The Cataract of Lodore

Read this at breakfast this morning.  Madeleine said the illustrations really "make it."  I agree.

 The Cataract of Lodore

Robert Southey

illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein 1991

Robert Southey was made England's Poet Laureate in 1813.  He was one of the Romantic Lake Poets and also wrote the children's nursery story "The Three Bears".  I can't say that I've ever read any of his other poems- he's certainly been forgotten compared to his friends Coleridge and Wordsworth.  But this is definitely a fun verse to read with all the rhyming language, as raucous and boisterous as the waterfall he describes. 

We even had to make use of the glossary on the first page to find out what the words "gill" and "tarn" meant.  (Gill is a narrow stream or rivulet and tarn is a mountain lake or pool).

"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.