Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry.
Volume VII. Descriptive: Narrative. 1904. | | | | Descriptive Poems: III. Places | | England | | Oliver Goldsmith (1730–1774) |
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FIRED at the sound, my genius spreads her wing, | |
| And flies where Britain courts the western spring; | |
| Where lawns extend that scorn Arcadian pride, | |
| And brighter streams than famed Hydaspes glide. | |
| There all around the gentlest breezes stray, | 5 |
| There gentler music melts on every spray; | |
| Creation’s mildest charms are there combined, | |
| Extremes are only in the master’s mind. | |
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| Stern o’er each bosom reason holds her state, | |
| With daring aims irregularly great, | 10 |
| Pride in their port, defiance in their eye, | |
| I see the lords of human kind pass by: | |
| Intent on high designs, a thoughtful band, | |
| By forms unfashioned, fresh from nature’s hand, | |
| Fierce in their native hardiness of soul, | 15 |
| True to imagined right above control,— | |
| While e’en the peasant boasts these rights to scan, | |
| And learns to venerate himself as man. | |
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| Thine, freedom, thine the blessing pictured here, | |
| Thine are those charms that dazzle and endear! | 20 | | | |
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