many villas which spot the valley, give a new pathos to the sonnet
in which Wordsworth deplores the alteration which even his own
residence might make in the simplicity of the lonely scene.

Well may'st thou halt, and gaze with brightening eye!
The lovely Cottage in the guardian nook
Hath stirred thee deeply; with its own dear brook,
Its own small pasture, almost its own sky!
But covet not the Abode: forbear to sigh,
As many do, repining while they look;
Intruders--who would tear from Nature's book
This precious leaf with harsh impiety.
Think what the home must be if it were thine,
Even thine, though few thy wants! Roof, window, door,
The very flowers are sacred to the Poor,
The roses to the porch which they entwine:
Yea, all that now enchants thee, from the day
On which it should be touched, would melt, and melt away.

The _Poems on the Naming of Places_ belong for the most part to this
neighbourhood. _Emma's Dell_ on Easdale Beck, _Point Rash-Judgment_
on the eastern shore of Grasmere, _Mary's Pool_ in Rydal Park,
_William's Peak_ on Stone Arthur, _Joanna's Rock_ on the banks of
Rotha, and _John's Grove_ near White Moss Common, have been
identified by the loving search of those to whom every memorial of
that simple-hearted family group has still a charm.

It is on Greenhead Ghyll--"upon the forest-side in Grasmere Vale"--
that the poet has laid the scene of _Michael_, the poem which paints
with such detailed fidelity both the inner and the outward life of a