family, including the only known portrait of Dorothy. Major works written at Rydal Mount (often initially composed whilst walking in the garden) include The River Duddon, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, the 1820 Miscellaneous Poems and the revision of The Prelude, which appeared just after Wordsworth's death in 1850.

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