GLADESMUIR.
195
And makes sweet music to the morning; while
All day the stock-dove's melancholy notes
Wail plaintively—the only sounds beside
The hum of the wild bees around some trunk
Of an old moss-clad oak, in which is reared
Their honey palace. Where the forest ends,
Stretched a wide brown heath, till the blue sky
Becomes its boundary; there the only growth
Are straggling thickets of the white-flowered thorn
And yellow furze: beyond are the grass-fields,
And of yet fresher verdure the young wheat;—
These border round the village. The bright river
Bounds like an arrow by, buoyant as youth
Rejoicing in its strength. On the left side,
Half hidden by the aged trees that time
Has spared as honouring their sanctity,
O 2
