When Winter soaks the fields, and female feet,
Too weak to struggle with tenacious clay,
Or ford the rivulets, are blest at home,
The task of new discoveries falls on me.
At such a season, and with such a charge,
Once went I forth; and found, till then unknown,
A cottage, whither oft we since repair:
Tis perched upon the green-hill top, but close
Environed with a ring of branching elms,
That overhang the thatch, itself unseen
Peeps at the vale below; so thick beset a
With foliage of such dark redundant growth
I called the low-roofed lodge the peasant's nest.
And hidden as it is, and far remote
From such unpleasing sounds, as haunt the ear,
In village or in town, the bay of curs
Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels,
And infants clamourous whether pleased or pained,
Oft have I wished the peaceful covert mine.
Here, I have said, at least I should possess LA
The poet's treasure, silence, and indulge-
The dreams of fancy, tranquil and secure.
Vain thought! the dweller in that still retreat
Dearly obtains the refuge it affords.
Its elevated site forbids the wretch
To drink sweet waters of the crystal well!
He dips his bowl into the weedy ditch,
And, heavy-laden, brings his beverage home,
Far fetched and little worth; nor seldom waits,
Dependant on the baker's punctual call,
To hear his creaking panniers at the door,
Angry and sad, and his last crust consumed.
So farewell envy of the peasant's nest!
If solitude make scant the means of life,
Society for me!-thou seeming sweet,
Be still a pleasing object in my view; :
My visit still, but never mine abode,
Not distant far a length of colonnade
Invites us.
Monument of ancient taste, ',
Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate.
Our fathers knew the value of a screen
From sultry suns and, in their shaded walks
And long protracted bowers; enjoyed at noor
The gloom and coolness of declining day.
We bear our shades about us; self-deprived
Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,
And range an Indian waste without a tree,
Thanks to Benevolus-he spares me yet
These chesnuts ranged in corresponding lines;
And, though himself so polished, still reprieves
The obsolete prolixity of shade.."
Descending now (but cautious, lest too fast)
A sudden steep, upon a rustic bridge
We pass a gulph, in which the willows dip
Their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink.
Hence, ancle deep in moss and flowery thyme,
We mount again, and feel at every stepney
* John Courtnay Throckmorton, Esq. of Weston Underwood.ee
Our foot half sunk in hillocks green and softer
Raised by the mole, the miner of the soil. YZA
He not unlike the great ones of mankind,
Disfigures earth: and, plotting in the dark,.
Toils much to earn a monumental pile, cjsudu
That may record the mischiefs he has done.
The summit gained, behold the proud alcove 10
That crowns it! yet not all its pride secures
The grand retreat from injuries impressed
By rural carvers, who with knives deface
The pannels, leaving an obscure, rude name
In characters uncouth, and spelt amiss.
So strong the zeal to immortalize himself.
Beats in the breast of man, that even a few
Few transient years, won from the abyss abhorred
Of blank oblivion, seem a glorious prize,
And even to a clown. Now roves the
And posted on this speculative height,
Exults in its command. The sheep-fold here
Pours out its fleecy tenants over the glebe.
At first, progressive as a stream, they seek
The middle field; but, scattered by degrees,
Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land.
There from the sun-burnt hay-field homeward
The loaded wain; while, lightened of its charge
The wain that meets it passes, swiftly by;
The boorish driver leaning over his team
Vociferous, and impatient of delay. v. "
Nor less attractive is the woodland scene,
Diversified with trees of every growth,
Alike, yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks
Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine,
Within the twilight of their distant shades;
There, lost: behind a rising ground, the wood
Seems sunk, and shortned to its topmost boughs..
No tree in all the grove but as its charms,
Though each its hue peculiar; paler some,
And of a wannish gray; the willow such,
And poplar, that with silver lines his leaf,
And ash far-stretching his umbrageous arm;
Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,
Lord of the woods, the long surviving oak.
Some glossy-leaved, and shining in the sun,
The maple, and the beech, of oily nuts.
Prolific, and the lime at dewy eve
Diffusing odours: nor unnoted pass
The sycamore, capricious in attire,
Now green, now tawny, and, ere autumn yet
Have changed the woods, in scarlet honours bright
Over these, but far beyond (a spacious map)
Of hill and valley interposed between),
The Ouse, dividing the well-watered land,.
Now glitters in the sun, and, now retires,
As bashful, yet impatient to be seen.
Hence the declivity is sharp and short,
And such the re-ascent: between them weeps
A little naiad her impoverished urn
All summer long, which winter fills again..
The folded gates would bar my progress now,
But that the Lord of this enclosed demesne,
Communicative of the good he owns,
Admits me to a share; the guiltless eye
Commits no wrong, nor wastes what it enjoys.
Refreshing change? where now the blazing sun
By short transition we have lost his glare,
And stepped at once into a cooler clime.
Ye fallen avenues! once more I mourn
Your fate unmerited, once more rejoice
That yet a remnant of your race survives.
How airy and how light the graceful arch,
Yet awful as the consecrated roof
Re-echoing pious anthems! while beneath
The chequered earth seems restless as a flood
Brushed by the wind. So sportive is the light
Shot through the boughs, it dances as they dance,
Shadow and sunshine intermingling quick,
And darkening and enlightening, as the leaves
Play wanton, every moment, every spot.
And now, with nerves new-braced and spirits cheered,
We tread the wilderness, whose well-rolled walks,
With curvature of slow and easy sweep-
Deception innocent-give ample space
To narrow bounds. The grove receives us next;
Between the upright shafts of whose tall elms
We
may discern the thresher at his task. Thump after thump resounds the constant fail,
* See the foregoing note.
|