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(From The Fleece)
WIDE around | |
| Hillock and valley, farm and village, smile; | |
| And ruddy roofs and chimney-tops appear, | |
| Of busy Leeds, up-wafting to the clouds | |
| The incense of thanksgiving: all is joy; | 5 |
| And trade and business guide the living scene, | |
| Roll the full cars, adown the winding Aire | |
| Load the slow-sailing barges, pile the pack | |
| On the long tinkling train of slow-paced steeds. | |
| As when a sunny day invites abroad | 10 |
| The sedulous ants, they issue from their cells | |
| In bands unnumbered, eager for their work; | |
| O’er high, o’er low, they lift, they draw, they haste | |
| With warm affection to each other’s aid; | |
| Repeat their virtuous efforts, and succeed. | 15 |
| Thus all is here in motion, all is life: | |
| The creaking wain brings copious store of corn; | |
| The grazier’s sleeky kine obstruct the roads; | |
| The neat-dressed housewives, for the festal board | |
| Crowned with full baskets, in the field-way paths | 20 |
| Come tripping on; the echoing hills repeat | |
| The stroke of axe and hammer; scaffolds rise, | |
| And growing edifices; heaps of stone, | |
| Beneath the chisel, beauteous shapes assume | |
| Of frieze and column. Some, with even line, | 25 |
| New streets are marking in the neighboring fields, | |
| And sacred domes of worship. Industry, | |
| Which dignifies the artist, lifts the swain, | |
| And the straw cottage to a palace turns, | |
| Over the work presides. Such was the scene | 30 |
| Of hurrying Carthage, when the Trojan chief | |
| First viewed her growing turrets. So appear | |
| The increasing walls of busy Manchester, | |
| Sheffield, and Birmingham, whose reddening fields | |
| Rise and enlarge their suburbs. | 35 |
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