went and left the Hart, stone-dead,
With breathless nostrils stretch'd 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 for 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 led his wandering paramour,
And with the dancers and the minstrels' 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 II

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 to 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 grey, with neither arms nor head;
Half wasted the square mound of tawny green,
So that you might just 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 I did 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 those lifeless stumps of aspen wood--
Some say that they are beeches, others elms--
These were the bower; and here a mans