And, trusting to an aged mother's care,

His darkling steps: Beneath that falling beech,

Whose wide-spread branches touch the water's edge,

He lov'd to sit, and feel the freshen'd gale

Breathe cool upon him. Then that falling beech

Was a young, graceful tree; which, starting up,

Amid the looser fragments of the rock,

Rear'd boldly in the air its lofty head,

While, struggling with the stone, the nervous roots

Pursued their own direction, elbowing out,