BETA

What aspect bore the Man who roved or fled,1
First of his tribe, to this dark dell—who first2
In this pellucid Current slaked his thirst ?3
What hopes came with him ? what designs
were spread4
Along his path ? His unprotected bed5
What dreams encompass’d ? Was the In-
truder nurs’d6
In hideous usages, and rites accurs’d,7
That thinned the living and disturbed the
dead ?8
No voice replies :— the earth, the air is mute ;9
And Thou, blue Streamlet, murmuring
yield’st no more10
Than a soft record that whatever fruit11
Of ignorance thou might’st witness hereto-
fore,12
Thy function was to heal and to restore,13
To soothe and cleanse, not madden and pol-
lute!14