| |
| WHAT wonders greet my waking eyes | |
| At last! Can this be Bramble-Rise, | |
| Once smallest of its shire? | |
| How changed, and changing from my dream; | |
| The dumpy church used not to seem | 5 |
| So dumpy in the spire. | |
| |
| This village is no longer mine; | |
| And though the inn has changed its sign, | |
| The beer may not be stronger: | |
| The river, dwindled by degrees, | 10 |
| Is now a brook,—the cottages | |
| Are cottages no longer. | |
| |
| The thatch is slate, the plaster bricks, | |
| The trees have cut their ancient sticks, | |
| Or else the sticks are stunted: | 15 |
| I ’m sure these thistles once grew figs, | |
| The geese were swans, and once the pigs | |
| More musically grunted. | |
| |
| Where early reapers whistled shrill, | |
| A whistle may be noted still, | 20 |
| The locomotive’s ravings. | |
| New custom newer want begets,— | |
| I loved a bank for violets,— | |
| I loathe a bank for savings. | |
| |
| That voice I have not heard for long! | 25 |
| So Patty still can sing the song | |
| A merry playmate taught her; | |
| I know the strain, but much suspect | |
| ’T is not the child I recollect, | |
| But Patty, Patty’s daughter; | 30 |
| |
| And has she too outlived the spells | |
| Of breezy hills and silent dells | |
| Where childhood loved to ramble? | |
| Then life was thornless to our ken, | |
| And, Bramble-Rise, thy hills were then | 35 |
| A rise without a bramble. * * * * * | |
| |
