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| SEE, Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round | |
| The varied valley, and the mountain ground, | |
| Wildly majestic! What is all the pride | |
| Of flats, with loads of ornaments supplied?— | |
| Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense, | 5 |
| Compared with Nature’s rude magnificence! * * * * * | |
| Romantic spot! from whence in prospect lies | |
| Whate’er of landscape charms our feasting eyes,— | |
| The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture plain, | |
| The russet fallow, or the golden grain, | 10 |
| The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light, | |
| Till all the fading picture fail the sight. * * * * * | |
| Hark, while below the village bells ring round, | |
| Echo, sweet nymph, returns the softened sound; | |
| But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar, | 15 |
| Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore. | |
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| Adown the vale, in lone, sequestered nook, | |
| Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook, | |
| The ruined convent lies: here wont to dwell | |
| The lazy canon midst his cloistered cell, | 20 |
| While papal darkness brooded o’er the land, | |
| Ere Reformation made her glorious stand; | |
| Still oft at eve belated shepherd swains | |
| See the cowled spectre skim the folded plains. * * * * * | |
| Now climb the steep, drop now your eye below | 25 |
| Where round the blooming village orchards grow; | |
| There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat, | |
| A rural, sheltered, unobserved retreat. | |
| Me far above the rest Selbornian scenes, | |
| The pendent forests and the mountain greens, | 30 |
| Strike with delight; there spreads the distant view, | |
| That gradual fades till sunk in misty blue; | |
| Here Nature hangs her slopy woods to sight, | |
| Rills purl between and dart a quivering light. | |
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