Specific individuals link to specific places. Since I was born in Springfield, Illinois, I live with images of Abe Lincoln. Tending store in nearby New Salem; living in the only home he owned on South Eighth Street; giving his sad farewell address to friends at the Western Train Depot.

The Wordsworth are forever linked to the Lake District.Born at Cockermouth on the edge of the Lake District, he lived most of his life in this region. In 1799, he and his sister Dorothy moved to Dove Cottage in Grasmere. He wrote that Grasmere was “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found.” A loyal member of St. Oswalds Parish Church, he is buried in the cemetery along with his family.

The spot wasn’t only for him. In his Guides to the Lakes, he wrote: “persons of pure taste..deem the district a sort of national property in which every man has a right and an interest who has an eye to perceive and a heart to enjoy.”

On my rest day, another one!, I walk down many of the lanes of Grasmere and its environ. I’m walking a few miles; nothing like the estimated 175,000 miles that he walked during his lifetime. I walk down many of the lanes that he wanted to preserve for others to experience.

How to remember Wordsworth and Grasmere? As I walk, I realize that the flowers, shrubs, and trees surely would have captured his attention. The colors, the shapes, the textures. All would be noticed. And more, his “inward eye” would have returned to these same sights of wonder and beauty, days, months, and years later.

Enjoy the photos of Grasmere.