The Task and Other Poems | Page 4

all their leaves fast fluttering, all at once.?Nor less composure waits upon the roar?Of distant floods, or on the softer voice?Of neighbouring fountain, or of rills that slip?Through the cleft rock, and, chiming as they fall?Upon loose pebbles, lose themselves at length?In matted grass, that with a livelier green?Betrays the secret of their silent course.?Nature inanimate employs sweet sounds,?But animated Nature sweeter still?To soothe and satisfy the human ear.?Ten thousand warblers cheer the day, and one?The livelong night: nor these alone whose notes?Nice-fingered art must emulate in vain,?But cawing rooks, and kites that swim sublime?In still repeated circles, screaming loud,?The jay, the pie, and even the boding owl?That hails the rising moon, have charms for me.?Sounds inharmonious in themselves and harsh,?Yet heard in scenes where peace for ever reigns,?And only there, please highly for their sake.
Peace to the artist, whose ingenious thought?Devised the weather-house, that useful toy!?Fearless of humid air and gathering rains?Forth steps the man--an emblem of myself!?More delicate his timorous mate retires.?When Winter soaks the fields, and female feet,?Too weak to struggle with tenacious clay,?Or ford the rivulets, are best at home,?The task of new discoveries falls on me.?At such a season and with such a charge?Once went I forth, and found, till then unknown,?A cottage, whither oft we since repair:?'Tis perched upon the green hill-top, but close?Environed with a ring of branching elms?That overhang the thatch, itself unseen?Peeps at the vale below; so thick beset?With foliage of such dark redundant growth,?I called the low-roofed lodge the PEASANT'S NEST.?And hidden as it is, and far remote?From such unpleasing sounds as haunt the ear?In village or in town, the bay of curs?Incessant, clinking hammers, grinding wheels,?And infants clamorous whether pleased or pained,?Oft have I wished the peaceful covert mine.?Here, I have said, at least I should possess?The poet's treasure, silence, and indulge?The dreams of fancy, tranquil and secure.?Vain thought! the dweller in that still retreat?Dearly obtains the refuge it affords.?Its elevated site forbids the wretch?To drink sweet waters of the crystal well;?He dips his bowl into the weedy ditch,?And heavy-laden brings his beverage home,?Far-fetched and little worth: nor seldom waits?Dependent on the baker's punctual call,?To hear his creaking panniers at the door,?Angry and sad and his last crust consumed.?So farewell envy of the PEASANT'S NEST.?If solitude make scant the means of life,?Society for me! Thou seeming sweet,?Be still a pleasing object in my view,?My visit still, but never mine abode.
Not distant far, a length of colonnade?Invites us; monument of ancient taste,?Now scorned, but worthy of a better fate.?Our fathers knew the value of a screen?From sultry suns, and, in their shaded walks?And long-protracted bowers, enjoyed at noon?The gloom and coolness of declining day.?We bear our shades about us; self-deprived?Of other screen, the thin umbrella spread,?And range an Indian waste without a tree.?Thanks to Benevolus--he spares me yet?These chestnuts ranged in corresponding lines,?And, though himself so polished, still reprieves?The obsolete prolixity of shade.
Descending now (but cautious, lest too fast)?A sudden steep, upon a rustic bridge?We pass a gulf, in which the willows dip?Their pendent boughs, stooping as if to drink.?Hence ankle-deep in moss and flowery thyme?We mount again, and feel at every step?Our foot half sunk in hillocks green and soft,?Raised by the mole, the miner of the soil.?He, not unlike the great ones of mankind,?Disfigures earth, and plotting in the dark?Toils much to earn a monumental pile,?That may record the mischiefs he has done.
The summit gained, behold the proud alcove?That crowns it! yet not all its pride secures?The grand retreat from injuries impressed?By rural carvers, who with knives deface?The panels, leaving an obscure rude name?In characters uncouth, and spelt amiss.?So strong the zeal to immortalise himself?Beats in the breast of man, that even a few?Few transient years, won from the abyss abhorred?Of blank oblivion, seem a glorious prize,?And even to a clown. Now roves the eye,?And posted on this speculative height?Exults in its command. The sheepfold here?Pours out its fleecy tenants o'er the glebe.?At first, progressive as a stream, they seek?The middle field; but scattered by degrees,?Each to his choice, soon whiten all the land.?There, from the sunburnt hay-field homeward creeps?The loaded wain; while, lightened of its charge,?The wain that meets it passes swiftly by,?The boorish driver leaning o'er his team,?Vociferous, and impatient of delay.?Nor less attractive is the woodland scene?Diversified with trees of every growth,?Alike yet various. Here the gray smooth trunks?Of ash, or lime, or beech, distinctly shine,?Within the twilight of their distant shades;?There, lost behind a rising ground, the wood?Seems sunk, and shortened to its topmost boughs.?No tree in all the grove but has its charms,?Though each its hue peculiar; paler some,?And of a wannish gray; the willow such,?And poplar that with silver lines his leaf,?And ash far-stretching his umbrageous arm;?Of deeper green the elm; and deeper still,?Lord of the woods, the long-surviving oak.?Some glossy-leaved and