Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/155

147 —Young Romilly through Barden Woods

Is ranging high and low;

And holds a Greyhound in a leash,

To let slip upon buck or doe.

And the Pair have reached that fearful chasm,

How tempting to bestride!

For lordly Wharf is there pent in

With rocks on either side.

This Striding-place is called ,

A name which it took of yore:

A thousand years hath it borne that name,

And shall, a thousand more.

And hither is young Romilly come,

And what may now forbid

That he, perhaps for the hundredth time,

Shall bound across ?

He sprang in glee,—for what cared he

That the River was strong and the rocks were steep?

—But the Greyhound in the leash hung back,

And checked him in his leap.