I stood, in various thoughts and fancies lost,
When one who was in shepherd's garb attired,
Came up the hollow him did I accost,
And what this place might be I then inquired.

The shepherd stopped, and that same story told

Which in my former rhyme I have rehearsed. "A jolly place," said he, "in times of old! But something ails it now; the spot is cursed.

"You see these lifeless stumps of aspen wood,

Some say that they are beeches, others elms, These were the bower; and here a mansion

stood,

The finest palace of a hundred realms !

"The arbor does its own condition tell;

You see the stones, the fountain, and the

stream;

But as to the great lodge! you might as well Hunt half a day for a forgotten dream.

"There's neither dog nor heifer, horse nor sheep,

Will wet his lips within that cup

of stone;

And oftentimes, when all are fast asleep, This water doth send forth a dolorous groan.

66 Some say that here a murder has been done, And blood cries out for blood; but for my part,

I've guessed, when I've been sitting in the

sun,

That it was all for that unhappy Hart.

"What thoughts must through the creature's brain have passed!

Even from the topmost stone, upon the steep, Are but three bounds, and look, sir, at this

last

--O master! it has been a cruel leap.

For thirteen hours he ran a desperate race; And in my simple mind we cannot tell What cause the Hart might have to love this

place,

And come and make his death-bed near the well.

"Here on the grass, perhaps, asleep he sank, Lulled by this fountain in the summer-tide;

This water was perhaps the first he drank, When he had wandered from his mother's side.

"In April, here beneath the scented thorn, He heard the birds their morning carols sing; And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born Not half a furlong from that selfsame spring.

"But now here 's neither grass nor pleasant shade,

The sun on drearier hollow never shone ;
So will it be, as I have often said,

Till trees and stones, and fountain all are gone."

"Gray-headed shepherd, thou hast spoken

well;

Small difference lies between thy creed and mine;

This beast not unobserved by Nature fell; His death was mourned by sympathy divine.

"The Being, that is in the clouds and air, That is in the green leaves among the groves, Maintains a deep and reverential care

For the unoffending creatures whom he loves.

"The pleasure-house is dust: behind, before, This is no common waste, no common gloom; But Nature, in due course of time, once more Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom.

"She leaves these objects to a slow decay, That what we are, and have been, may be known;

But, at the coming of the milder day,
These monuments shall all be overgrown.

"One lesson, shepherd, let us two divide, Taught both by what she shows and what conceals,

Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

LINES,

COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON THE BANKS OF THE WYE.

IVE years have passed; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I

hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain

springs

With a sweet inland murmur. Once again Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs, Which on a wild secluded scene impress Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect The landscape with the quiet of the sky. The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard tufts,

Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits, Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves Among the woods and copses, nor disturb The wild green landscape. Once again I see These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little

lines

Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke Sent up, in silence, from among the trees! With some uncertain notice, as might seem, Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods, Or of some hermit's cave, where by his fire The hermit sits alone.