No gray old grange, or lonely fold, Or low morass and whispering reed, Or simple stile from mead to mead, Or sheepwalk up the windy wold; Nor hoary knoll of ash and haw That hears the latest linnet trill, Nor quarry trench’d along the hill, And haunted by the wrangling daw; Nor runlet tinkling from the rock; Nor pastoral rivulet that swerves To left and right thro’ meadowy curves, That feed the mothers of the flock; But each has pleased a kindred eye, And each reflects a kindlier day; And, leaving these, to pass away, I think once more he seems to die. XCIX. Unwatch’d the garden bough shall sway, The tender blossom flutter down, Unloved that beech will gather brown, This maple burn itself away; Unloved, the sun-flower, shining fair, Ray round with flames her disk of seed, And many a rose-carnation feed With summer spice the humming air; Unloved, by many a sandy bar, The brook shall babble down the plain, At noon or when the lesser wain Is twisting round the polar star; Uncared for, gird the windy grove, And flood the haunts of hern and crake; Or into silver arrows break The sailing moon in creek and cove; Till from the garden and the wild A fresh association blow, And year by year the landscape grow Familiar to the stranger’s child; As year by year the labourer tills His wonted glebe, or lops the glades; And year by year our memory fades From all the circle of the hills. C. We leave the well-beloved place Where first we gazed upon the sky; The roofs, that heard our earliest cry, Will shelter one of stranger race. We go, but ere we go from home, As down the garden-walks I move, Two spirits of a diverse love Contend for loving masterdom. One whispers, here thy boyhood sung Long since its matin song, and heard The low love-language of the bird In native hazels tassel-hung. The other answers, ‘Yea, but here Thy feet have stray’d in after hours With thy lost friend among the bowers, And this hath made them trebly dear.’ These two have striven half the day, And each prefers his separate claim, Poor rivals in a losing game, That will not yield each other way. I turn to go: my feet are set To leave the pleasant fields and farms; They mix in one another’s arms To one pure image of regret. CI. On that last night before we went From out the doors where I was bred, I dream’d a vision of the dead, Which left my after morn content. Methought I dwelt within a hall, And maidens with me: distant hills From hidden summits fed with rills A river sliding by the wall.