University of Virginia Library

Here, then, I'm set down in a building grotesque:
But the scenery around is not unpicturesque.
Of Helford you often have heard—in my parish—
I assure you the niceness of Helford is rarish.
All along on the harbour, the cottages rise
To pleasure the poet's contemplative eyes!
The fronts cherry-clad, and the roofs are so trim,
That, when the full tide hath flow'd up to the brim
Of the circular bason, we see quite a picture,
Which holds at defiance all critical stricture.
And, within, every board is so white, and each shelf
So glitters with pewter, or glimmers with delf,
The floors so well-sanded, the chimneys so neat,
That I envy the villager such a retreat!
On the steep-curving hill that hangs over the houses,
An orchard here waves, and a heifer there browzes!
Here a plough, as across the crag-furrows it bends,
Perpendicular over a chimney impends!
When, scaling the height, in the road to the church,
We at once leave the low-buried cots in the lurch;
Glance o'er an oak-wood, where the shrill-piercing cry
Of the hawk often blends with the scream of the pie;
And the labour of climbing the mountain-path, close,
Out of breath, with the neat-looking farm of Halvoze,
Whose owners are quickly expected (folks tell us)
To spend here a part of the summer, from Hellas.
Hence appear little fields of hay, fallow, or corn,
That pollards of beech and bald oaklings adorn;
And yellow furze gilding the extensive horizon,
Fine food for an ass as you ever cast eyes on!
If the country round you (as a writer avows)
So full of rich meads, be fit only for cows;
Since we beat you in furze, as you beat us in grasses,
Our country, I'm sure, is fit only for asses!
And yet, looking back, we observe from this height,
The harbour, like silver, invested with light;
And, darting our eyes from the boat-shadow'd tide
To the coppice that crouds, on the opposite side,
O'er the edge of the water, are pleas'd with each creek
That varies the shore with a beautiful break.

Nor should we the walk to the Dinas despise,
Whence clustering hop-gardens solicit our eyes;
And the smoke that ascends from the hamlet beneath,
To curl thro' the clift in a light-azure wreath;
And the hills far away, spotted over with sheep,
And now, in full prospect, the surge of the deep!
Meantime, from the glebe (which produces some pence—
Full thirty good acres within a ring-fence)
From the glebe, I would say, if we gaze all around,
We, doubtless, may view much diversified ground:
But chief are we charm'd, if the valley we mark
That stretches away from beneath Coney-park;
Here waving, so rich, a broad sycamore shade;
There, opening at once in a golden-cup'd glade;
Here catching attention, beside a dun hill,
By a flash from the stream of an upper-shot mill;
There leading the sight to a covert so privy,
Thro' a long lane of elms hung with tremulous ivy;
Here deepening, at distance, a thicket of holly
Into gloom, to attract thy lone steps, Melancholy!
And there, far retir'd, to a slanting sunbeam
Disclosing, by sits, the dim source of its stream.

And yet, my dear doctor, enclos'd by a wall,
From the vicarage-house we see nothing at all:
A part of the valley, indeed, so bewitching,
We barely discern from the vicarage-kitchen.

Here, here was I dropt—tho' but ill at my ease
When I felt 'twas amid a cotillion of fleas!
Such a hop tho' I never had witness'd before,
Yet I voted the dance “an incredible bore.”
But how a flea-ball could be held in my parlour,
I could not divine, till I question'd a carle, here,
Who said 'twas by pigeon-appointment, he heard—
For the pigeons so mightily lov'd Mr. Peard,
That, in bed or at board, to amuse the good man, sirs,
They brought him a flock of these sweet little dancers.