Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Alexander Smith (1830–1867)

Extract from Squire Maurice

INLAND I wander slow,

Mute with the power the earth and heaven wield:

A black spot sails across the golden field,

And through the air a crow.

Before me wavers spring’s first butterfly;

From out the sunny noon there starts the cuckoo’s cry;

The daisied meads are musical with lambs;

Some play, some feed, some, white as snow-flakes, lie

In the deep sunshine, by their silent dams.

The road grows wide and level to the feet;

The wandering woodbine through the hedge is drawn

Unblown its streaky bugles dim and sweet;

Knee-deep in fern stand startled doe and fawn,

And lo! there gleams upon a spacious lawn

An Earl’s marine retreat.

A little footpath quivers up the height,

And what a vision for a townsman’s sight!

A village, peeping from its orchard bloom,

With lowly roofs of thatch, blue threads of smoke,

O’erlooking all, a parsonage of white.

I hear the smithy’s hammer, stroke on stroke,

A steed is at the door; the rustics talk,

Proud of the notice of the gaitered groom;

A shallow river breaks o’er shallow falls.

Beside the ancient sluice that turns the mill

The lusty miller bawls;

The parson listens in his garden-walk,

The red-cloaked woman pauses on the hill,

This is a place, you say, exempt from ill,

A paradise, where, all the loitering day,

Enamoured pigeons coo upon the roof,

Where children ever play.—

Alas! Time’s webs are rotten, warp and woof;

Rotten his cloth of gold, his coarsest wear:

Here, black-eyed Richard ruins red-cheeked Moll,

Indifferent as a lord to her despair.

The broken barrow hates the prosperous dray;

And, for a padded pew in which to pray,

The grocer sells his soul.