Under the foot of Rauran mossy hore,
From whence the river Dee, as silver clene,
His tombling billows rolls with gentle rore.”
So says Spenser, using a phrase which may have been in Shakespeare’s mind when he made Bottom promise to “roar you as gently as any sucking-dove.” Almost beyond counting are the streams which empty themselves into Bala Lake, high up among the peaks of Merionethshire. And they scarcely run dry in the hottest summers, for, as a cynical humorist has written—
“The weather depends on the moon as a rule,
And I’ve found that the saying is true;
For at Bala it rains when the moon’s at the full
And it rains when the moon’s at the new.
“When the moon’s at the quarter, then down comes the rain:
At the half it’s no better, I ween;