Whilst hunting through Hardwicke Rawnsley's many, many sonnets for a sonnet about Wray Castle, I stumbled across this lovely sonnet about Thomas Arnold and Fox How. It seemed appropriate to post this tribute to Thomas Arnold and Fox How, as we have just visited the house between Rydal and Ambleside, close to the River Rothay at Under Loughrigg.
By Rotha's stream this home for rest he planned,
Unresting Arnold, faithless, zealous, good!
Musing, I mark in Rydal's winter wood
The towering pine-clump take a full command
Of all the listening leafless brother band:
So, in our school-day winter-time, he stood
For English school, and true schoolmasterhood;
So seems he still pre-eminent to stand.
Upward I gaze - and lo! on Fairfields crown,
Above the storm, and first to see the sun,
A titan's grave his giant memory keeps;
God never calls his willing servants down;
High on his whole heart's rampire Arnold sleeps,
And round the pines the summer has begun.