University of Virginia Library


88

II.

I felt the sweet sense of the spring-time steal
Throughout me, renovating every nerve;
I marked the distant river's every curve
And the far echo of a church-bell's peal,
As we were making our sequestered meal,
With appetites the forest airs did serve:
Upon a neighbouring bark with cunning swerve
A creeper climbed and twisted, wheel on wheel.
The silence and the pleasure of the place
Pervaded us—we could not but be sure
That here was manifest the perfect grace
Of Beauty, and her bosom soft and pure,
And the exceeding grandeur of her face:
The eyeless smoke-fed city ceased to allure.
 

The bird (Certhia familiaris)—not the plant.