Beating, outside its gates, a little ball;

While on the crumbling battlements on high,

Where mail-clad men-at-arms kept watch and ward,

Adventurous sheep amaze the curious eye

Instead of grazing on the level sward.

But though such incongruities may jar

The sense of fitness in a mind fastidious,

Modernity has wholly failed to mar

The face of Nature here, or make it hideous.

Inland the amphitheatre of hills