Composed at Neidpath Castle, the Property of Lord Queensberry
William Wordsworth · 1807
Public domain
From The Golden Treasury, selected by Francis Turner Palgrave. William Wordsworth. The text is free of copyright in the United States. This copy is the poem, without the Project Gutenberg header.
1803.
Degenerate Douglas! O the unworthy lord!
Whom mere despite of heart could so far please
And love of havoc (for with such disease
Fame taxes him) that he could send forth word
To level with the dust a noble horde,
A brotherhood of venerable trees,
Leaving an ancient dome, and towers like these
Beggar'd and outraged!--Many hearts deplored
The fate of those old trees; and oft with pain
The traveller at this day will stop and gaze
On wrongs, which Nature scarcely seems to heed:
For shelter'd places, bosoms, nooks, and bays,
And the pure mountains, and the gentle Tweed,
And the green silent pastures, yet remain.