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William Wordsworth - Inscriptions
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Stranger! this hillock of mis-shapen stones 
Is not a Ruin spared or made by time, 
Nor, as perchance thou rashly deem`st, the Cairn 
Of some old British Chief: `tis nothing more 
Than the rude embryo of a little Dome 
Or Pleasure-house, once destined to be built 
Among the birch-trees of this rocky isle. 
But, as it chanced, Sir William having learned 
That from the shore a full-grown man might wade, 
And make himself a freeman of this spot 
At any hour he chose, the prudent Knight 
Desisted, and the quarry and the mound 
Are monuments of his unfinished task. 
The block on which these lines are traced, perhaps, 
Was once selected as the corner-stone 
Of that intended Pile, which would have been 
Some quaint odd plaything of elaborate skill, 
So that, I guess, the linnet and the thrush, 
And other little builders who dwell here, 
Had wondered at the work. But blame him not, 
For old Sir William was a gentle Knight, 
Bled in this vale, to which he appertained 
With all his ancestry. Then peace to him, 
And for the outrage which he had devised 
Entire forgiveness!—But if thou art one 
On fire with thy impatience to become 
An inmate of these mountains,—if, disturbed 
By beautiful conceptions, thou hast hewn 
Out of the quiet rock the elements 
Of thy trim Mansion destined soon to blaze 
In snow-white splendour,—think again; and, taught 
By old Sir William and his quarry, leave 
Thy fragments to the bramble and the rose; 
There let the vernal slow-worm sun himself, 
And let the redbreast hop from stone to stone.
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