And this reft house is that, the which he built, Lamented Jack! and here his malt he pil’d, Cautious in vain! these rats, that squeak so wild, Squeak not unconscious of their father’s guilt. Did he not see her gleaming thro’ the glade! Belike ’twas she, the maiden all forlorn. What the she milk no cow with crumpled horn, Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray’d: And aye, beside her stalks her amorous knight Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn, And thro’ those brogues, still tatter’d and betorn, His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white. Ah! thus thro’ broken clouds at night’s high noon Peeps to fair fragments forth the full-orb’d harvest-moon! The following anecdote will not be wholly out of place here, and may perhaps amuse the reader. An amateur performer in verse expressed to a common friend a strong desire to be introduced to me, but hesitated in accepting my friend’s immediate offer, on the score that “he was, he must acknowledge, the author of a confounded severe epigram on my Ancient Mariner, which had given me great pain.” I assured my friend that, if the epigram was a good one, it would only increase my desire to become acquainted with the author, and begged to hear it recited: when, to my no less surprise than amusement, it proved to be one which I had myself some time before written and inserted in the “Morning Post,” to wit-- To the Author of the Ancient Mariner. Your poem must eternal be, Dear sir! it cannot fail, For ’tis incomprehensible, And without head or tail.] [Footnote 8: -- Of old things all are over old, Of good things none are good enough;-- We’ll show that we can help to frame A world of other stuff. I too will have my kings, that take From me the sign of life and death: Kingdoms shall shift about, like clouds, Obedient to my breath. Wordsworth’s Rob Roy.--Poet. Works, vol. III. p. 127.]