"What thoughts must through the creature's brain have past! Even from the topmost stone, upon the steep,

Are but three bounds-and look, Sir, at this last-
O Master! it has been a cruel leap.

“For thirteen hours he ran a desperate race;
And in my simple mind we cannot tell

What cause the Hart might have to love this place,
And come and make his death-bed near the well.

"Here on the grass perhaps asleep he sank,

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Lulled by the fountain in the summer tide; This water was perhaps the first he drank

When he had wandered from his mother's side.

In April, here, beneath the flowering thorn,

He heard the birds their morning carols sing; And he, perhaps, for aught we know, was born Not half a furlong from that self-same spring.

Now, here is neither grass nor pleasant shade;
The sun on drearier hollow never shone ;
So will it be, as I have often said,

Till trees, and stones, and fountain, all are gone."

Grey-headed Shepherd, thou hast spoken well;

Small difference lies between thy creed and mine : This Beast not unobserved by Nature fell;

His death was mourned by sympathy divine.