Pope Reflects

The gloomy verdure of Stonor, and then the shades of the evening overtook me;
The moon rose in the clearest sky I ever saw. Nothing could have more
Of that melancholy, which once used to please me, than that day's journey.

I conformed myself to the college hours, and was rolled up in books.
I lay in one of the most ancient, dusky parts of the University,
And was as dead to the world as any hermit of the desert.

If anything was awake or alive in me, it was a little vanity;
For I found myself received with a sort of respect
Which this idle part of mankind, the learned, pay to their own species.

Methinks I do very ill, to leave the only place where I make a good figure,
And from seeing myself seated on the most conspicuous shelves of a library
To venture out again, into the sun, into the mirrors and lights of Bolton St.

Newchurch Halt

They marvelled at the lifeless-looking water.
The pond was just a depression in the middle
...