monuments spoken of in the second
Part of the following Poem, which monuments do now exist as I have there
described them.--W. W. 1800.

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The first eight stanzas were composed
extempore one winter evening in the cottage, when, after having tired
myself with labouring at an awkward passage in 'The Brothers', I started
with a sudden impulse to this to get rid of the other, and finished it
in a day or two. My sister and I had passed the place a few weeks before
in our wild winter journey from Sockburn on the banks of the Tees to
Grasmere. A peasant whom we met near the spot told us the story so far
as concerned the name of the Well, and the Hart, and pointed out the
Stones. Both the stones and the well are objects that may easily be
missed. The tradition by this time may be extinct in the neighbourhood.
The man who related it to us was very old.--I. F.]

Included among the "Poems of the Imagination,"--Ed.

The Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor
With the slow motion of a summer's cloud
And now, as he approached a vassal's door,
"Bring forth another horse!" he cried aloud. [1]

"Another horse!"--That shout the vassal heard 5
And saddled his best Steed, a comely grey;
Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third
Which he had mounted on that glorious day.

Joy sparkled in the prancing courser's eyes;
The horse and horseman are a happy pair; 10
But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies,
There is a doleful silence in the air.

A rout this morning left Sir Walter's Hall,
That as they galloped made the echoes roar;
But horse and man are vanished, one and all; 15
Such race, I think, was never seen before.

Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind,
Calls to the few tired dogs that yet remain:
Blanch, [2] Swift, and Music, noblest of their kind,
Follow, and up the weary mountain strain. 20

The Knight hallooed, he cheered and chid them on [3]
With suppliant gestures [4] and upbraidings stern;
But breath and eyesight fail; and, one by one,
The dogs are stretched among the mountain fern.

Where is the throng, the tumult of the race? [5] 25
The bugles that so joyfully were blown?
--This chase it looks not like an earthly chase; [6]
Sir Walter and the Hart are left alone.

The poor Hart toils along the mountain-side;
I will not stop to