OH my look at this - from the 5th grade McGuffey - what a wonderful way to learn descriptive words...and more amazing - this is a lesson to simply learn 'ing' words!
XXXVIII. THE CATARACT OF LODORE.
1. "How does the water
Come down at Lodore?"
My little boy asked me
Thus once on a time;
And, moreover, he tasked me
To tell him in rhyme.
2. Anon at the word,
There first came one daughter,
And then came another,
To second and third
The request of their brother,
And to hear how the water
Comes down at Lodore,
With its rush and its roar,
As many a time
They had seen it before.
3. So I told them in rhyme,
For of rhymes I had store,
And 't was in my vocation
For their recreation
That so I should sing;
Because I was Laureate
To them and the King.
4. From its sources which well
In the tarn on the fell;
From its fountains
In the mountains,
Its rills and its gills;
Through moss and through brake,
It runs and it creeps
For a while, till it sleeps
In its own little lake.
5. And thence at departing,
Awakening and starting,
It runs through the reeds,
And away it proceeds,
Through meadow and glade,
In sun and in shade,
And through the wood shelter,
Among crags in its flurry,
Helter-skelter,
Hurry-skurry.
6. Here it comes sparkling,
And there it lies darkling;
Now smoking and frothing
Its tumult and wrath in,
Till, in this rapid race
On which it is bent,
It reaches the place
Of its steep descent.
7. The cataract strong
Then plunges along,
Striking and raging
As if a war waging
Its caverns and rocks among;
8. Rising and leaping,
Sinking and creeping,
Swelling and sweeping,
Showering and springing,
Flying and flinging,
Writhing and ringing,
Eddying and whisking,
Spouting and frisking,
Turning and twisting,
Around and around
With endless rebound;
Smiting and fighting,
A sight to delight in;
Confounding, astounding,
Dizzying, and deafening the ear with its sound
9. Collecting, projecting,
Receding and speeding,
And shocking and rocking,
And darting and parting,
And threading and spreading,
And whizzing and hissing,
And dripping and skipping,
And hitting and splitting,
And shining and twining,
And rattling and battling,
And shaking and quaking,
And pouring and roaring,
And waving and raving,
And tossing and crossing,
And guggling and struggling,
And heaving and cleaving,
And moaning and groaning,
And glittering and frittering,
And gathering and feathering,
And whitening and brightening,
And quivering and shivering,
And hurrying and skurrying,
And thundering and floundering;
10. Dividing and gliding and sliding,
And falling and brawling and sprawling,
And driving and riving and striving,
And sprinkling and twinkling and wrinkling;
11. And thumping and plumping and bumping and jumping,
And dashing and flashing and splashing and clashing;
And so never ending, but always descending,
Sounds and motions forever and ever are blending,
All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar,
And this way the water comes down at Lodore.
--Abridged from Southey.
DEFINITIONS.--4. Tarn, a small lake among the mountains. Fell (provincial
English), a stony hill. Gills (provincial English), brooks. 10. Brawl'ing,
roaring. Riv'ing, splitting.
NOTES.--1. Lodore is a cascade on the banks of Lake Derwentwater, in
Cumberland, England, near where Southey lived.
3. Laureate. The term probably arose from a custom in the English
universities of presenting a laurel wreath to graduates in rhetoric and
versification. In England the poet laureate's office is filled by
appointment of the lord chamberlain. The salary is quite small, and the
office is valued chiefly as one of honor.
This lesson is peculiarly adapted for practice on the difficult sound
"ing".
