VOL. VI.

THE EXCURSION.

BOOK I.

THE WANDERER,

B

ARGUMENT.

PAGE 3, A summer forenoon.-4, The Author reaches a ruined Cottage upon a Cominon, and there meets with a revered Friend, the Wanderer, of whose education and course of life he gives an account.21, The Wanderer, while resting under the shade of the Trees that surround the Cottage, relates the History of its last Inhabitant.

BOOK FIRST.

THE WANDERER.

'Twas summer, and the sun had mounted high :
Southward the landscape indistinctly glared
Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs,
In clearest air ascending, showed far off
A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung
From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots
Determined and unmoved, with steady beams
Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed;
Pleasant to him who on the soft cool moss
Extends his careless limbs along the front
Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts

A twilight of its own, an ample shade,

Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man,

Half conscious of the soothing melody,

With side-long eye looks out upon the scene,

By power of that impending covert thrown

To finer distance.

Other lot was mine;

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Yet with good hope that soon I should obtain
As grateful resting-place, and livelier joy.
Across a bare wide Common I was toiling
With languid steps that by the slippery ground
Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse
The host of insects gathering round my face,
And ever with me as I paced along.

Upon that open level stood a grove,

The wished-for port to which my course was bound.
Thither I came, and there, amid the gloom
Spread by a brotherhood of lofty elms,
Appeared a roofless Hut; four naked walls
That stared upon each other!-I looked round,
And to my wish and to my hope espied
Him whom I sought; a Man of reverend age,
But stout and hale, for travel unimpaired.
There was he seen upon the cottage-bench,
Recumbent in the shade, as if asleep;
An iron-pointed staff lay at his side.

Him had I marked the day before-alone

And stationed in the public way, with face
Turned toward the sun then setting, while that staff

Afforded, to the figure of the man

Detained for contemplation or repose,

Graceful support; his countenance meanwhile

Was hidden from my view, and he remained
Unrecognised; but, stricken by the sight,