Thanks to the place, blessings upon the hour;
Even as I speak the rising Sun’s first smile 10
Gleams on the grass-crowned top of yon tall Tower[282]
Whose cawing occupants with joy proclaim
Prescriptive title to the shattered pile
Where, Cavendish,[283] thine seems nothing but a name!
[281] In the chancel of the church at Furness Abbey, ivy almost covers the north wall. In the Belfry and in the Chapter House, it is the same. The “tower,” referred to in the sonnet, is evidently the belfry tower to the west. It is still “grass-crowned.” The sonnet was doubtless composed on the spot, and if Wordsworth ascended to the top of the belfry tower, he might have seen the morning sunlight strike the small remaining fragment of the central tower. But it is more likely that he looked up from the nave, or choir, of the church to the belfry, when he spoke of the sun’s first smile gleaming from the top of the tall tower. “Flowers”—crowfoot, campanulas, etc.—still luxuriate on the mouldered walls. With the line,
Fall to prevent or beautify decay;
compare,
Nature softening and concealing,