The following Poem is the narrative of one day, the pleasantest of many pleasant ones, of a little Angling-excursion made three summers ago among the mountains of Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Cumberland. A tent, large panniers filled with its furniture, with provisions, &c. were loaded upon horses, and while the anglers, who separated every morning, pursued each his own sport up the torrents, were carried over the mountains to the appointed place by some lake or stream, where they were to meet again in the evening.

In this manner they visited all the wildest and most secluded scenes of the country. On the first Sunday they passed among the hills, their tent was pitched on the banks of Wast-Water, at the head of that wild and solitary lake, which they had reached by the mountain-path that passes Barn-Moor Tarn from Eskdale. Towards evening the inhabitants of the valley, not exceeding half a dozen families, with some too from the neighbouring glens, drawn by the unusual appearance, came to visit the strangers in their tent. Without, the evening was calm and beautiful; within, were the gaiety and kindness of simple mirth. At a late hour, their guests departed under a most refulgent moon that lighted them up the surrounding mountains, on which they turned to hail with long-continued shouts and songs the blazing of a huge fire, that was hastily kindled at the door of the tent to bid them a distant farewell.

The images and feelings of these few happy days, and above all, of that delightful evening, the author wished to preserve in poetry. What he has written, while it serves to himself and his friends as a record of past happiness, may, he hopes, without impropriety be offered to the public, since, if at all faithful to its subject, it will have some interest to those who delight in the wilder scenes of Nature, and who have studied with respect and love the character of their simple inhabitants.