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(From Rokeby)
THE SULTRY summer day is done, | |
| The western hills have hid the sun, | |
| But mountain peak and village spire | |
| Retain reflection of his fire. | |
| Old Barnard’s towers are purple still | 5 |
| To those that gaze from Toller Hill; | |
| Distant and high, the tower of Bowes | |
| Like steel upon the anvil glows; | |
| And Stanmore’s ridge, behind that lay, | |
| Rich with the spoils of parting day, | 10 |
| In crimson and in gold arrayed, | |
| Streaks yet a while the closing shade, | |
| Then slow resigns to darkening heaven | |
| The tints which brighter hours had given. | |
| Thus aged men, full loath and slow, | 15 |
| The vanities of life forego, | |
| And count their youthful follies o’er, | |
| Till memory lends her light no more. | |
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| The eve, that slow on upland fades, | |
| Has darker closed on Rokeby’s glades, | 20 |
| Where, sunk within their banks profound, | |
| Her guardian streams to meeting wound. | |
| The stately oaks, whose sombre frown | |
| Of noontide make a twilight brown, | |
| Impervious now to fainter light, | 25 |
| Of twilight make an early night. | |
| Hoarse into middle air arose | |
| The vespers of the roosting crows, | |
| And with congenial murmurs seem | |
| To wake the genii of the stream; | 30 |
| For louder clamored Greta’s tide, | |
| And Tees in deeper voice replied, | |
| And fitful waked the evening wind, | |
| Fitful in sighs its breath resigned. | |
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