Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 1.djvu/256

196 And now, perhaps, he's hunting sheep,

A fierce and dreadful hunter he;

Yon valley, that's so trim and green,

In five months' time, should he be seen,

A desart wilderness will be!

Perhaps, with head and heels on fire,

And like the very soul of evil,

He's galloping away, away,

And so he'll gallop on for aye,

The bane of all that dread the devil!

I to the Muses have been bound

These fourteen years, by strong indentures:

O gentle Muses! let me tell

But half of what to him befel,

He surely met with strange adventures.

O gentle Muses! is this kind?

Why will ye thus my suit repel?

Why of your further aid bereave me?

And can ye thus unfriended leave me;

Ye Muses! whom I love so well?