Page:Lyrical Ballads (Coleridge).djvu/78

 First covered o'er, and taught this aged tree, Now wild, to bend its arms in circling shade, I well remember.—He was one who own'd No common soul. In youth, by genius nurs'd, And big with lofty views, he to the world Went forth, pure in his heart, against the taint Of dissolute tongues, 'gainst jealousy, and hate, And scorn, against all enemies prepared, All but neglect: and so, his spirit damped At once, with rash disdain he turned away, And with the food of pride sustained his soul In solitude.—Stranger! these gloomy boughs Had charms for him; and here he loved to sit, His only visitants a straggling sheep, The stone-chat, or the glancing sand-piper; And on these barren rocks, with juniper, And heath, and thistle, thinly sprinkled o'er, Fixing his downward eye, he many an hour A morbid pleasure nourished, tracing here An emblem of his own unfruitful life: