I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn, | |
| Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide: | |
| All was still, save, by fits, when the eagle was yelling, | |
| And starting around me the echoes replied. | |
| On the right, Striden Edge round the Red Tarn was bending, | 5 |
| And Catchedicam its left verge was defending, | |
| One huge nameless rock in the front was ascending, | |
| When I marked the sad spot where the wanderer had died. | |
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| Dark green was that spot mid the brown mountain heather, | |
| Where the Pilgrim of Nature lay stretched in decay. | 10 |
| Like the corpse of an outcast abandoned to weather, | |
| Till the mountain winds wasted the tenantless clay; | |
| Not yet quite deserted, though lonely extended, | |
| For, faithful in death, his mute favorite attended, | |
| The much-loved remains of her master defended, | 15 |
| And chased the hill-fox and the raven away. | |
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| How long didst thou think that his silence was slumber? | |
| When the wind waved his garment, how oft didst thou start? | |
| How many long days and long nights didst thou number | |
| Ere he faded before thee, the friend of thy heart? | 20 |
| And, O, was it meet that—no requiem read o’er him, | |
| No mother to weep, and no friend to deplore him, | |
| And thou, little guardian, alone stretched before him— | |
| Unhonored the Pilgrim from life should depart? | |
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| When a prince to the fate of the peasant has yielded, | 25 |
| The tapestry waves dark round the dim-lighted hall, | |
| With ’scutcheons of silver the coffin is shielded, | |
| And pages stand mute by the canopied pall: | |
| Through the courts, at deep midnight, the torches are gleaming; | |
| In the proudly arched chapel the banners are beaming; | 30 |
| Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming, | |
| Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall. | |
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| But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature, | |
| To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, | |
| When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature, | 35 |
| And draws his last sob by the side of his dam. | |
| And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying, | |
| Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying, | |
| With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying, | |
| In the arms of Helvellyn and Catchedicam. | 40 |
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