Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 2, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/51

43 PRIEST.

Yes, long before he died, he found that time

Is a true friend to sorrow, and unless

His thoughts were turn'd on Leonard's luckless fortune,

He talk'd about him with a chearful love.

LEONARD.

He could not come to an unhallow'd end!

PRIEST.

Nay, God forbid! You recollect I mention'd

A habit which disquietude and grief

Had brought upon him, and we all conjectur'd

That, as the day was warm, he had lain down

Upon the grass, and, waiting for his comrades

He there had fallen asleep, that in his sleep

He to the margin of the precipice

Had walk'd, and from the summit had fallen head-long.

And so no doubt he perish'd: at the time,

We guess, that in his hands he must have had