And patches bright of bracken green,
And heather black, that waved so high,
It held the copse in rivalry.
But where the lake slept deep and still,
Dank[278] osiers fringed the swamp and hill;
And oft both path and hill were torn,
Where wintry torrent down had borne,
And heap’d upon the cumber’d land
Its wreck of gravel, rocks, and sand.
So toilsome was the road to trace,