But now the pleasant dream was gone,. Meanwhile, as thus with him it fared, But, when they thither came, the Youth God help thee, Ruth!-Such pains she had And there, exulting in her wrongs, Among the music of her songs Yet sometimes milder hours she knew, Nor pastimes of the May, They all were with her in her cell, And a wild brook with cheerful knell Did o'er the pebbles play. When Ruth three seasons thus had lain, But of the Vagrant none took thought, Among the fields she breath'd again: And to the pleasant banks of Tone* The engines of her grief, the tools That shap'd her sorrow, rocks and pools, And airs that gently stir The vernal leaves, she loved them still, Which had been done to her. The Tone is a river of Somersetshire at no great distance from the Quantock Hills. These hills, which are alluded to a few stanzas below, are extremely beautiful, and in most places richly coverod with coppice woods. LINES Written with a Slate-pencil upon a Stone, the largest of a Heap lying near a deserted Quarry, upon one of the Islands at Rydale. STRANGER! this hillock of mis-shapen stones Is not a ruin of the ancient time, Nor, as perchance, thou rashly deem'st, the Of some old British Chief: 'Tis nothing more Among the birch-trees of this rocky isle. But, as it chanc'd, Sir William having learn'd, That from the shore a full-grown man might wade And make himself a freeman of this spot Was once selected as the corner stone not, મો For old Sir William was a gentle Knight, By old Sir William and his Quarry, leave VOL. II. In the School of - is a Tablet on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the Names of the several persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office Opposite one of those Names the Author wrote the following LINES. IF Nature, for a favorite Child Read o'er these Lines; and then review Its history of two hundred years. -When through this little wreck of fame, Cypher and syllable, thine eye Has travell'd down to Matthew's name, |