Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867.
VII. A Rencontre at TytheringtonJohn Watson Dalby
(Merci, Monsieur, merci!)
F
Among the trees and where the waters gushed,—
A holy calmness all the welkin hushed,
And lo! before me stood, or rather shook,
A tall gaunt figure iron want had crushed
Into a thing scarce humanlike. He spoke,
Help in his native accents did invoke,
While through his frame a tide of diverse feelings rushed.
“Poor, wretched, and from Paris!” all he said;
Yet, plainly written in his visage pale,
Fancy could still piece out the mournful tale;
And, right or wrong, the history fully read
Of the wan outcast in a Gloucester vale,
In that sad, low, strange tongue, imploring bread.