INTRODUCTION TO CANTO SECOND.
37
Yet still, beneath the hallow'd soil,
The peasant rests him from his toil,
180And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers pray'd.
The peasant rests him from his toil,
180And, dying, bids his bones be laid,
Where erst his simple fathers pray'd.
If age had tamed the passions' strife,
And fate had cut my ties to life,
Here have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,
185And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton long'd to spend his age.
'Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
190And, as it faint and feeble died
On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
To say, 'Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;'
195Then gaze on Dryhope's ruin'd tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower:
And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
200As up his force the Tempest brings,
'Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard's grave;
That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust,
From company of holy dust;
205On which no sunbeam ever shines—
(So superstition's creed divines)—
Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,
Heave her broad billows to the shore;
And mark the wild-swans mount the gale,
210Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,
And ever stoop again, to lave
Their bosoms on the surging wave;
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,
And fate had cut my ties to life,
Here have I thought, 'twere sweet to dwell,
185And rear again the chaplain's cell,
Like that same peaceful hermitage,
Where Milton long'd to spend his age.
'Twere sweet to mark the setting day,
On Bourhope's lonely top decay;
190And, as it faint and feeble died
On the broad lake, and mountain's side,
To say, 'Thus pleasures fade away;
Youth, talents, beauty thus decay,
And leave us dark, forlorn, and grey;'
195Then gaze on Dryhope's ruin'd tower,
And think on Yarrow's faded Flower:
And when that mountain-sound I heard,
Which bids us be for storm prepared,
The distant rustling of his wings,
200As up his force the Tempest brings,
'Twere sweet, ere yet his terrors rave,
To sit upon the Wizard's grave;
That Wizard Priest's, whose bones are thrust,
From company of holy dust;
205On which no sunbeam ever shines—
(So superstition's creed divines)—
Thence view the lake, with sullen roar,
Heave her broad billows to the shore;
And mark the wild-swans mount the gale,
210Spread wide through mist their snowy sail,
And ever stoop again, to lave
Their bosoms on the surging wave;
Then, when against the driving hail
No longer might my plaid avail,
