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FAME.
87
unsuited to its author's own practical, if passionate mind. To "The Lost Bower," interspersed as it is with personal allusions, reference has already been made. It is replete with passages of the purest poesy, and leaves an impression upon the reader's mind of mingled melody and pathos—childish simplicity and womanly wisdom—time will vainly try to efface. The following lines from "The Lost Bower" will, like petals picked from a lovely blossom, suggest how beauteous the complete bloom may be:—
Green the land is where my daily
Steps in jocund childhood played—
Dimpled close with hill and valley,
Dappled very close with shade;
Summer-snow of apple-blossoms, running up from glade to glade
Steps in jocund childhood played—
Dimpled close with hill and valley,
Dappled very close with shade;
Summer-snow of apple-blossoms, running up from glade to glade
There is one hill I see nearer,
In my vision of the rest;
And a little wood seems clearer,
As it climbeth from the west,
Sideway from the tree-locked valley, to the airy upland crest.
In my vision of the rest;
And a little wood seems clearer,
As it climbeth from the west,
Sideway from the tree-locked valley, to the airy upland crest.
Small the wood is, green with hazels,
And, completing the ascent,
Where the wind blows and sun dazzles
Thrills in leafy tremblement:
Like a heart that, after climbing, beateth quickly though content. . . .
And, completing the ascent,
Where the wind blows and sun dazzles
Thrills in leafy tremblement:
Like a heart that, after climbing, beateth quickly though content. . . .
Yet in childhood little prized I
That fair walk and far survey:
'Twas a straight walk, unadvised by
The least mischief worth a nay—
Up and down—as dull as grammar on an eve of holiday!
That fair walk and far survey:
'Twas a straight walk, unadvised by
The least mischief worth a nay—
Up and down—as dull as grammar on an eve of holiday!
But the wood, all close and clenching
Bough in bough and root in root,—
No more sky (for over-branching)
At your head than at your foot,—
Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute. . . .
Bough in bough and root in root,—
No more sky (for over-branching)
At your head than at your foot,—
Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute. . . .
