| |
| LO! in the west fast fades the lingering light, | |
| And day’s last vestige takes its silent flight. | |
| No more is heard the woodman’s measured stroke | |
| Which with the dawn from yonder dingle broke; | |
| No more, hoarse clamoring o’er the uplifted head, | 5 |
| The crows, assembling seek their wind-rocked bed. | |
| Stilled is the village hum,—the woodland sounds | |
| Have ceased to echo o’er the dewy grounds, | |
| And general silence reigns, save when below | |
| The murmuring Trent is scarcely heard to flow; | 10 |
| And save when, swung by ’nighted rustic late, | |
| Oft on its hinge rebounds the jarring gate; | |
| Or when the sheep-bell, in the distant vale, | |
| Breathes its wild music on the downy gale. | |
| |
| Now, when the rustic wears the social smile, | 15 |
| Released from day and its attendant toil, | |
| And draws his household round their evening fire, | |
| And tells the oft-told tales that never tire; | |
| Or where the town’s blue turrets dimly rise, | |
| And manufacture taints the ambient skies, | 20 |
| The pale mechanic leaves the laboring loom, | |
| The air-pent hold, the pestilential room, | |
| And rushes out, impatient to begin | |
| The stated course of customary sin: | |
| Now, now, my solitary way I bend | 25 |
| Where solemn groves in awful state impend, | |
| And cliffs, that boldly rise above the plain, | |
| Bespeak, blest Clifton! thy sublime domain. | |
| Here, lonely wandering o’er the sylvan bower, | |
| I come to pass the meditative hour; | 30 |
| To bid awhile the strife of passion cease, | |
| And woo the calms of solitude and peace. * * * * * | |
| This gloomy alcove, darkling to the sight, | |
| Where meeting trees create eternal night, | |
| Save when from yonder stream the sunny ray | 35 |
| Reflected gives a dubious gleam of day, | |
| Recalls endearing to my altered mind | |
| Times when beneath the boxen hedge reclined | |
| I watched the lapwing to her clamorous brood, | |
| Or lured the robin to its scattered food, | 40 |
| Or woke with song the woodland echo wild, | |
| And at each gay response, delighted, smiled. | |
| How oft, when childhood threw its golden ray | |
| Of gay romance o’er every happy day, | |
| Here would I run, a visionary boy, | 45 |
| When the hoarse tempest shook the vaulted sky, | |
| And, fancy-led, beheld the Almighty’s form | |
| Sternly careering on the eddying storm; | |
| And heard, while awe congealed my inmost soul, | |
| His voice terrific in the thunders roll. | 50 |
| With secret joy, I viewed with vivid glare | |
| The volleyed lightnings cleave the sullen air; | |
| And, as the warring winds around reviled, | |
| With awful pleasure big, I heard and smiled. * * * * * | |
| Now as I rove where wide the prospect grows, | 55 |
| A livelier light upon my vision flows. | |
| No more above the embracing branches meet, | |
| No more the river gurgles at my feet, | |
| But seen deep down the cliff’s impending side, | |
| Through hanging woods now gleams its silver tide. | 60 |
| Dim is my upland path; across the Green | |
| Fantastic shadows fling, yet oft between | |
| The checkered glooms the moon her chaste ray sheds | |
| Where knots of bluebells droop their graceful heads | |
| And beds of violets blooming mid the trees | 65 |
| Load with waste fragrance the nocturnal breeze. * * * * * | |
| How lovely from this hill’s superior height | |
| Spreads the wide view before my straining sight! | |
| O’er many a varied mile of lengthening ground, | |
| E’en to the blue-ridged hills’ remotest bound, | 70 |
| My ken is borne, while o’er my head serene | |
| The silver moon illumes the misty scene, | |
| Now shining clear, now darkening in the glade, | |
| In all the soft varieties of shade. | |
| |
| Behind me, lo! the peaceful hamlet lies. | 75 |
| The drowsy god has sealed the cotter’s eyes. | |
| No more, where late the social fagot blazed, | |
| The vacant peal resounds, by little raised: | |
| But locked in silence, o’er Orion’s star | |
| The slumbering night rolls on her velvet car; | 80 |
| The church-bell tolls, deep sounding down the glade, | |
| The solemn hour, for walking spectres made; | |
| The simple plough-boy, wakening with the sound, | |
| Listens aghast, and turns him startled round, | |
| Then stops his ears, and strives to close his eyes, | 85 |
| Lest at the sound some grisly ghost should rise. | |
| Now ceased the long, the monitory toll, | |
| Returning silence stagnates in the soul; | |
| Save when disturbed by dreams, with wild affright, | |
| The deep-mouthed mastiff bays the troubled night, | 90 |
| Or, where the village alehouse crowns the vale, | |
| The creaking sign-post whistles to the gale. | |
| A little onward let me bend my way, | |
| Where the mossed seat invites the traveller’s stay. | |
| That spot, O yet it is the very same! | 95 |
| That hawthorn gives it shade, and gave it name; | |
| There yet the primrose opes its earliest bloom, | |
| There yet the violet sheds its first perfume, | |
| And in the branch that rears above the rest | |
| The robin unmolested builds its nest. * * * * * | 100 |
| Now passed whate’er the upland heights display, | |
| Down the steep cliff I wind my devious way; | |
| Oft rousing, as the rustling path I beat, | |
| The timid hare from its accustomed seat. | |
| And O how sweet this walk o’erhung with wood, | 105 |
| That winds the margin of the solemn flood! | |
| What rural objects steal upon the sight! | |
| What rising views prolong the calm delight! | |
| The brooklet branching from the silver Trent, | |
| The whispering birch by every zephyr bent, | 110 |
| The woody island, and the naked mead, | |
| The lowly hut half hid in groves of reed, | |
| The rural wicket, and the rural stile, | |
| And frequent interspersed the woodman’s pile. | |
| Above, below, where’er I turn my eyes, | 115 |
| Rocks, waters, woods, in grand succession rise. | |
| High up the cliff the varied groves ascend, | |
And mournful larches o’er the wave impend.
END OF VOL. II. | |
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