close in the shore.

Padlocked gates prevent you from walking precisely as you please from
the north-east of the lake through Windsor Park, and it is not
impossible to miss the right path through the trees. But if you are
walking north from the lake it is worth while to make your way to the
Cumberland obelisk--a gaunt column which the clustering ivy and shrubs
at its base will some day topple down among the grass and heather--and
to reach the Bishop's Gate through the single narrow stretch of Windsor
Great Park that lies in Surrey. In winter, pheasants crouch under the
brushwood or splutter through the trees; in summer the rhododendrons
scent and empurple the woodland rides.

Below Bishop's Gate, which is a yard or two over the Berkshire border,
lies the little hamlet of the same name where Shelley, the year before
his marriage to Mary Godwin, spent a happy summer and wrote "Alastor."
He was supposed to be dying of consumption, and was to live as much as
he could in the open air; and from Bishop's Gate he began an expedition
up the Thames, which took a fortnight of the warm July of 1815. He began
"Alastor" in the glades of Windsor Park in the summer, and that strange
and brooding poem is full of the splendour of the Windsor forest. The
poet, "led by love, or dream, or God," sought the "dearest haunt" of
Nature:--

"More dark
And dark the shades accumulate. The oak,
Expanding its immense and knotty arms,
Embraces the light beech. The pyramids
Of the tall cedar overarching frame
Most solemn domes within, and far below,
Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky,
The ash and the acacia floating hang
Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed
In rainbow and in fire, the parasites,
Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around
The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes,
With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles,
Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love,
These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs
Uniting their close union; the woven leaves
Make net-work of the dark blue light of day,
And the night's noontide clearness, mutable
As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns
Beneath these canopies extend their swells,
Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms
Minute yet beautiful."

This is a corner of Surrey, indeed, which is full of links with writers
a