IN the pleasant orchard closes, "God bless all our gains," say we; But "May God bless all our losses," Better suits with our degree. Listen, gentle-ay, and simple! Listen, children on the knee! II. Green the land is, where my daily Summer-snow of apple-blossoms, running up from glade to glade. Sideway from the tree-locked valley, to the airy upland crest. IV. Small the wood is, green with hazels, And, completing the ascent, Where the wind blows and sun dazzles, Thrills in leafy tremblement ; Like a heart that, after climbing, beateth quickly through con tent V. Not a step the wood advances There, in green arrest, the branches See their image on the ground: You may walk beneath them smiling, glad with sight and glad with sound. VI. For you hearken on your right hand, In the greenwood, out of sight and Out of reach and fear of all; And the squirrels crack the filberts, through their cheerful madrigal. VII. On your left, the sheep are cropping And five apple-trees stand, dropping Over which, in choral silence, the hills look you their "All hail!" VIII. Far out, kindled by each other, Close as brother leans to brother, When they press beneath the eyes Of some father praying blessings from the gifts of paradise. IX. While beyond, above them mounted, Malvern hills, for mountains counted Keepers of Piers Plowman's visions, through the sunshine and Yet, in childhood, little prized I 'Twas a straight walk, unadvised by The least mischief worth a nay— Up and down—as dull as grammar on the eve of holiday. XI. But the wood, all close and clenching At your head than at your foot, Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute. XII. Few and broken paths showed through it, Where the sheep had tried to run,— Forced with snowy wool to strew it Round the thickets, when anon They, with silly thorn-pricked noses, bleated back into the sun. *The Malvern Hills of Worcestershire are the scene of Langlande's visions, and thus present the earliest classic ground of English poetry. XIII. But my childish heart beat stronger Sheep for sheep-paths! braver children climb and creep where they would go. XIV. And the poets wander, said I, Over places all as rude! Bold Rinaldo's lovely lady Sate to meet him in a wood Rosalinda, like a fountain, laughed out pure with solitude. XV. And if Chaucer had not travelle Through a forest by a well, He had never dreamt nor marvelled At those ladies fair and fell Who lived smiling without loving, in their island-citadel. XVI. Thus I thought of the old singers, Tore asunder gyve and thong Of the lichens which entrapped me, and the barrier branches strong. XVII. On a day, such pastime keeping, With a fawn's heart debonair, Under-crawling, overleaping Thorns that prick and boughs that bear, I stood suddenly astonished-I was gladdened unaware. XVIII. From the place I stood in, floated And the open ground was coated Carpet-smooth with grass and moss, And the blue-bell's purple presence signed it worthily across. XIX. Here a linden-tree stood, brightening For, as some trees draw the lightning, So this tree, unto my mind, Drew to earth the blessed sunshine, from the sky where it was shrined. XX. Tall the linden-tree, and near it Hovered dimly round the two, Shaping thence that Bower of beauty, which I sing of thus to you. XXI. 'Twas a bower for garden fitter, Struck it through, from side to side, Shaped and shaven was the freshness, as by garden-cunning plied. XXII. Oh, a lady might have come there, Hooded fairly like her hawk, With a book or lute in summer, And a hope of sweeter talk, Listening less to her own music, than for footsteps on the walk. XXIII. But that bower appeared a marvel With such seeming art and travail, Finely fixed and fitted was Leaf to leaf, the dark-green ivy, to the summit from the base. XXIV. And the ivy, veined and glossy, And the large-leaved columbine, Arch of door and window mullion did right sylvanly entwine. |