 | The British Months |  |
Now too, the garden's little pride,
Wont with clear stream and calm to glide,
And bathe the trees' o'er-arching roots,
And paint the flowers, mature the fruits;
The brook, that babbling crept along,
Scarce heard amid the blackbird's song,
By night's, by day's, swift torrents swell'd,
With still augmenting force propell'd,
Down the slope fall impetuous pours
His restless waves, and foams, and roars.
Whate'er of late obstruction kept
His course aback, before it swept,
Or leafy heap, or transverse bough,
Is gone; as forth it passes now
In one diffuse unbroken stream,
Which swelling meets the margin's brim.
Till, to a little river grown,
It scorns its wonted banks to own;
And, more and more uplifted, spreads
Its waters o'er the subject meads:—
Where evening saw the cattle graze,
Disclosing to the morrow's gaze,
What may to stranger eyes appear,
No meadow, but a fish-fraught mere.
While, o'er the necks of severing land,
The flood the fish-fraught meres expand;
And gathering, unrestrained and free,
Form thro' the vale a midland sea.
Wont with clear stream and calm to glide,
455
And paint the flowers, mature the fruits;
The brook, that babbling crept along,
Scarce heard amid the blackbird's song,
By night's, by day's, swift torrents swell'd,
With still augmenting force propell'd,
Down the slope fall impetuous pours
His restless waves, and foams, and roars.
Whate'er of late obstruction kept
His course aback, before it swept,
Or leafy heap, or transverse bough,
Is gone; as forth it passes now
In one diffuse unbroken stream,
Which swelling meets the margin's brim.
Till, to a little river grown,
It scorns its wonted banks to own;
And, more and more uplifted, spreads
Its waters o'er the subject meads:—
Where evening saw the cattle graze,
Disclosing to the morrow's gaze,
What may to stranger eyes appear,
No meadow, but a fish-fraught mere.
While, o'er the necks of severing land,
The flood the fish-fraught meres expand;
And gathering, unrestrained and free,
Form thro' the vale a midland sea.
Thus, if the venturous Muse may dare
Small things with greatest to compare,
Above the “outstanding earth ” of old
Were her collected waters roll'd,
Join'd with the waters from the sky;
And into flood transformed “the dry.”
But what is great, and what is small,
To Him who made and governs all?
Alike to Him, a cloke to spread
Of water o'er the pastur'd mead;
Or ope “heaven's floodgates ,” and set free
O'er the broad earth the boundless sea.
He bids the clouds their stores expand,
And metes the waters in his hand !
Small things with greatest to compare,
Above the “outstanding earth ” of old
Were her collected waters roll'd,
456
And into flood transformed “the dry.”
But what is great, and what is small,
To Him who made and governs all?
Alike to Him, a cloke to spread
Of water o'er the pastur'd mead;
Or ope “heaven's floodgates ,” and set free
O'er the broad earth the boundless sea.
He bids the clouds their stores expand,
And metes the waters in his hand !
| The British Months | |