Hart-Leap Well is a small spring of water, about five miles from Richmond, in Yorkshire, and near the side of the road which 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;
He turned aside towards a vassal's door,
And "Bring another horse!" he cried aloud.
"Another horse!" that shout the vassal heard,
And saddled his best steed, a comely grey.
Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third
Which he had mounted on that glorious day.
Joy sparkled in the prancing courser's eyes;
The horse and horseman are a happy pair;
But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies,
There is a doleful silence in the air.
A rout this morning left Sir Walter's hall,
That as they galloped made the echoes roar ;
But horse and man are vanished, one and all,-
Such race, I think, was never seen before.
Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind,
Calls to the few tired dogs that yet remain:
Brach, Swift, and Music, noblest of their kind,
Follow, and up the weary mountain strain.
The Knight hallooed, he chid and cheered them on
With suppliant gestures and upbraidings stern;
But breath and eyesight fail; and one by one,
The dogs are stretched among the mountain fern.
Where is the throng, the tumult of the race?
The bugles that so joyfully were blown?
-This chase it looks not like an earthly chase;
Sir Walter and the Hart are left alone.
The poor Hart toils along the mountain side;
I will not stop to tell how far he fled,
Nor will I mention by what death he died;
But now the Knight beholds him lying dead.
Dismounting then, he leaned against a thorn;
He had no follower, dog, nor man, nor boy;
He neither smacked his whip nor blew his horn,
But gazed upon the spoil with silent joy.
Close to the thorn on which Sir Walter leaned,
Stood his dumb partner in this glorious act;
Weak as a lamb the hour that it is yeaned,
And foaming like a mountain cataract.
Upon his side the hart was lying stretched:
His nose half touched a spring beneath a hill,
And with the last deep groan his breath had fetched
The waters of the spring were trembling still.
And now, too happy for repose or rest, (Was never man in such a joyful case!)
Sir Walter walked all round, north, south, and west, And gazed and gazed upon that darling place.
And climbing up the hill (it was at least
Nine roods of sheer ascent), Sir Walter found
Three several hoof-marks which the hunted beast
Had left imprinted on the verdant ground.
Sir Walter wiped his face, and cried, "Till now
Such sight was never seen by living eyes:
Three leaps have borne him from this lofty brow,
Down to the very fountain where he lies!
I'll build a pleasure-house upon this spot,
And a small arbour made for rural joy;
"Twill be the traveller's shed, the pilgrim's cot,
A place of love for damsels that are coy.
A cunning artist will I have to frame
A basin for that fountain in the dell !
And they who do make mention of the same
From this day forth shall call it 'Hart-Leap Well.'
And, gallant brute! 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.
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 !
But, as it sometimes chanceth, from the might
Of joy in minds that can no further go,
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low;
To me that morning did it happen so,
And fears and fancies thick upon me came;
Dim sadness and blind thoughts I knew not, nor could name
I heard the skylark singing in the sky;
And I bethought me of the playful hare :
Even such a happy child of earth am I ;
Even as these blissful creatures do I fare;
Far from the world I walk, and from all cares;
But there may come another day to me-
Solitude, pain of heart, distress, and poverty.
My whole life I have lived in pleasant thought,
As if life's business were a summer mood;
As if all needful things would come unsought
To genial faith, still rich in genial good;
But how can he expect that others should
Build for him, sow for him, and at his call
Love him, who for himself will take no heed at all?
I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy,
The sleepless soul that perished in his pride;
Of him who walked in glory and in joy
Behind his plough upon the mountain side:
By our own spirits are we deified;
We poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.
Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,
A leading from above, a something given,
Yet it befell, that in this lonely place,
When up and down my fancy thus was driven,
And I with these untoward thoughts had striven,
I saw a man before me unawares :
The oldest man he seemed that ever wore grey hairs.
My course I stopped as soon as I espied
The old man in that naked wilderness:
Close by a pond upon the further side
He stood alone: a minute's space I guess
I watched him, he continued motionless :
To the pool's further margin then I drew,
He being all the while before me full in view.
As a huge stone is sometimes seen to lie
Couched on the bald top of an eminence,
Wonder to all who do the same espy
By what means it could thither come, and whence,
So that it seems a thing endued with sense:
Like a sea-beast crawled forth, which on a shelf
Of rock or sand reposeth, there to sun itself.
Such seemed this man, not all alive nor dead,
Nor all asleep, in his extreme old age:
His body was bent double, feet and head
Coming together in their pilgrimage,
As if some dire constraint of pain, or rage
Of sickness felt by him in times long past,
A more than human weight upon his frame had cast.
Himself he propped, his body, limbs, and face,
Upon a long grey staff of shaven wood;
And, still as I drew near with gentle pace,
Beside the little pond or moorish flood,
Motionless as a cloud the old man stood;
That heareth not the loud winds when they call,
And moveth all together, if it move at all.
At length, himself unsettling, he the pond
Stirred with his staff, and fixedly did look
Upon the muddy water, which he conned,
As if he had been reading in a book:
And now such freedom as I could I took,
And, drawing to his side, to him did say,
"This morning gives us promise of a glorious day."
A gentle answer did the old man make,
In courteous speech, which forth he slowly drew;
And him with further words I thus bespake :
"What kind of work is that which you pursue?
This is a lonesome place for one like you."
He answered me with pleasure and surprise,
And there was, while he spake, a fire about his eyes.
His words came feebly, from a feeble chest,
Yet each in solemn order followed each,
With something of a lofty utterance dressed;
Choice word, and measured phrase; above the reach
Of ordinary men; a stately speech;
Such as grave livers do in Scotland use,
Religious men, who give to God and man their dues.
He told me that he to this pond had come
To gather leeches, being old and poor.
Employment hazardous and wearisome!
And he had many hardships to endure;
Prom pond to pond he roamed, from moor to moor,
Housing, with God's good help, by choice or chance;
And in this way he gained an honest maintenance.
The old man still stood talking by my side;
But now his voice to me was like a stream
Scarce heard, nor word from word could I divide;
And the whole body of the man did seem
Like one whom I had met with in a dream;
Or like a man from some far region sent
To give me human strength and strong admonishment.
My former thoughts returned: the fear that kills
And hope that is unwilling to be fed ;
Cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshy ills;
And mighty poets in their misery dead.
But now, perplexed by what the old man had said,
My question eagerly did I renew,
"How is it that you live, and what is it you do?"
He with a smile did then his words repeat;
And said, that, gathering leeches, far and wide
He travelled; stirring thus about his feet
The waters of the ponds where they abide.
"Once I could meet with them on every side ;
But they have dwindled long by slow decay;
Yet still I persevere, and find them where I may."
While he was talking thus, the lonely place,
The old man's shape, and speech, all troubled me;
my mind's eye I seemed to see him pace
About the weary moors continually,
Wandering about alone and silently.
While I these thoughts within myself pursued,
He, having made a pause, the same discourse renewed.
And soon with this he other matter blended,
Cheerfully uttered, with demeanour kind,
But stately in the main; and when he ended,
I could have laughed myself to scorn, to find
In that decrepit man so firm a mind.
God," said I, "be my help and stay secure ; I'll think of the leech-gatherer on the lonely moor."
THERE is a Thorn-it looks so old,
In truth, you'd find it hard to say
How it could ever have been young,
It looks so old and grey.
Not higher than a two years child,
It stands erect, this aged Thorn;
No leaves it has, no thorny points;
It is a mass of knotted joints,
A wretched thing forlorn.
|