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(From Beachy Head)
HAUNTS of my youth! | |
| Scenes of fond day-dreams, I behold ye yet! | |
| Where ’t was so pleasant by thy northern slopes, | |
| To climb the winding sheep-path, aided oft | |
| By scattered thorns, whose spiny branches bore | 5 |
| Small woolly tufts, spoils of the vagrant lamb, | |
| There seeking shelter from the noonday sun; | |
| And pleasant, seated on the short soft turf, | |
| To look beneath upon the hollow way, | |
| While heavily upward moved the laboring wain, | 10 |
| And stalking slowly by, the sturdy hind, | |
| To ease his panting team, stopped with a stone | |
The grating wheel.
Advancing higher still, | |
| The prospect widens, and the village church | |
| But little o’er the lowly roofs around | 15 |
| Bears its gray belfry, and its simple vane; | |
| Those lowly roofs of thatch are half-concealed | |
| By the rude arms of trees, lovely in spring; | |
| When on each bough the rosy-tinctured bloom | |
| Sits thick, and promises autumnal plenty. | 20 |
| For even those orchards round the Norman farms, | |
| Which, as their owners mark the promised fruit, | |
| Console them, for the vineyards of the South | |
Surpass not these.
Where woods of ash and beech, | |
| And partial copses fringe the green hill-foot, | 25 |
| The upland shepherd rears his modest home; | |
| There wanders by a little nameless stream | |
| That from the hill wells forth, bright now and clear, | |
| Or after rain with chalky mixture gray, | |
| But still refreshing in its shallow course | 30 |
| The cottage garden, most for use designed, | |
| Yet not of beauty destitute. The vine | |
| Mantles the little casement; yet the brier | |
| Drops fragrant dew among the July flowers; | |
| And pansies rayed, and freaked and mottled pinks, | 35 |
| Grow among balm and rosemary and rue. | |
| There honeysuckles flaunt and roses blow | |
| Almost uncultured; some with dark green leaves | |
| Contrast their flowers of pure unsullied white; | |
| Others, like velvet robes of regal state | 40 |
| Of richest crimson; while, in thorny moss | |
| Enshrined and cradled, the most lovely wear | |
| The hues of youthful beauty’s glowing cheek. | |
| With fond regret I recollect e’en now | |
| In spring and summer, what delight I felt | 45 |
| Among these cottage gardens, and how much | |
| Such artless nosegays, knotted with a rush | |
| By village housewife or her ruddy maid, | |
| Were welcome to me, soon and simply pleased. | |
| An early worshipper at Nature’s shrine, | 50 |
| I loved her rudest scenes,—warrens and heaths, | |
| And yellow commons, and birch-shaded hollows, | |
| And hedge-rows bordering unfrequented lanes, | |
| Bowered with wild roses and the clasping woodbine. | |
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