Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/108

Thro' Ken, swift rolling down his rocky dale, 570
Like giddy youth impetuous, then at Wick
Curbing his train, and with the sober pace
Of cautious eld meand'ring to the deep ;
Thro' Dart and sullen Exe, whose murm'ring wave
Envies the Dune and Rother, who have won 575
The serge and kersie to their blanching streams ;
Thro' Towy, winding under Merlin's tow'rs,
And Usk that, frequent among hoary rocks,
On her deep waters paints th' impending scene,
Wild torrents, crags, and woods, and mountain snows. 580
The northern Cambrians, an industrious tribe,
Carry their labours on pigmean steeds,
Of size exceeding not Leicestrian sheep,
Yet strong and sprightly : over hill and dale
They travel unfatigu'd, and lay their bales 585
In Salop's streets, beneath whose lofty walls
Pearly Sabrina waits them with her barks,
And spreads the swelling sheet. For nowhere far
From some transparent river's naval course
Arise and fall our various hills and vales, 590
No where far distant from the masted wharf.
We need not vex the strong laborious hand
With toil enormous, as th' Egyptian king,
Who joined the sable waters of the Nile
From Memphis' towers to th' Erythraean gulf; 595
Or as the monarch of enfeebled Gaul,
Whose will imperious forc'd an hundred streams
Thro' many a forest, many a spacious wild,
To stretch their scanty trains from sea to sea,
That some unprofitable skiff might float 600
Across irriguous dales and hollow'd rocks.
Far easier pains may swell our gentler floods,
And thro' the centre of the isle conduct