Who yet in life’s late autumn, was a wiry wight and strong,
Though grizzly were his elf-locks wild and bow’d his giant frame.
Cool Michaelmas its summer brought, serene, and soft, and gray;
The high steep wood of Harrowslack all yellow grew and sere,
And shower’d its faded raiment o’er the Ferry’s gloom-girt bay—
The deepest, darkest, dreamiest nook of bay-fringed Windermere.
And listlessly and idly as the lazy mists that rest,
Or cling with loving closeness, after summer’s heats are gone,
And autumn’s breezes over, to Wynander’s placid breast—
The latest guest the Ferry held, I loitered there alone.