The Favourite Village

Place of my birth, O, fondly let me sing
Thy pleasures multifarious, pass the sun
Through what fair sign it will. Around a pool
In a deep vale assemble thy warm huts,
All overhung by intermingling elms,
Save where the steep-ascending street (if street
May yon loose chain of tenements be deemed)
Girds the contiguous hill, roof above roof,
And terminates above in farmer's close
Or sawyer's pit with frequent boards beset.
Hard by, o'ertopping fair the nether elms,
But little showing of the verdant hill
That underprops his columns, stands the church.
A cheerful look athwart the vale he casts,
Smiles at the distant ocean, half eclipsed
Behind yon sudden intervening down,
And blesses the proud eminence, whose steep,
For ever flock-fed, shelters his loved elms
Scattered wherever in the vale below.