alone one day high up on
this part of Loughrigg Fell, she was so affected by the voice of the
Cuckoo heard from the crags at some distance that she could not suppress
a wish to have a stone inscribed with her name among the rocks from
which the sound proceeded. On my return from my walk I recited these
verses to Mrs. Wordsworth.--I. F.]

Classed among the "Poems of the Imagination."--ED.

Yes, it was the mountain Echo,
Solitary, clear, profound,
Answering to the shouting Cuckoo,
Giving to her sound for sound![1]

[2]

Unsolicited reply 5
To a babbling wanderer sent;[3]
Like her ordinary cry,
Like--but oh, how different!

Hears not also mortal Life?
Hear not we, unthinking Creatures! 10
Slaves of folly, love, or strife--
Voices of two different natures?

Have not _we_[4] too?--yes, we have
Answers, and we know not whence;
Echoes from beyond the grave, 15
Recognised intelligence!

Such rebounds our inward ear[A]
Catches sometimes from afar--[5]
Listen, ponder, hold them dear;[6]
For of God,--of God they are. 20

The place where this echo was heard can easily be identified by any one
walking along the southern or Loughrigg shore of Rydal. The Fenwick
note refers to a wish of Dorothy Wordsworth to have her name inscribed
on a stone among the rocks of Loughrigg Fell. It is impossible to know
whether it was ever carried out or not. If it was, the place is
undiscoverable, like the spot on the banks of the Rotha, where Joanna's
name was graven "deep in the living rock," or the place where Wordsworth
carved his wife's initials (as recorded in Mrs. Hemans' _Memoirs_), or
where the daisy was found, which suggested the lines beginning

Small service is true service while it lasts;

and it is well that they are undiscoverable. It is so easy for posterity
to vulgarise, by idle and unappreciative curiosity, spots that are
sacred only to the few who feel them to be shrines. The very grave where
Wordsworth rests runs the risk of being thus abused by the unthinking
crowd. But, in the hope that no one will desecrate it, as the Rock of
Names has been injured, I may mention that there is a stone near Rydal
Mere, on the north-eastern slope of Loughrigg, with the initial "M."
deeply cut. The exac