Fidelity.
"Fidelity," by William Wordsworth (1770-1850), is placed here out of respect to a boy of eleven years who liked the poem well enough to recite it frequently. The scene is laid on Helvellyn, to me the most impressive mountain of the Lake District of England. Wordsworth is a part of this country. I once heard John Burroughs say: "I went to the Lake District to see what kind of a country it could be that would produce a Wordsworth."
A barking sound the Shepherd hears,
A cry as of a dog or fox;
He halts—and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks;
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a Dog is seen,
Glancing through that covert green.
The Dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the Shepherd thinks,
Unusual in its cry:
Nor is there any one in sight
All round, in hollow or on height;
Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear;
What is the Creature doing here?
It was a cove, a huge recess,
That keeps, till June, December's snow,
A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn below!
Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land;
From trace of human foot or hand.
