 | Wood-notes and Church-bells |  |
276
ON TRAVELLING BY RAIL TO CAMBRIDGE,
THROUGH LINCOLNSHIRE, TENNYSON'S COUNTRY.
A level and monotonous expanseOf barren moorland meets the outward eye,
Taking no beauty from the sun's bright glance,
And all the Autumn glories of the sky.
But yet that student-traveller's heart beats high,
Absorbed he sits as in a blissful trance,
And while the dreary landscape hurries by.
Gazes as on some scene of Old Romance.
A circling radiance hovers o'er the place,
To seeing eyes, that gave a poet birth,
And woke his being to Divine emotion:
Thine, Laureate, is the rare transfiguring grace
Which lifts these plains to classic heights of earth,
Where pilgrims of all time pay heart-devotion!
| Wood-notes and Church-bells | |