INSCRIPTIONS.

L

Written with a Slate-pencil, upon a Stone, the largest of a Heap lying near a deserted Quarry, upon one of the Islands at Rydale.

STRANGER! 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

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.