Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/291

283 I.

! this hillock of misshapen stones

Is not a ruin of the ancient time,

Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem'st, the Cairn

Of some old British Chief: 'tis nothing more

Than the rude embryo of a little Dome

Or Pleasure-house, once destined to be built

Among the birch-trees of this rocky isle.

But, as it chanced, Sir William having learned

That from the shore a full-grown man might wade,

And make himself a freeman of this spot

At any hour he chose, the Knight forthwith

Desisted, and the quarry and the mound