Wordsworth Rap

Okay, so Sheila and I did make up a Gerard Manley Hopkins rap, but we never made it into a music video advertising the beauties of Snowdonia. But an English tourist bureau has made a video of a giant squirrel strolling around the Lake District and performing a rap version of "I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud," in a surreal North Country accent. The last frame flashes a mysterious exhortation to "respect Wordsworth."



If such irreverence pains you - or if, like me, you are simply not a big Wordsworth fan - perhaps this Hopkins video will be more to your liking. (It was filmed by two Oxford students and it involves the music of Henry Purcell.)



Well, I guess I couldn't make it through three months in Rome without saying something about Hopkins.