A Barn her winter bed supplies, But till the warmth of summer skies And summer days is gone, (And in this tale we all agree) She sleeps beneath the greenwood tree, And other home hath none. If she is press'd by want of food Repairs to a road side, And there she begs at one steep place, Where up and down with easy pace The horsemen-travellers ride. That oaten pipe of hers is mute Or thrown away, but with a flute Her loneliness she cheers; This flute made of a hemlock stalk I, too have pass'd her on the hills By spouts and fountains wild, Ere she had wept, ere she had mourn'd Farewel! and when thy days are told Ill-fated Ruth in hallow'd mold Thy corpse shall buried be, For thee a funeral bell shall ring, LINES Written with a Slate-pencil upon a Stone, the largest of heap lying near a deserted Quarry, upon one of the Islands at Rydale. Stranger! this hillock of mishapen stones Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem'st, the Cairn Or pleasure-house, which was to have been built But, as it chanc'd, Sir William having learn'd At any hour he chose, the Knight forthwith Are monuments of his unfinish'd task. The block on which these lines are trac'd, perhaps, Of the intended pile, which would have been With all his ancestry. Then peace to him On fire with thy impatience to become By beautiful conceptions, thou hast hewn Out of the quiet rock the elements |