‘The Lambs of Grasmere’, its title referring to the Lake District, that area of England forever associated with Wordsworth and Romantic poetry, focuses on what Christina Rossetti (1830-94) calls the ‘pastureless wet pasture ground’ and the lambs which are saved from starvation by the shepherds, who come each day with bottles of milk to feed them.
The Lambs of Grasmere
The upland flocks grew starved and thinned;
Their shepherds scarce could feed the lambs
Whose milkless mothers butted them,
Or who were orphaned of their dams.
The lambs athirst for mother’s milk
Filled all the place with piteous sounds: