house
  Was with me, my encourager and guide:  230
  We had not travelled long, ere some mischance
  Disjoined me from my comrade; and, through fear
  Dismounting, down the rough and stony moor
  I led my horse, and, stumbling on, at length
  Came to a bottom, where in former times 235
  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. 240
  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:  245
  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, 250
  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, 255
  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,
  The female and her garments vexed and tossed 260
  By the strong wind.  When, in the blessed hours
  Of early love, the loved one at my side, [E]
  I roamed, in daily presence of this scene,
  Upon the naked pool and dreary crags,
  And on the melancholy beacon, fell 265
  A spirit of pleasure and youth’s golden gleam;
  And think ye not with radiance more sublime
  For these remembrances, and for the power
  They had left behind?  So feeling comes in aid
  Of feeling, and diversity of strength 270
  Attends us, if but once we have been strong. 
  Oh! mystery of man, from what a depth
  Proceed thy honours.  I am lost, but see
  In simple childhood something of the base
  On which thy greatness stands; but this I feel, 275
  That from thyself it comes, that thou must give,
  Else never canst receive.  The days gone by
  Return upon me almost from the dawn
  Of life:  the hiding-places of man’s power
  Open; I would approach them, but they close. 280
  I see by glimpses now; when age comes on,
  May scarcely see at all; and I would give,
  While yet we may, as far as words can give,
  Substance and life to what I feel, enshrining,