Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

New Forest

Rhinefield

By William Sotheby (1757–1833)

RHINEFIELD! as through thy solitude I rove,

Now lost amid the deep wood’s gloomy night,

Doubtful I trace a ray of glimmering light;

Now where some antique oak, itself a grove,

Spreads its soft umbrage o’er the sunny glade,

Stretched on its mossy roots at early dawn,

While o’er the furze with light bound leaps the fawn,

I count the herd that crops the dewy blade:

Frequent at eve list to the hum profound

That all around upon the chill breeze floats,

Broke by the lonely keeper’s wild, strange notes;

At distance followed by the browsing deer;

Or the bewildered stranger’s plaintive sound

That dies in lessening murmurs on the ear.