Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (135 page)

Scenes of fond day dreams, I behold ye yet!
Where ’twas so pleasant by thy northern slopes
To climb the winding sheep-path, aided oft
By scatter’d thorns: whose spiny branches bore
Small woolly tufts, spoils of the vagrant lamb
There seeking shelter from the noon-day sun;
And pleasant, seated on the short soft turf,
To look beneath upon the hollow way
While heavily upward mov’d the labouring wain,
And stalking slowly by, the sturdy hind
To ease his panting team, stopp’d with a stone
The grating wheel.

Advancing higher still
The prospect widens, and the village church
But little, o’er the lowly roofs around
Rears its gray belfry, and its simple vane;
Those lowly roofs of thatch are half conceal’d
By the rude arms of trees, lovely in spring,
When on each bough, the rosy-tinctur’d bloom
Sits thick, and promises autumnal plenty.
For even those orchards round the Norman farms,
Which, as their owners mark the promis’d fruit,
Console them for the vineyards of the south,
Surpass not these.

Where woods of ash, and beech,
And partial copses, fringe the green hill foot,
The upland shepherd rears his modest home,
There wanders by, a little nameless stream
That from the hill wells forth, bright now and clear,
Or after rain with chalky mixture gray,
But still refreshing in its shallow course,
The cottage garden; most for use design’d,
Yet not of beauty destitute.
 
The vine
Mantles the little casement; yet the briar
Drops fragrant dew among the July flowers;
And pansies rayed, and freak’d and mottled pinks
Grow among balm, and rosemary and rue:
There honeysuckles flaunt, and roses blow
Almost uncultured: Some with dark green leaves
Contrast their flowers of pure unsullied white;
Others, like velvet robes of regal state
Of richest crimson, while in thorny moss
Enshrined and cradled, the most lovely, wear
The hues of youthful beauty’s glowing cheek. —
With fond regret I recollect e’en now
In Spring and Summer, what delight I felt
Among these cottage gardens, and how much
Such artless nosegays, knotted with a rush
By village housewife or her ruddy maid,
Were welcome to me; soon and simply pleas’d.

An early worshipper at Nature’s shrine;
I loved her rudest scenes — warrens, and heaths,
And yellow commons, and birch-shaded hollows,
And hedge rows, bordering unfrequented lanes
Bowered with wild roses, and the clasping woodbine
Where purple tassels of the tangling vetch
With bittersweet, and bryony inweave,
And the dew fills the silver bindweed’s cups —
I loved to trace the brooks whose humid banks
Nourish the harebell, and the freckled pagil;
And stroll among o’ershadowing woods of beech,
Lending in Summer, from the heats of noon
A whispering shade; while haply there reclines
Some pensive lover of uncultur’d flowers,
Who, from the tumps with bright green mosses clad,
Plucks the wood sorrel, with its light thin leaves,
Heart-shaped, and triply folded; and its root
Creeping like beaded coral; or who there
Gathers, the copse’s pride, anémones,
With rays like golden studs on ivory laid
Most delicate: but touch’d with purple clouds,
Fit crown for April’s fair but changeful brow.

Ah! hills so early loved! in fancy still
I breathe your pure keen air; and still behold
Those widely spreading views, mocking alike
The Poet and the Painter’s utmost art.

And still, observing objects more minute,
Wondering remark the strange and foreign forms
Of sea-shells; with the pale calcareous soil
Mingled, and seeming of resembling substance.
Tho’ surely the blue Ocean “from the heights
Where the downs westward trend, but dimly seen”
Here never roll’d its surge.
 
Does Nature then
Mimic, in wanton mood, fantastic shapes
Of bivalves, and inwreathed volutes, that cling
To the dark sea-rock of the wat’ry world?
Or did this range of chalky mountains, once
Form a vast bason, where the Ocean waves
Swell’d fathomless? What time these fossil shells,
Buoy’d on their native element, were thrown
Among the imbedding calx: when the huge hill
Its giant bulk heaved, and in strange ferment
Grew up a guardian barrier, ‘twixt the sea
And the green level of the sylvan weald.

