XVII. 'Twas mist and rain, and storm and rain : I looked around, I thought I saw Instead of jutting crag, I found XVIII. I did not speak-I saw her face; And there she sits, until the moon As all the country know, She shudders, and you hear her cry, Oh misery! oh misery!"" XIX. "But what's the Thorn? and what the pond? And what the hill of moss to her? And what the creeping breeze that comes The little pond to stir ? " "I cannot tell; but some will say VOL. II. She hanged her baby on the tree; The little Babe was buried there, XX. I've heard, the moss is spotted red With drops of that poor infant's blood; But kill a new-born infant thus, I do not think she could! Some say, if to the pond you go, And fix on it a steady view, The shadow of a babe you trace, A baby and a baby's face, And that it looks at you; Whene'er you look on it, 'tis plain The baby looks at you again. XXI. And some had sworn an oath that she The little Babe lies buried there, Beneath that hill of moss so fair. XXII. I cannot tell how this may be, But plain it is the Thorn is bound And this I know, full many a time, When all the stars shone clear and bright, 'Oh misery! oh misery! Oh woe is me! oh misery! 1798. XXIV. HART-LEAP WELL. [WRITTEN at own-end, Grasmere. The first eight stanzas were composed extempore one winter evening in the cottage; when, after having tired myself with labouring at an awkward passage in "The Brothers," I started with a sudden impulse to this to get rid of the other, and finished it in a day or two. My Sister and I had past the place a few weeks before in our wild winter journey from Sockburn on the banks of the Tees to Grasmere. A peasant whom we met near the spot told us the story so far as concerned the name of the Well, and the Hart, and pointed out the Stones. Both the Stones and the Well are objects that may easily be missed; the tradition by this time may be extinct in the neighbourhood: the man who related it to us was very old.] Hart-Leap Well is a small spring of water, about five miles from Richmond in Yorkshire, and near the side of the road that leads from Richmond to Askrigg. Its name is derived from a remarkable Chase, the memory of which is preserved by the monuments spoken of in the second Part of the following Poem, which monuments do now exist as I have there described them. . THE Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor With the slow motion of a summer's cloud, And now, as he approached a vassal's door, Bring forth another horse!" he cried aloud. "Another horse!"-That shout the vassal heard Joy sparkled in the prancing courser's eyes; But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies, A rout this morning left Sir Walter's Hall, Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind, Calls to the few tired dogs that yet remain : The Knight hallooed, he cheered and chid them on Where is the throng, the tumult of the race ? The poor Hart toils along the mountain-side; Nor will I mention by what death he died; Dismounting, then, he leaned against a thorn; Close to the thorn on which Sir Walter leaned, Upon his side the Hart was lying stretched: And now, too happy for repose or rest, (Never had living man such joyful lot!) Sir Walter walked all round, north, south, and west, And gazed and gazed upon that darling spot. And climbing up the hill-(it was at least Sir Walter wiped his face, and cried, “ Till now |