Lines Written with a Slate-Pencil, Upon a Stone, the Largest of a Heap Lying Near a Deserted Quarry, Upon One of the Islands at Rydale + 

Stranger! this hillock of misshapen stones + 

Is not a ruin of the ancient 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 Knight forthwith + 

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 the intended Pile, which would have been + 

Some quaint odd play-thing 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 + 

Bred 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 glory, 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. + 