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I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,The sleepless Soul that perish'd in its pride;Of Him who walk'd in glory and in joyBehind his plough, upon the mountain-side:By our own spirits are we deified;We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;But thereof comes in the end despondency and madness.
Now, whether it were by peculiar grace,A leading from above, a something given,Yet it befel, that, in this lonely place,When up and down my fancy thus was driven,And I with these untoward thoughts had striven,I saw a Man before me unawares:The oldest Man he seem'd that ever wore grey hairs.
My course I stopped as soon as I espiedThe Old Man in that naked wilderness:Close by a Pond, upon the further side.
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