Ah! very vain is Science’ proudest boast,
And but a little light its flame yet lends
To its most ardent votaries; since from whence
These fossil forms are seen, is but conjecture,
Food for vague theories, or vain dispute,
While to his daily task the peasant goes,
Unheeding such inquiry; with no care
But that the kindly change of sun and shower,
Fit for his toil the earth he cultivates.
As little recks the herdsman of the hill,
Who on some turfy knoll, idly reclined,
Watches his wether flock; that deep beneath
Rest the remains of men, of whom is left
No traces in the records of mankind,
Save what these half obliterated mounds
And half fill’d trenches doubtfully impart
To some lone antiquary; who on times remote,
Since which two thousand years have roll’d away,
Loves to contemplate.
 
He perhaps may trace,
Or fancy he can trace, the oblong square
Where the mail’d legions, under Claudius, rear’d,
The rampire, or excavated fossé delved;
What time the huge unwieldy Elephant
Auxiliary reluctant, hither led,
From Afric’s forest glooms and tawny sands,
First felt the Northern blast, and his vast frame
Sunk useless; whence in after ages found,
The wondering hinds, on those enormous bones
Gaz’d; and in giants dwelling on the hills
Believed and marvell’d —

Hither, Ambition, come!
Come and behold the nothingness of all
For which you carry thro’ the oppressed Earth,
War, and its train of horrors — see where tread
The innumerous hoofs of flocks above the works
By which the warrior sought to register
His glory, and immortalize his name —
The pirate Dane, who from his circular camp
Bore in destructive robbery, fire and sword
Down thro’ the vale, sleeps unremember’d here;
And here, beneath the green sward, rests alike
The savage native, who his acorn meal
Shar’d with the herds, that ranged the pathless woods;
And the centurion, who on these wide hills
Encamping, planted the Imperial Eagle.
All, with the lapse of Time, have passed away,
Even as the clouds, with dark and dragon shapes,
Or like vast promontories crown’d with towers,
Cast their broad shadows on the downs: then sail
Far to the northward, and their transient gloom
Is soon forgotten.

But from thoughts like these,
By human crimes suggested, let us turn
To where a more attractive study courts
The wanderer of the hills; while shepherd girls
Will from among the fescue bring him flowers,
Of wonderous mockery; some resembling bees
In velvet vest, intent on their sweet toil,
While others mimic flies, that lightly sport
In the green shade, or float along the pool,
But here seem perch’d upon the slender stalk,
And gathering honey dew.
 
While in the breeze
That wafts the thistle’s plumed seed along,
Blue bells wave tremulous.
  
The mountain thyme
Purples the hassock of the heaving mole,
And the short turf is gay with tormentil,
And bird’s foot trefoil, and the lesser tribes
Of hawkweed; spangling it with fringed stars. —
Near where a richer tract of cultur’d land
Slopes to the south; and burnished by the sun,
Bend in the gale of August, floods of corn;
The guardian of the flock, with watchful care,
Repels by voice and dog the encroaching sheep —
While his boy visits every wired trap
That scars the turf; and from the pit-falls takes
The timid migrants, who from distant wilds,
Warrens, and stone quarries, are destined thus
To lose their short existence.
 
But unsought
By Luxury yet, the Shepherd still protects
The social bird, who from his native haunts
Of willowy current, or the rushy pool,
Follows the fleecy croud, and flirts and skims,
In fellowship among them.

Where the knoll
More elevated takes the changeful winds,
The windmill rears its vanes; and thitherward
With his white load, the master travelling,
Scares the rooks rising slow on whispering wings,
While o’er his head, before the summer sun
Lights up the blue expanse, heard more than seen,
The lark sings matins; and above the clouds
Floating, embathes his spotted breast in dew.

