Much do I bar the matron, man, or lass
Who cries 'How lovely!' and who does not spare
When light and shadow on the mountain pass,--
Shadow and light, and gleams exceeding fair,
O'er rock, and glade, and glen,--to shout, the Ass,
To me, to me the Poet, 'Oh, look there!'
LINES
[Written under the influence of Wordsworth, with a slate-pencil on
a window of the dining-room at the Lowood Hotel, Windermere, while
waiting for tea, after being present at the Grasmere Sports on a
very wet day, and in consequence of a recent perusal of Belinda, a
Novel, by Miss Broughton, whose absence is regretted.]
How solemn is the front of this Hotel,
When now the hills are swathed in modest mist,
And none can speak of scenery, nor tell
Of 'tints of amber,' or of 'amethyst.'
Here once thy daughters, young Romance, did dwell,
Here Sara flirted with whoever list,
Belinda loved not wisely but too well,
And Mr. Ford played the Philologist!
Haunted the house is, and the balcony
Where that fond Matron knew her Lover near,
And here we sit, and wait for tea, and sigh,
While the sad rain sobs in the sullen mere,
And all our hearts go forth into the cry,
Would that the teller of the tale were here!
LINES
[Written on the window pane of a railway carriage after reading an
advertisement of sunlight soap, and Poems, by William Wordsworth.
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