The animated skies above Lake Windermere doubtless inspired lesser poets than Wordsworth, their prose just as romantic and picturesque. I imagine a young poet gazing up at billious clouds burdened with snowflakes and the words spring forth in his mind, a ready poem to share with the world. But like so many youth inspired by greatness, he questions the worth of the words he scrawls and their originality, too. Has he made something worthwhile, something to remember? He recites his favorite line aloud as a cold shadow passes over him,

“Hung o’er a cloud, above the steep that rears, its edge all aflame, the broadening sun appears; a long blue bar it’s aegis orb divides, and breaks the spreading of its golden tides; and now it touches on the purple steep, that flings his shadow on the pictured deep.”

and he lets his own lines float away on the gentle waves lapping against the shore.