The Interloper

There are three folk driving in a quaint old chaise, And the cliff-side track looks green and fair; I view them talking in quiet glee As they drop down towards the puffins' lair By the roughest of ways; But another with the three rides on, I see, Whom I like not to be there! No: it's not anybody you think of. Next A dwelling appears by a slow sweet stream Where two sit happily and half in the dark: They read, helped out by a frail-wick'd gleam, Some rhythmic text; But one sits with them whom they don't mark, One I'm wishing could not be there. No: not whom you knew and name. And now I discern gay diners in a mansion-place, And the guests dropping wit—pert, prim, or choice, And the hostess's tender and laughing face, And the host's bland brow; But I cannot help hearing a hollow voice, And I'd fain not hear it there. No: it's not from the stranger you once met. Ah, Yet a goodlier scene than that succeeds; People on a lawn—quite a crowd of them. Yes, And they chatter and ramble as fancy leads; And they say, 'Hurrah!' To a blithe speech made; save one, mirthless, Who ought not to be there. Nay: it's not the pale Form your imagings raise, That waits on us all at a destined time, It is not the Fourth Figure the Furnace showed; O that it were such a shape sublime In these latter days! It is that under which best lives corrode; Would, would it could not be there!