The first thing which I remember, as an event in life, was being taken by my nurse to the brow of Friar's Crag on Derwentwater; the intense joy mingled with awe, that I had in looking through the hollows in the mossy roots, over the crag, into the dark lake, has associated itself more or less with all twining roots of trees ever since.
Modern Painters, Volume iii.,
RUSKIN.
THE FALLS OF LODORE
DESCRIBED IN RHYMES FOR THE NURSERY.
How does the water
Come down at Lodore?
My little boy ask'd me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he task'd me
To tell him in rhyme.
*****
Retreating and beating and meeting and sheeting,
Delaying and straying and playing and spraying,
Recoiling, turmoiling and toiling and boiling,
And gleaming and streaming and steaming and beaming,
And rushing and flushing and brushing and gushing,
And flapping and rapping and clapping and slapping,
And curling and whirling and purling and twirling,
And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions for ever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.