Sonnet IX.

"Enter this cavern Stranger! the ascent     Is long and steep and toilsome; here awhile     Thou mayest repose thee, from the noontide heat"

"Here Stranger rest thee! from the neighbouring towers     Of Oxford, haply thou hast forced thy bark     Up this strong stream, whose broken wat"

"O thou who from the mountain's height         Roll'st down thy clouds with all their weight     Of waters to old Niles majestic tide;"

"(Time Night. Scene the woods.)     Where shall I turn me? whither shall I bend     My weary way? thus worn with toil and faint     How thro' the"

"Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met     Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,     And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,     S"

"The Text is taken from Percy's Reliques (1765), vol. i. p. 71, 'given from two MS. copies, transmitted from Scotland.' Herd had a very similar bal"