Page:Passions 2.pdf/124

I would not for the weirgelt of a Thane
That noble creature barter.

Eth. I do not mean to tempt thee with the sum.
See'st thou where Ethwald, like a cottage cur
On dunghill stretch'd, half sleeping half awake,
Doth bask his lazy carcase in the sun?
Ho! lagger there! (to Ethw. who just raises his head and lays it down again. Eth. going up close to him.)
When slowly from the plains and nether woods
With all their winding streams and hamlets brown,
Updrawn the morning vapour lifts its veil,
And thro' its fleecy folds with soften'd rays,
Like a still'd infant smiling in his tears,
Looks thro' the early sun; whilst from afar
The gleaming lake betrays its wide expanse,
And, lightly curling on the dewy air,
The cottage smoke doth wind its path to heaven:
When larks sing shrill, and village cocks do crow,
And lows the heifer loosen'd from her stall:
When heaven's soft breath plays on the woodman's brow,
And ev'ry hair-bell and wild tangled flower
Smells sweetly from its cage of checker'd dew:
Ay, and when huntsmen wind the merry horn,
And from its covert starts the fearful prey;
Who, warm'd with youth's blood in his swelling veins,
Would, like a lifeless clod outstretched lie,
Shut up from all the fair creation offers?
(Eth. yawns and heeds him not.) He heeds me not.