umes;
They tempt the water or the gleaming ice,
To shew them a fair image;--'tis themselves,
Their own fair forms, upon the glimmering plain,
Painted more soft and fair as they descend
Almost to touch;--then up again aloft,
Up with a sally and a flash of speed,
As if they scorn'd both resting-place and rest!

The ISLANDS, dispersed among these lakes, are neither so numerous nor so
beautiful as might be expected from the account that has been given of
the manner in which the level areas of the vales are so frequently
diversified by rocks, hills, and hillocks, scattered over them; nor are
they ornamented (as are several of the lakes in Scotland and Ireland) by
the remains of castles or other places of defence; nor with the still
more interesting ruins of religious edifices. Every one must regret that
scarcely a vestige is left of the Oratory, consecrated to the Virgin,
which stood upon Chapel-Holm in Windermere, and that the Chauntry has
disappeared, where mass used to be sung, upon St. Herbert's Island,
Derwent-water. The islands of the last-mentioned lake are neither
fortunately placed nor of pleasing shape; but if the wood upon them were
managed with more taste, they might become interesting features in the
landscape. There is a beautiful cluster on Winandermere; a pair
pleasingly contrasted upon Eydal; nor must the solitary green island of
Grasmere be forgotten. In the bosom of each of the lakes of Ennerdale
and Devockwater is a single rock, which, owing to its neighbourhood to
the sea, is--

The haunt of cormorants and sea-mews' clang,

a music well suited to the stern and wild character of the several
scenes! It may be worth while here to mention (not as an object of
beauty, but of curiosity) that there occasionally appears above the
surface of Derwent-water, and always in the same place, a considerable
tract of spongy ground covered with aquatic plants, which is called the
Floating, but with more propriety might be named the Buoyant, Island;
and, on one of the pools near the lake of Esthwaite, may sometimes be
seen a mossy Islet, with trees upon it, shifting about before the wind,
a _lusus naturae_ frequent on the great rivers of America, and not
unknown in other parts of the world.

--fas habeas invisere Tiburis arva,
Albuneaeque lacum, atque umbras terrasque natantes.[51]

[51] See that admirable Idyllium, the Catillus and Salia of Landor.

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