 | Flotsam and Jetsam |  |
3
HOUGOUMONT.
I
The air is sweet and bright and hot,And loaded fruit-trees lean around;
Their black unmoving shadows spot
The twinkling grass, the sunny ground;
No sound of mirth or toil to wrong
The orchard's hush at Hougoumont!
II
And silver daisies simply deckWith meek bright eyes that orchard-plot;
And therein lurks, an azure speck,
The tiny starred Forget-me-not—
Fond type of hearts that love and long
In lonely faith, at Hougoumont.
4
III
At every step the beetles run,Where none pursue, in vain concealed;
Each mailed coat glistens in the sun,
Where none attack, an idle shield!
And ants unheeded scour and throng
The velvet sward at Hougoumont.
IV
The headlong humble-bee aloneAssaults the old and crumbling wall;
His busy bugle faintly blown,
With many a silent interval;
Unchecked he tries each nook along
The moss-grown wall at Hougoumont.
V
Aloft the moaning pigeons coo,One gurgling note unvaried still;
The faltering chimes of Braine-le-Heu'
The meads with hollow murmurs fill;
And skylarks shower out all day long
Swift-hurrying bliss o'er Hougoumont.
5
VI
With transport lulled in dreamy eyes,June woos you to voluptuous ease;
At every turn Love smiling sighs;
Dear Nature does her best to please!
How sweet some loved one's loving song,
Couched in green shade at . . . Hougoumont!
VII
—Oh God! what are we? Do we thenForm part of this material scene?
Can thirty thousand thinking men
Fall—and but leave the fields more green?
'Tis strange—but Hope, be stanch and strong!
It seems so at sweet Hougoumont.
1837.
| Flotsam and Jetsam | |