Page:Lyrical Ballads (Coleridge).djvu/73

 He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost. And so the babe grew up a pretty boy, A pretty boy, but most unteachable— And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead, But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes, And whistled, as he were a bird himself: And all the autumn 'twas his only play To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them With earth and water, on the stumps of trees. A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood, A grey-haired man—he loved this little boy, The boy loved him—and, when the Friar taught him, He soon could write with the pen: and from that time, Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle. So he became a very learned youth. But Oh! poor wretch!—he read, and read, and read, Till his brain turned—and ere his twentieth year,