FROM yon dark-tufted hill yet clothed in shade,

Which, like a giant helm with its black plumes,

Frowns o’er the velvet seat of its repose,

We may behold, in many a shining bend,

The silver Trent, slow wandering on and on,

Till it is lost amid the far-off vales,

Still robed in fleecy shadows of dim purple.

*        *        *        *        *

Now gaze around you,—lo! what scenes of beauty

Spread their gay flood of transport on the eye,

And from the eye spring rapturous to the heart!

Cold, deadly cold, must be that dark-hued spirit

That burns not with delight at Nature’s charms,

With grace luxuriant fraught, and softest bliss,—

Thus decked with smiles of passionate tenderness,

As if appealing to his heart’s best love!

 

There is the village-church, serenely seated

Amidst its shadowy elms,—its lofty spire

Tapering majestic mid the azure skies.

Now doth a snowy cloud of gorgeous lustre

Throw its dark outline clearly on the eye;

And we may trace the starling’s wheeling flight

Round each small ventage of that slender steeple.

Near it, still shadowed in deep foliage,

A mingled grove of elms and limes and chestnuts,

The antique Priory Hall, with its gray chimneys,

Telling of other days, rears its broad pile,

Reflected in the sleeping lake below.

*        *        *        *        *

Seest thou beyond, amid that azure range

Of low-browed hills receding to the west,

The crumbling towers of ancient Tutbury,

Once the stern prison of the Scottish Queen!

Around, for many a mile, the forest-shades

Of royal Needwood spread their dusky pomp;

Now, like that hoary ruin, stript and bare,

Yet smiling with their majesty of yore,

As in contempt of Time’s oppressive hate!

 

Nor miss those nearer towers, of kindred grace,

Soft-rising o’er yon green hill’s wooded crest;

Reared by a hand that grouped, with skilful aim,

The frowning shadows of the feudal past

With the gay sunbeams of more modern art:

Fair, pastoral Newton,—Trent’s embosomed pride!

Abode of hospitality and worth!

Still shall the hours of unreturning mirth

Oft shared, of old, amid thy festive bowers,

Live, brightly registered on Memory’s page!

Now gaze upon those cottage roofs below,

From whose embowered chimneys the blue smoke

Slowly up-curls: the day is now begun;

The cock’s shrill clarion hath at length aroused

Man to his varied task of customed labor.

It is a scene of soft,SOFT uplands, that in boyhood’s earliest days

Seemed mountain-like and distant, fain once more

Would I behold you! but the autumn hoar

Hath veiled your pensive groves in evening haze;

Yet must I wait till on my searching gaze

Your outline lives,—more dear than if ye wore

An April sunset’s consecrating rays,—

For even thus the images of yore

Which ye awaken glide from misty years

Dream-like and solemn, and but half unfold

Their tale of glorious hopes, religious fears,

And visionary schemes of giant mould;

Whose dimmest trace the world-worn heart reveres,

And, with love’s grasping weakness, strives to hold.

 

II.

ON HEARING THE SHOUTS OF THE PEOPLE AT THE READING ELECTION, IN THE SUMMER OF 1826, AT A DISTANCE

 

HARK! from the distant town the long acclaim

On the charmed silence of the evening breaks

With startling interruption; yet it wakes

Thought of that voice of never-dying fame

Which on my boyish meditation came

Here, at an hour like this;—my soul partakes

A moment’s gloom, that yon fierce contest slakes

Its thirst of high emprise and glorious aim:

Yet wherefore? Feelings that from Heaven are shed

Into these tenements of flesh ally

Themselves to earthly passions, lest, unfed

By warmth of human sympathies, they die;

And shall—earth’s fondest aspirations dead—

Fulfil their first and noblest prophecy.

 

III.

VIEW OF THE VALLEY OF READING, FROM TILEHURST, AT THE CLOSE OF THE SAME ELECTION

 

TOO long have I regarded thee, fair vale,

But as a scene of struggle which denies

All pensive joy; and now with childhood’s eyes

In old tranquillity, I bid thee hail;

And welcome to my soul thy own sweet gale,

Which wakes from loveliest woods the melodies

Of long-lost fancy. Never may there fail

Within thy circlet spirits born to rise

In honor,—whether won by Freedom rude

In her old Spartan majesty, or wrought

With partial, yet no base regard, to brood

O’er usages by time with sweetness fraught;

Be thou their glory-tinted solitude,

The cradle and the home of generous thought! sequestered beauty;

Gently our eye descends a sunny slope

Of brightest verdure, bounded by rich meads

Through which a silvery trout-stream rippling winds;

The hedge-rows garnished with tall, spreading elms,

Whose dark and massive foliage well contrasts

With the light poplars ranged along the brook.

Lo! many an antique gable courts the eye,

O’erspread with vines; and many a cloistered nook

Of sweetest shade. No habitation there

But hath its well-stored orchard, or fair croft,

Descending, in its quiet solitude,

To the clear rill that murmurs at its feet.

The hill beyond, which crowns this fairy vision,

Is one wide range of sylvan loveliness,—

Groves, orchards, mingling in confused delight!