Then he admires thee in the plain, O God! The worm-the budding branch. Where coolness gushes in the waving grass, Or o'er the flowers, streams, and fountains rests; The gentle airs of eve. His straw deck'd thatch, where doves bask in the sun, And play and hop, incites to sweeter rest Than golden halls of state Or beds of down afford. To him the plumy-people sporting chirp, Pick crumbs, or peas, or grains. Oft wanders he alone, and thinks on death; The stone beneath the elders, where a text Of Scripture teaches joyfully to die— And with his scythe stands Death- Happy the man who thus hath 'scaped the town! The cradle of the boy With flowers celestial strew'd. Hoity. Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main, For splendid care and guilty gain! When morning's twilight-tinctured beam To dip the scythe in fragrant dew; 'Midst gloomy glades, in warbles clear, In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds, For them the moon with cloudless ray The meadows incense breathe at eve. No riot mars the simple fare, That o'er a glimmering hearth they share : But when the curfew's measured roar Duly, the darkening valleys o'er, Their little sons, who spread the bloom Or through the primrosed coppice stray, Or drive afield the tardy kine; Or hasten from the sultry hill, Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest, Their humble porch with honey'd flowers Warton. A RURAL SCENE. HROUGH a beech wood the path— A wild rude copse road-winds beneath the light And feathery stems of the young trees, so fresh In their new delicate green, and so contrast ing, With their slim flexile forms, that almost seem To bend as the wind passes, with the firm Deep-rooted vigour of those older trees Is pleasant, with its beds of richest moss, So silver white; wood-sorrel elegant, Or light anemone. A pleasant path Is that, and such a sense of freshness round us, Of cool and lovely light, the very air Has the hue of the young leaves; downward the road Seems toss'd across the path; all suddenly Is crown'd with answering woods; a narrow valley Of nature and of man. The circling woods |