So, on I went. I think I never saw Such starved ignoble nature; nothing throve: For flowers--as well expect a cedar grove! But cockle, spurge, according to their law Might propagate their kind, with none to awe, You'd think; a burr had been a treasure trove. 60 No! penury, inertness, and grimace, In some strange sort, were the land's portion. "See Or shut your eyes," said Nature peevishly, "It nothing skills: I cannot help my case: 'Tis the Last Judgment's fire must cure this place, Calcine its clods and set my prisoners deg. free." deg.66 If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents deg. deg.68 Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as deg. to balk 70 All hope of greenness? 'tis a brute must walk Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents. As for the grass, it grew as scant as hair In leprosy; thin dry blades pricked the mud Which underneath looked kneaded up with blood. One stiff blind horse, his every bone a-stare, Stood stupefied, however he came there: Thrust out past service from the devil's stud! Alive? he might be dead for aught I know, With that red gaunt and colloped neck a-strain, 80 And shut eyes underneath the rusty mane; Seldom went such grotesqueness with such woe; I never saw a brute I hated so; He must be wicked to deserve such pain. I shut my eyes and turned them on my heart. As a man calls for wine before he fights, I asked one draught of earlier, happier sights, Ere fitly I could hope to play my part. Think first, fight afterwards--the soldier's art: One taste of the old time sets all to rights. 90 Not it deg.! I fancied Cuthbert's reddening face deg.91 Beneath its garniture of curly gold, Dear fellow, till I almost felt him fold An arm in mine to fix me to the place, That way he used. Alas, one night's disgrace! Out went my heart's new fire and left it cold. Giles then, the soul of honour--there he stands Frank as ten years ago when knighted first. What honest man should dare (he said) he durst. Good--but the scene shifts--faugh! what hangman hands 100 Pin to his breast a parchment? His own bands Read it. Poor traitor, spit upon and curst! Better this present than a past like that; Back therefore to my darkening path again! No sound, no sight so far as eye could strain. Will the night send a howlet deg. or a bat? deg.106 I asked: when something on the dismal flat Came to arrest my thoughts and change their train.