Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 1, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/78

26 Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree

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,