After 'A Narrow Girdle of Rough Stones and Crags

In company of quite different take
The poet went out dawdling
Down by Grasmere Lake.
Dead calm the lake, no wind.

With no Joanna to mock
At the base of the rock,
All three flew fancy free,
William and Dorothy, STC,
Idled in the land of Poesy:
Osmunda fern became a Naiad Queen,
A fisherman miraged ahead
Was Freedom at his leisure.

But when up close, their fancies fled,
Self-reproach replaced their pleasure.
The fisherman was sick and gaunt,
Freedom just a taunt,
Dead the lake, no care.

POINT RASH-JUDGEMENT's what
They named the spot.
Had I put in my tuppence
The point might be COMEUPPANCE.

(STC is Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Dorothy is Wordsworth's sister)
This poem follows on from 'After 'To Joanna''

poem by Douglas Scotney
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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