LAUREATE OF THE LAKES: ROBERT SOUTHEY/KESWICK

 There is a painting in Keswick Museum of a rather attractive young man with rosy cheeks and lips, dark curly hair and brown eyes.  The young man in question is Robert Southey, one of a trio of 18^th/19^th century poets associated with the Lake District.   The other two are William Wordsworth and Southey’s brother-in-law Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who we previously met in this blog living in Somerset.  Southey was born in Bristol, but he moved to Keswick in 1803 and died there 40 years later, spending 30 of those years as Poet Laureate. 

Robert Southey (1774-1843), Aged 31 John Opie (1761-1807) Keswick Museum. Via Wikimedia Commons.

During his time in the Lake District, Southey lived at Greta Hall, initially sharing it with the Coleridge family.  Occupying a position near the river in Keswick, Greta Hall was built around 1800.  The Hall was visited by a number of famous literary types including the Wordsworths, Charles Lamb, Shelly and Sir Walter Scott.  The Hall subsequently became a girls’ school and then girls’ boarding house, before becoming a private property when for a time it offered self-catering accommodation.  It was put up for sale in 2021 for £1.2 million and remains in private hands.

 

Greta Hall and Keswick Bridge by William Westall (1781-1850), via Wikimedia Commons.

I have struggled to find any poetry by Southey inspired by the Lake District.  His work covers a wide range of topics including various battles and wars, and the time he spent in Spain and Portugal, as well as the original version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  However, I found a poem by him titled “The Cataract of Lodore” (a Lake District beauty spot better known today as the Lodore Falls).  The poem was written in response to a query by Southey’s son, “How does the water come down at Lodore?”  The resulting poem comes across as an increasingly demented  but highly descriptive account of the descent of the falls, “smoking and frothing”...”striking and raging”...”swelling and sweeping”...”flying and flinging”...”heaving and cleaving”...”quivering and shivering”...”bubbling and troubling and doubling” – you get the picture. 

Lodore Falls 3. Photo by Antiquary, via Wikimedia Commons.

 

For those who want to check out this elaborate description for themselves, the Lodore Falls are near the southern edge of Derwentwater, just inland from the Lodore Falls Hotel and Spa. 

Map of the area.