Classic Poem

I crossed the dreary moor
In the clear moonlight: when I reached the hut
I entered in, but all was still and dark,
Only within the ruin I beheld
At a small distance, on the dusky ground
A broken pane which glittered in the moon
And seemed akin to life. There is a mood
A settled temper of the heart, when grief,
Become an instinct, fastening on all things
That promise food, doth like a sucking babe
Create it where it is not. From this time
That speck of glass was dearer to my soul
Than was the moon in heaven. Another time
The winds of Autumn drove me o'er the heath
One gloomy evening: by the storm compelled
The poor man's horse that feeds along the lanes
Had hither come among these fractured walls
To weather out the night; and as I passed
While restlessly he turned from the fierce wind
And from the open sky, I heard, within,
The iron links with which his feet were clogged
Mix their dull clanking with the heavy noise
Of falling rain. I started from the spot
And heard the sound still following in the wind

Three weeks
O'er arched by the same bramble's dusky shade
On this green bank a glow worm hung its light
And then was seen no more. Within the thorn
Whose flowery head half hides those ruined pales
Three seasons did a blackbird build his nest
And then he disappeared. On the green top
Of that tall ash a linnet perched himself
And sang a pleasant melancholy song
Two summers and then vanished. I alone
Remained: the winds of heaven remained. With them
My heart claimed fellowship and with the beams
Of dawn and of the setting sun that seemed
To live and linger on the mouldering walls.