I lighted down, my sword did draw,
  I hacked him in pieces sma’,
  I hacked him in pieces sma’,
    For her sake that died for me.

  Oh, Helen fair, beyond compare! 
  I’ll weave a garland of thy hair
  Shall bind my heart for evermair,
    Until the day I dee!

  Oh that I were where Helen lies! 
  Day and night on me she cries;
  Out of my bed she bids me rise,
    Says, “Haste, and come to me!”

  O Helen fair!  O Helen chaste! 
  Were I with thee I would be blest,
  Where thou lies low and takes thy rest,
    On fair Kirkconnell lee.

  I wish my grave were growing green,
  A winding sheet drawn o’er my e’en,
  And I in Helen’s arms lying
    On fair Kirkconnell lee.

  I wish I were where Helen lies! 
  Night and day on me she cries,
  And I am weary of the skies,
    For her sake that died for me!

Ed.

* * * * *

HART-LEAP WELL

Composed 1800.—­Published 1800

Hart-Leap Well is a small spring of water, about five miles from Richmond in Yorkshire, and near the side of the road which leads from Richmond to Askrigg.  Its name is derived from a remarkable chace, the memory of which is preserved by the monuments spoken of in the second Part of the following Poem, which monuments do now exist as I have there described them.—­W.  W. 1800.

[Written at Town-end, Grasmere.  The first eight stanzas were composed extempore one winter evening in the cottage, when, after having tired myself with labouring at an awkward passage in ‘The Brothers’, I started with a sudden impulse to this to get rid of the other, and finished it in a day or two.  My sister and I had passed the place a few weeks before in our wild winter journey from Sockburn on the banks of the Tees to Grasmere.  A peasant whom we met near the spot told us the story so far as concerned the name of the Well, and the Hart, and pointed out the Stones.  Both the stones and the well are objects that may easily be missed.  The tradition by this time may be extinct in the neighbourhood.  The man who related it to us was very old.—­I.  F.]

Included among the “Poems of the Imagination,”—­Ed.

  The Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor
  With the slow motion of a summer’s cloud
  And now, as he approached a vassal’s door,
  “Bring forth another horse!” he cried aloud. [1]

  “Another horse!”—­That shout the vassal heard 5
  And saddled his best Steed, a comely grey;
  Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third
  Which he had mounted on that glorious day.

  Joy sparkled in the prancing courser’s eyes;
  The horse and horseman are a happy pair; 10
  But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies,
  There is a doleful silence in the air.