XXV.
FROM COUNTRY TO TOWN.
Written in Leeds, July, 1832.
I left the land where men with Nature dwelling,
Know not how much they love her lovely forms—
Nor heed the history of forgotten storms,
On the blank folds inscribed of drear Helvellyn;
I sought the town, where toiling, buying, selling—
Getting and spending, poising hope and fear,
Make but one season of the live-long year—
Now for the brook from moss-girt fountain welling,
I see the foul stream hot with sleepless trade;
For the slow creeping vapours of the morn,
Black hurrying smoke, in opake mass up-borne,
O'er dinning engines hangs, a stifling shade—
Yet Nature lives e'en here, and will not part
From her best home, the lowly-loving heart.
