ave we not perpetual streams,
Warm woods, and sunny hills, and fresh green fields,
And mountains not less green, and flocks and herds,
And thickets full of songsters, and the voice
Of lordly birds, an unexpected sound
Heard now and then from morn to latest eve,
Admonishing the man who walks below
Of solitude and silence in the sky.
These have we, and a thousand nooks of earth
Have also these, but nowhere else is found,
Nowhere (or is it fancy?) can be found
The one sensation that is here;...'tis the sense
Of majesty, and beauty, and repose,
A blended holiness of earth and sky,
Something that makes this individual spot,
This small abiding-place of many men,
A termination, and a last retreat,
A centre, come from wheresoe'er you will,
A whole without dependence or defect,
Made for itself, and happy in itself,
Perfect contentment, Unity entire."

In the Grasmere vale Wordsworth lived for half a century, first in a
little cottage at the northern corner of the lake, and then (1813) in
a more commodious house at Rydal Mount at the southern end, on the
road to Ambleside. In 1802 he married Mary Hutchinson, of Penrith, and
this completed the circle of his felicity. Mary, he once said, was to
his ear the most musical and most truly English in sound of all the
names we have. The name was of harmonious omen. The two beautiful
sonnets that he wrote on his wife's portrait long years after, when
"morning into noon had passed, noon into eve," show how much her large
heart and humble mind had done for the blessedness of his home.

Their life was almost more simple than that of the dalesmen their
neighbours. "It is my opinion," ran one of his oracular sayings to Sir
George Beaumont, "that a man of letters, and indeed all public men
of every pursuit, should be severely frugal." Means were found for
supporting the modest home out of two or three small windfalls
bequeathed by friends or relatives, and by the time that children had
begun to come Wordsworth was raised to affluence by obtaining the post
of distributor of stamps for Westmoreland and part of Cumberland. His
life was happily devoid of striking external incident. Its essential
part lay in meditation and composition.

He was surrounded by friends. Southey had made a home for himself
and his beloved library a few miles over the hills, at Keswick. De
Quincey, with his clever brains and shallow character, took up his
abode in the cotta