| |
| ONCE more upon this happy hill | |
| Doth yet my free foot bound at will; | |
| About those cliffs, whose hearts of stone | |
| To spade and mattock inly groan, | |
| Well to reward the miner’s pains, | 5 |
| In wealth from out a thousand veins, | |
| Poor and past use, in age resigned | |
| To ruin like our human kind, | |
| And now and then o’erwhelming all, | |
| Midst sullen thunder, in their fall; | 10 |
| Above the moorlands, brown and shorn, | |
| On whose rough beds the winds are born, | |
| From hardy north-blast, flinging wreaths | |
| Of cradled snow, to that which breathes | |
| Too infant-like to bear its tale | 15 |
| Of heathery sweetness to the vale; | |
| And through those woods, my boyhood knew | |
| And loved so well, whose memories strew | |
| Their pathways thick as leaves | |
| Upon the dreary autumn eves: | 20 |
| Once more I tread these pleasant fields | |
| With chainless heart, fair Devon yields | |
| Once more the old accustomed rest, | |
| Most welcome as most absent guest. * * * * * | |
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