At Wordsworth’s Gravernby Marion MontgomeryrnThis church will prosper beyond God-worship.rnHere lies the man who named our stones; by himrnOur flowers sway sweeter in a foreign eye,rnThose daffodils now reckoned Dora’s Field,rnOr dancing above Patterdale by staid UllswaterrnIn the endless caged words of staid contentions.rnIn Grasmere Churchyard a gathering of children.rnThird-form holiday, cluster like petalsrnAbout your flat darkening stone.rnTheir notepadsrnStruggle to please the high-pitched teacher,rnHer tallied detail too chopped for any meter.rnNearby, unnoticed, lies Hartley, constant.rnOnce child among your lost and sporting lambsrnThat day when shadows from some mountainrnFell of mind wept loss of bird and flowerrnAll your soul long and deep in monumentrnOf stiff song, strata of frozen images.rnSealed lost in stuttering memory, old splendorrnSeeped back past becks, scaled scree, past SkiddowrnInto the high-skulled moors toward Solway.rniirnStill, here lies William Wordsworth, near favored yews,rnNear him favored Hartley where sings the RothayrnIn a minor down to Grasmere reeds.rnThe river gnaws at Grasmere Ghurchyard, minor at stonesrnAs the voices of third-form children.rnThe always incipient lovers.rnThe loose wool of my torn thought, vague homage.rnSpins bright at every stand from Scott’s bibing SwanrnDown hill past cold Dove Cottage, to Rydal;rnFast Hawkeshead, on down to Kendal.rnIt comes to rest a moment in the May duskrnSettling Natland Green.rnA long way nowrnOutward to another present; we’re westingrnOutward toward Crawford and its gathering dusk.rnHot Georgia resin, broomsedge, another world enambered.rnMARCH 1994/31rnrnrn