Page:Poems by William Wordsworth (1815) Volume 2.djvu/292

284 Are monuments of his unfinished task.

The block on which these lines are traced, perhaps,

Was once selected as the corner-stone

Of the intended Pile, which would have been

Some quaint odd play-thing of elaborate skill,

So that, I guess, the linnet and the thrush,

And other little Builders who dwell here,

Had wondered at the work. But blame him not,

For old Sir William was a gentle Knight

Bred in this vale, to which he appertained

With all his ancestry. Then peace to him,

And for the outrage which he had devised

Entire forgiveness!But if thou art one

On fire with thy impatience to become

An inmate of these mountains,—if, disturbed

By beautiful conceptions, thou hast hewn

Out of the quiet rock the elements

Of thy trim mansion destin'd soon to blaze

In snow-white splendour,—think again, and, taught

By old Sir William and his quarry, leave

Thy fragments to the bramble and the rose;

There let the vernal Slow-worm sun himself,

And let the Red-breast hop from stone to stone.