Page:Poems that every child should know (ed. Burt, 1904).djvu/159

Rh There sometimes doth a leaping fish

Send through the tarn a lonely cheer;

The crags repeat the raven's croak,

In symphony austere;

Thither the rainbow comes—the cloud—

And mists that spread the flying shroud;

And sunbeams; and the sounding blast,

That, if it could, would hurry past,

But that enormous barrier binds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, a while

The Shepherd stood: then makes his way

Toward the Dog, o'er rocks and stones,

As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone, before he found

A human skeleton on the ground;

The appalled discoverer with a sigh

Looks round, to learn the history.

From those abrupt and perilous rocks

The Man had fallen, that place of fear!

At length upon the Shepherd's mind

It breaks, and all is clear:

He instantly recalled the name,

And who he was, and whence he came;

Remembered, too, the very day

On which the traveller passed this way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake

This lamentable tale I tell!

A lasting monument of words

This wonder merits well.