THE LAKE.
"Before the mansion lay a lucid lake,
Broad as transparent, deep, and freshly fed
By a river, which its softened way did take
in currents through the calmer water spread
Around: the wild fowl nestled in the brake
And sedges, brooding in their liquid bed:
The woods sloped downward to its brink, and stood
With their green faces fixed upon the flood."
Such is Lord Byron's description of one of a series of beautiful sheets
of water, formed in old times by the monks by damming up the course of
a small river. Here he used daily to enjoy his favorite recreations in
swimming and sailing. The "wicked old Lord," in his scheme of rural
devastation, had cut down all the woods that once fringed the lake;
Lord Byron, on coming of age, endeavored to restore them, and a
beautiful young wood, planted by him, now sweeps up from the water's
edge, and clothes the hillside opposite to the Abbey. To this woody
nook Colonel Wildman has given the appropriate title of "the Poet's
Corner."
The lake has inherited its share of the traditions and fables connected
with everything in and about the Abbey. It was a petty Mediterranean
sea on which the "wicked old Lord" used to gratify his nautical tastes
and humors.
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