Mark the spot to which I point! 
  From this platform, eight feet square, 10
  Take not even a finger-joint: 
  Andrew’s whole fire-side is there. 
  Here, alone, before thine eyes,
  Simon’s sickly daughter lies,
  From weakness now, and pain defended, 15
  Whom he twenty winters tended.

  Look but at the gardener’s pride—­
  How he glories, when he sees
  Roses, lilies, side by side,
  Violets in families! 20
  By the heart of Man, his tears,
  By his hopes and by his fears,
  Thou, too heedless, [1] art the Warden
  Of a far superior garden.

  Thus then, each to other dear, 25
  Let them all in quiet lie,
  Andrew there, and Susan here,
  Neighbours in mortality. 
  And, should I live through sun and rain
  Seven widowed years without my Jane, 30
  O Sexton, do not then remove her,
  Let one grave hold the Loved and Lover!

* * * * *

VARIANTS ON THE TEXT

[Variant 1: 

1845.

  Thou, old Grey-beard! ... 1800.]

* * * * *

THE DANISH BOY

A FRAGMENT

Composed 1799.—­Published 1800

[Written in Germany, 1799.  It was entirely a fancy; but intended as a prelude to a ballad-poem never written.—­I.F.]

In the editions of 1800-1832 this poem was called ‘A Fragment’.  From 1836 onwards it was named ‘The Danish Boy.  A Fragment’.  It was one of the “Poems of the Fancy.”—­Ed.

  I Between two sister moorland rills
          There is a spot that seems to lie
          Sacred to flowerets of the hills,
          And sacred to the sky. 
          And in this smooth and open dell 5
          There is a tempest-stricken tree;
          A corner-stone by lightning cut,
          The last stone of a lonely hut; [1]
          And in this dell you see
          A thing no storm can e’er destroy, 10
          The shadow of a Danish Boy. [A]

  II In clouds above, the lark is heard,
          But drops not here to earth for rest; [2]
          Within [3] this lonesome nook the bird
          Did never build her [4] nest. 15
          No beast, no bird hath here his home;
          Bees, wafted on [5] the breezy air,
          Pass high above those fragrant bells
          To other flowers:—­to other dells
          Their burthens do they bear; [6] 20
          The Danish Boy walks here alone: 
          The lovely dell is all his own.