Beneath the shadow of a gnarled thorn,
Bent by the sea blast, from a seat of turf
With fairy nosegays strewn, how wide the view!
Till in the distant north it melts away,
And mingles indiscriminate with clouds:
But if the eye could reach so far, the mart
Of England’s capital, its domes and spires
Might be perceived — Yet hence the distant range
Of Kentish hills, appear in purple haze;
And nearer, undulate the wooded heights,
And airy summits, that above the mole
Rise in green beauty; and the beacon’d ridge
Of Black-down shagg’d with heath, and swelling rude
Like a dark island from the vale; its brow
Catching the last rays of the evening sun
That gleam between the nearer park’s old oaks,
Then lighten up the river, and make prominent
The portal, and the ruin’d battlements
Of that dismantled fortress; rais’d what time
 
The Conqueror’s successors fiercely fought,
Tearing with civil feuds the desolate land.
But now a tiller of the soil dwells there,
And of the turret’s loop’d and rafter’d halls
Has made an humbler homestead — Where he sees,
Instead of armed foemen, herds that graze
Along his yellow meadows; or his flocks
At evening from the upland driv’n to fold —

In such a castellated mansion once
A stranger chose his home; and where hard by
In rude disorder fallen, and hid with brushwood
Lay fragments gray of towers and buttresses,
Among the ruins, often he would muse —
His rustic meal soon ended, he was wont
To wander forth, listening the evening sounds
Of rushing milldam, or the distant team,
Or night-jar, chasing fern-flies: the tir’d hind
Pass’d him at nightfall, wondering he should sit
On the hill top so late: they from the coast
Who sought bye paths with their clandestine load,
Saw with suspicious doubt, the lonely man
Cross on their way: but village maidens thought
His senses injur’d; and with pity say
That he, poor youth! must have been cross’d in love —
For often, stretch’d upon the mountain turf
With folded arms, and eyes intently fix’d
Where ancient elms and firs obscured a grange,
Some little space within the vale below,
They heard him, as complaining of his fate,
And to the murmuring wind, of cold neglect
And baffled hope he told. — The peasant girls
These plaintive sounds remember, and even now
Among them may be heard the stranger’s songs.

 
Were I a Shepherd on the hill
    
And ever as the mists withdrew
 
Could see the willows of the rill
 
Shading the footway to the mill
    
Where once I walk’d with you —

 
And as away Night’s shadows sail,
    
And sounds of birds and brooks arise,
 
Believe, that from the woody vale
 
I hear your voice upon the gale
    
In soothing melodies;

 
And viewing from the Alpine height,
    
The prospect dress’d in hues of air,
 
Could say, while transient colours bright
 
Touch’d the fair scene with dewy light,
    
’Tis, that
her
eyes are there!

 
I think, I could endure my lot
    
And linger on a few short years,
 
And then, by all but you forgot,
 
Sleep, where the turf that clothes the spot
    
May claim some pitying tears.

 
For ’tis not easy to forget
    
One, who thro’ life has lov’d you still,
 
And you, however late, might yet
 
With sighs to Memory giv’n, regret
    
The Shepherd of the Hill.

Yet otherwhile it seem’d as if young Hope
Her flattering pencil gave to Fancy’s hand,
And in his wanderings, rear’d to sooth his soul
Ideal bowers of pleasure — Then, of Solitude
And of his hermit life, still more enamour’d,
His home was in the forest; and wild fruits
And bread sustain’d him.
 
There in early spring
The Barkmen found him, e’er the sun arose;
There at their daily toil, the Wedgecutters
Beheld him thro’ the distant thicket move.
The shaggy dog following the truffle hunter,
Bark’d at the loiterer; and perchance at night
Belated villagers from fair or wake,
While the fresh night-wind let the moonbeams in
Between the swaying boughs, just saw him pass,
And then in silence, gliding like a ghost
He vanish’d! Lost among the deepening gloom. —
But near one ancient tree, whose wreathed roots
Form’d a rude couch, love-songs and scatter’d rhymes,
Unfinish’d sentences, or half erased,
And rhapsodies like this, were sometimes found —

 
Let us to woodland wilds repair
    
While yet the glittering night-dews seem
 
To wait the freshly-breathing air,
    
Precursive of the morning beam,
 
That rising with advancing day,
 
Scatters the silver drops away.