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But now here's neither grass nor pleasant shade; The sun on drearier Hollow never shone :

So will it be, as I have often said,

Till Trees, and Stones, and Fountain all are gone.”

"Gray-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well;
Small difference lies between thy creed and mine:
This Beast not unobserved by Nature fell;
His death was mourned by sympathy divine.

The Being, that is in the clouds and air,

That is in the green leaves among the groves,

Maintains a deep and reverential care

For them the quiet creatures whom he loves.

The Pleasure-house is dust:-behind, before,
This is no common waste, no common gloom;
But Nature, in due course of time, once more
Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom.

She leaves these objects to a slow decay,

That what we are, and have been, may be known; But, at the coming of the milder day,

These monuments shall all be overgrown.

One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide,

Taught both by what she shows, and what conceals, Never to blend our pleasure or our pride

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

There was a Boy, ye knew him well, ye Cliffs
And Islands of Winander! many a time,
At evening, when the stars had just begun
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth.
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls

That they might answer him. And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout aga'n

Responsive to his call, with quivering peals,

And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild

Of mirth and jocund din! And, when it chanced

That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill, Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise

Has carried far into his heart the voice

Of mountain torrents; or the visible scene

Would enter unawares into his mind

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods, and that uncertain heaven, received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.

This Boy was taken from his Mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was ten years old.

Fair are the woods, and beauteous is the spot,

The Vale where he was born: the Church-yard

hangs

Upon a slope above the Village School,

And there, along that bank, when I have passed

At evening, I believe, that oftentimes

A full half-hour together I have stood

Mute-looking at the grave in which he lies.

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