Page:The Prelude, Wordsworth, 1850.djvu/349

BOOK XII.] Came to a bottom, where in former times

A murderer had been hung in iron chains.

The gibbet-mast had mouldered down, the bones

And iron case were gone; but on the turf,

Hard by, soon after that fell deed was wrought,

Some unknown hand had carved the murderer's name.

The monumental letters were inscribed

In times long past; but still, from year to year,

By superstition of the neighbourhood,

The grass is cleared away, and to this hour

The characters are fresh and visible:

A casual glance had shown them, and I fled,

Faltering and faint, and ignorant of the road:

Then, reascending the bare common, saw

A naked pool that lay beneath the hills,

The beacon on the summit, and, more near,

A girl, who bore a pitcher on her head,

And seemed with difficult steps to force her way

Against the blowing wind. It was, in truth,

An ordinary sight; but I should need

Colours and words that are unknown to man,

To paint the visionary dreariness

Which, while I looked all round for my lost guide,

Invested moorland waste, and naked pool,

The beacon crowning the lone eminence,