of youths,
  Each with his maid, before the sun was up,
  By annual custom, issuing forth in troops,
  To drink the waters of some sainted well, 155
  And hang it round with garlands.  Love survives;
  But, for such purpose, flowers no longer grow: 
  The times, too sage, perhaps too proud, have dropped
  These lighter graces; and the rural ways
  And manners which my childhood looked upon 160
  Were the unluxuriant produce of a life
  Intent on little but substantial needs,
  Yet rich in beauty, beauty that was felt. 
  But images of danger and distress,
  Man suffering among awful Powers and Forms; 165
  Of this I heard, and saw enough to make
  Imagination restless; nor was free
  Myself from frequent perils; nor were tales
  Wanting,—­the tragedies of former times,
  Hazards and strange escapes, of which the rocks 170
  Immutable and overflowing streams,
  Where’er I roamed, were speaking monuments.

    Smooth life had flock and shepherd in old time,
  Long springs and tepid winters, on the banks
  Of delicate Galesus [P]; and no less 175
  Those scattered along Adria’s myrtle shores:  [Q]
  Smooth life had herdsman, and his snow-white herd
  To triumphs and to sacrificial rites
  Devoted, on the inviolable stream
  Of rich Clitumnus [R]; and the goat-herd lived 180
  As calmly, underneath the pleasant brows
  Of cool Lucretilis [S], where the pipe was heard
  Of Pan, Invisible God, thrilling the rocks
  With tutelary music, from all harm
  The fold protecting.  I myself, mature 185
  In manhood then, have seen a pastoral tract
  Like one of these, where Fancy might run wild,
  Though under skies less generous, less serene: 
  There, for her own delight had Nature framed
  A pleasure-ground, diffused a fair expanse 190
  Of level pasture, islanded with groves
  And banked with woody risings; but the Plain [T]
  Endless, here opening widely out, and there
  Shut up in lesser lakes or beds of lawn
  And intricate recesses, creek or bay 195
  Sheltered within a shelter, where at large
  The shepherd strays, a rolling hut his home. 
  Thither he comes with spring-time, there abides
  All summer, and at sunrise ye may hear
  His flageolet to liquid notes of love 200
  Attuned, or sprightly fife resounding far. 
  Nook is there none, nor tract of that vast space
  Where passage opens, but the same shall have
  In turn its visitant, telling there his hours
  In unlaborious pleasure, with no task 205
  More toilsome than to carve a beechen bowl
  For spring or fountain, which the traveller