Forth sped the youth: the valley closed Behind him: adamantine hills, Like giants round the gates reposed Of his lost Eden, frowned; the rills With fainter murmurs far away Died in the distance; and at length He stood amidst the proud array Of London in his youth and strength. He came when mid the moving life The Terror and the Plague went by. He walked where Panic fled the strife Of Strength with Death the Shadow nigh. The shaft that flew unseen by night, The deadly plague-breath, striking down Thousands on thousands in its flight, Made soon the widow's boy its own. Ah! woe for her! in that far vale The sorrow reached her; for there came Dread tidings and the mournful tale, Dear relics and the fatal Name. All in the brightness of the noon She bent above those relics dear; And ere the glimmering of the moon The Shadow from his side was near. And forth from out her home there stalked The Terror with the name so dread; It pass'd the dalesman as he walked; It dogg'd the lonely shepherd's tread; It breathed into the farms; it smote The homesteads on the loneliest moor; And shuddering Nature cowered remote; All fled the plague-struck widow's door. Alone, in all the vale profound: Alone, on Lingmoor's mosses wide: Alone, with all the hills around From Langdale head to Loughrigg's side; Alone, beneath the cloud of night, The morning's mist, the evening's ray; The hearthstone cold, and quenched its light; The Shadow wrestled with its prey. And day by day, while went and came The sunlight in the cheerless vale, Her hearth no more its wonted flame Renewed, the opening morns to hail: Glow'd not, though beating blasts and rain Drove in beneath her mournful eaves, Through Springs that brought the buds again, And Autumns strew'd with fading leaves. No human foot its timorous falls Led near it, venturing to unfold The scene within those mouldering walls, The mystery in that lonely hold. Nor on that mountain side did morn Or noon show how, or where, for rest That Earth to kindlier earth was borne-- The kinless to the kindred breast. Only the huntsman on the height, The herdsman on the mountain way, Looked sometimes on the far-off site How desolate and lone it lay. Till when the years had rolled, their eyes Saw wondering, where that home decay'd, A little plot of green arise Contiguous to the ruined shade. A little grove of half a score Of laurels, intertwining round One nameless centre, blossomed o'er That homestead's desolated bound; And where their leaves hang green above-- A lowly circling fence of stone Sprang, reared by Powers that build to Love When man, too weak, forsakes his own.