"How does the Water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me
Thus, once on a time;
And moreover he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.

Anon at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the Water

Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before:
So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store.

From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell,
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills,
Through moss, and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake;