And there was often seen. What could she seek?- or wish to hide? Her state to any eye was plain; She was with child, and she was mad: Yet often was she sober sad From her exceeding pain. O guilty Father! - would that death XIII. "Sad case for such a brain to hold And when at last her time drew near, XIV. "More know I not, I wish I did, Nay, if a child to her was born Far less could this with proof be said; That Martha Ray about this time XV. “And all that winter, when at night For many a time and oft were heard I cannot think, whate'er they say, XVI. "But that she goes to this old Thorn, For one day with my telescope, XVII. "'T was mist and rain, and storm and rain : No screen, no fence, could I discover; A wind full ten times over. I looked around, I thought I saw A jutting crag, and off I ran, Head-foremost, through the driving rain, Instead of jutting crag, I found A Woman seated on the ground. "I did not speak, XVIII. -I saw her face; Her face!—it was enough for me; And there she sits, until the moon Through half the clear blue sky will go; The waters of the pond to shake, As all the country know, She shudders, and you hear her cry, 'O misery! O misery!"" XIX. "But what's the Thorn? and what the pond? And what the hill of moss to her? And what the creeping breeze that comes The little pond to stir?" "I cannot tell; but some will say She hanged her baby on the tree; Some say she drowned it in the pond, The little Babe was buried there, XX. "I've heard, the moss is spotted red Some if to the pond you go, say, And fix on it a steady view, And that it looks at you; XXI. "And some had sworn an oath, that she Should be to public justice brought; And for the little infant's bones With spades they would have sought. The grass, it shook upon the ground! Yet all do still aver The little Babe lies buried there, XXII. "I cannot tell how this may be, And this I know, full many a time, When all the stars shone clear and bright, 'O misery! O misery! O woe is me! O misery!"" XXIV. 1798. HART-LEAP WELL. Hart-Leap Well is a small spring of water, about five miles from Richmond in Yorkshire, and near the side of the road that leads from Richmond to Askrigg. Its name is derived from a remarkable Chase, 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. THE Knight had ridden down from Wensley Moor, |