Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/128

120 In the School of——is a tablet on which are inscribed, in gilt letters, the names of the several persons who have been Schoolmasters there since the foundation of the School, with the time at which they entered upon and quitted their office. Opposite one of those names the Author wrote the following lines.

If Nature, for a favorite Child

In thee hath temper'd so her clay,

That every hour thy heart runs wild

Yet never once doth go astray,

Read o'er these lines; and then review

This tablet, that thus humbly rears

In such diversity of hue

Its history of two hundred years.