I wish I were where Helen lies! Night and day on me she cries, And I am weary of the skies, For her sake that died for me! Ed. * * * * * HART-LEAP WELL Composed 1800.--Published 1800 Hart-Leap Well is a small spring of water, about five miles from Richmond in Yorkshire, and near the side of the road which leads from Richmond to Askrigg. Its name is derived from a remarkable chace, the memory of which is preserved by the monuments spoken of in the second Part of the following Poem, which monuments do now exist as I have there described them.--W. W. 1800. [Written at Town-end, Grasmere. The first eight stanzas were composed extempore one winter evening in the cottage, when, after having tired myself with labouring at an awkward passage in 'The Brothers', I started with a sudden impulse to this to get rid of the other, and finished it in a day or two. My sister and I had passed the place a few weeks before in our wild winter journey from Sockburn on the banks of the Tees to Grasmere. A peasant whom we met near the spot told us the story so far as concerned the name of the Well, and the Hart, and pointed out the Stones. Both the stones and the well are objects that may easily be missed. The tradition by this time may be extinct in the neighbourhood. The man who related it to us was very old.--I. F.] Included among the "Poems of the Imagination,"--Ed. The Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor With the slow motion of a summer's cloud And now, as he approached a vassal's door, "Bring forth another horse!" he cried aloud. [1] "Another horse!"--That shout the vassal heard 5 And saddled his best Steed, a comely grey; Sir Walter mounted him; he was the third Which he had mounted on that glorious day. Joy sparkled in the prancing courser's eyes; The horse and horseman are a happy pair; 10 But, though Sir Walter like a falcon flies, There is a doleful silence in the air. A rout this morning left Sir Walter's Hall, That as they galloped made the echoes roar; But horse and man are vanished, one and all; 15 Such race, I think, was never seen before. Sir Walter, restless as a veering wind, Calls to the few tired dogs that yet remain: Blanch, [2] Swift, and Music, noblest of their kind, Follow, and up the weary mountain strain. 20 The Knight hallooed, he cheered and chid them on [3] With suppliant gestures [4] and upbraidings stern; But breath and eyesight fail; and, one by one, The dogs are stretched among the mountain fern. Where is the throng, the tumult of the race? [5] 25 The bugles that so joyfully were blown? --This chase it looks not like an earthly chase; [6] Sir Walter and the Hart are left alone.