Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems including a Reprint of Echoes from Theocritus: By Wilfred Austin Gill: With a Critical Estimate of the Sonnets by the late John Addington Symonds |
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 | Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems |  |
98
VII
A RUSTIC BRIDGE, I
Blest be the kindly heart of him who spanned
This sylvan streamlet with a bridge,—to me
Most grateful, and to all burnt souls who flee
For shelter from the torrid pasture-land.
Upon the slender plank I pause and stand,
Leaning hot arms upon the slender rail.
The foxglove-bloom I lately plucked looks frail
And like to wither in my feverish hand.
But here is sweet salvation,—rest and shade,
Awning of branches, every branch a bower,
And water for the sun-struck body's wound.
See! ferns and hemlock, and a shingle frayed
From pebbly banks, where the spread stream has power
To lave wood-flowers that droop with imminent swound.
| Edward Cracroft Lefroy: His Life and Poems | |