wth to rear,
Bending your docile boughs from year to year,
Till in a solemn concave they unite;
Like that Cathedral Dome beneath whose height
Reynolds, among our country's noble Dead,
In the last sanctity of fame is laid.
Here may some Painter sit in future days.
Some future poet meditate his lays!
Not mindless of that distant age, renowned,
When inspiration hovered o'er this ground,
The haunt of him who sang, how spear and shield
In civil conflict met on Bosworth field,
And of that famous youth (full soon removed
From earth!) by mighty Shakespeare's self approved,
Fletcher's associate, Jonson's friend beloved.

"The first couplet of the above, as it before stood, would have
appeared ludicrous, if the stone had remained after the trees
might have been gone. The couplet relating to the household
virtues did not accord with the painter and the poet; the former
being allegorical figures; the latter, living men."

This letter--which is not now in the Beaumont collection at Coleorton
Hall--seems to imply that Wordsworth thought of combining the first
couplet on the Urn with the last nine lines of the inscription for the
stone behind the Cedar tree. But this was never carried out. The
inscriptions are printed in the text as they were carved at
Coleorton.--ED.

VARIANTS:

[1] 1820.

Till ye have framed, at length, a darksome aisle,
Like a recess within that sacred pile

MS. letter to Sir George Beaumont, 1811.

Till they at length have framed a darksome Aisle;--
Like a recess within that awful Pile 1815.

[2] 1815.

Hence, an obscure Memorial, without blame,
In these domestic Grounds, may bear his name;
Unblamed this votive Urn may oft renew
Some mild sensations to his Genius due
From One--a humble Follower of the Art

Five lines instead of three in MS. letter to Sir George Beaumont,
16th November, 1811.

FOR A SEAT IN THE GROVES OF COLEORTON

Composed November 19, 1811.--Published 1815

One of the "Inscriptions."--ED.

Beneath yon eastern ridge, the craggy bound,
Rugged and high, of Charnwood's forest ground,
Stand yet, but, Stranger! hidden from thy view
The ivied Ruins of forlorn GRACE DIEU;
Erst a religious House, which[1] day and night 5
With hymns resounded, and the chanted r