For a TABLET at GODSTOW NUNNERY.

  Here Stranger rest thee! from the neighbouring towers

  Of Oxford, haply thou hast forced thy bark

  Up this strong stream, whose broken waters here

  Send pleasant murmurs to the listening sense:

  Rest thee beneath this hazel; its green boughs

  Afford a grateful shade, and to the eye

  Fair is its fruit: Stranger! the seemly fruit

  Is worthless, all[1] is hollowness within,

  For on the grave of ROSAMUND it grows!

  Young lovely and beloved she fell seduced,

  And here retir'd to wear her wretched age

  In earnest prayer and bitter penitence,

  Despis'd and self-despising: think of her

  Young Man! and learn to reverence Womankind!

[Footnote 1: I have often seen this hazel: its nuts are apparently very fine, but always without a kernel.]