"And, gallant stag! to make thy praises known,
Another monument shall here be raised;
Three several pillars, each a rough-hewn stone,
And planted where thy hoofs the turf have grazed.

"And in the summer-time, when days are long,
I will come hither with my paramour:
And with the dancers, and the minstrel's song,
We will make merry in that pleasant bower.

"Till the foundations of the mountains fail,
My mansion with its arbour shall endure :---
The joy of them who till the fields of Swale,

And them who dwell among the woods of Ure!”

Then home he went, and left the hart, stone dead,
With breathless nostrils stretched above the spring,
-Soon did the knight perform what he had said,
And far and wide the fame thereof did ring.

Ere thrice the moon into her port had steered,
A cup of stone received the living well;
Three pillars of rude stone Sir Walter reared,
And built a house of pleasure in the dell.

And near the fountain, flowers of stature tall,
With trailing plants and trees were intertwined,—
Which soon composed a little sylvan hall,

A leafy shelter from the sun and wind.

And thither, when the summer days were long,
Sir Walter journeyed with his paramour;
And with the dancers, and the minstrel's song,
Made merriment within that pleasant bower.

The knight, Sir Walter, died in course of time,
And his bones lie in his paternal vale.—
But there is matter for a second rhyme,
And I to this would add another tale.

PART SECOND.

THE moving accident is not my trade:
To freeze the blood I have no ready arts;
'Tis my delight, alone in summer shade,

To pipe a simple song for thinking hearts.

As I from Hawes to Richmond did repair,
It chanced that I saw, standing in a dell,
Three aspens at three corners of a square;
And one, not four yards distant, near a well.
What this imported I could ill divine:

And, pulling now the rein, my horse to stop,
I saw three pillars standing in a line,

The last stone pillar on a dark hill-top.

The trees were gray, with neither arms nor head; Half-wasted the square mound of tawny green; So that you just might say, as then I said,

Here in old time the hand of man hath been."

I looked upon the hill both far and near,

More doleful place did never eye survey;
It seemed as if the spring-time came not here,
And Nature here were willing to decay.

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 curst.

You see these lifeless stumps of aspen woodSome say that they are beeches, others elms— These were the bower; and here a mansion stood, The finest palace of a hundred realms !

"The arbour 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.

"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 sittting in the sun, That it was all for that unhappy hart.

44

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 lastO 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 the 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 self-same spring.

"Now, here is 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."

1800.

III.

POWER OF MUSIC.

AN Orpheus! an Orpheus! yes, faith may grow bold,
And take to herself all the wonders of old ;-

Near the stately Pantheon you'll meet with the same
In the street that from Oxford hath borrowed its name.

His station is there; and he works on the crowd,
He sways them with harmony merry and loud;
He fills with his power all their hearts to the brim-
Was aught ever heard like his fiddle and him?

What an eager assembly! what an empire is this!
The weary have life, and the hungry have bliss;
The mourner is cheered, and the anxious have rest;
And the guilt-burthened soul is no longer opprest.

As the moon brightens round her the clouds of the night,
So he, where he stands, is a centre of light;
It gleams on the face, there, of dusky-browed Jack,
And the pale-visaged baker's, with basket on back.

That errand-bound prentice was passing in hasteWhat matter? he's caught--and his time runs to waste. The newsman is stopped, though he stops on the fret ; And the half-breathless lamplighter-he's in the net!

The porter sits down on the weight which he bore;
The lass with her barrow wheels hither her store;
If a thief could be here, he might pilfer at ease;
She sees the musician, 'tis all that she sees !

He stands, backed by the wall; he abates not his din;

His hat gives him vigour, with boons dropping in

From the old and the young, from the poorest; and there! The one-pennied boy has his penny to spare.

O blest are the hearers, and proud be the hand

Of the pleasure it spreads through so thankful a band; I am glad for him, blind as he is!-all the while

If they speak 'tis to praise, and they praise with a smile.

That tall man, a giant in bulk and in height,
Not an inch of his body is free from delight;
Can he keep himself still, if he would? oh, not he!
The music stirs in him like wind through a tree.

Mark that cripple who leans on his crutch; like a tower
That long has leaned forward, leans hour after hour!
That mother, whose spirit in fetters is bound,
While she dandles the babe in her arms to the sound.

Now, coaches and chariots! roar on like a stream; Here are twenty souls happy as souls in a dream : They are deaf to your murmurs-they care not for you, Nor what ye are flying, nor what ye pursue!

IV.

RESOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE.

THERE was a roaring in the wind all night;
The rain came heavily, and fell in floods;
But now the sun is rising calm and bright;

1806.

The birds are singing in the distant woods; Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods; The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters; And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters.

All things that love the sun are out of doors;
The sky rejoices in the morning's birth;

The grass is bright with rain-drops;-on the moors
The hare is running races in her mirth;

And with her feet she from the plashy earth
Raises a mist, that, glittering in the sun,

Runs with her all the way, wherever she doth run.

I was a traveller then upon the moor,

I saw the hare that raced about with joy;
I heard the woods and distant waters roar ;
Or heard them not, as happy as a boy:
The pleasant season did my heart employ :
My old remembrances went from me wholly;
And all the ways of men, so vain and melancholy.