Page:Aurora Leigh a Poem.djvu/31

22 Which stopped the grounds and dammed the overflow Of arbutus and laurel. Out of sight The lane was; sunk so deep, no foreign tramp Nor drover of wild ponies out of Wales Could guess if lady’s hall or tenant’s lodge Dispensed such odours,—though his stick well-crook’d Might reach the lowest trail of blossoming briar Which dipped upon the wall. Behind the elms, And through their tops, you saw the folded hills Striped up and down with hedges, (burley oaks Projecting from the lines to show themselves) Through which my cousin Romney’s chimneys smoked As still as when a silent mouth in frost Breathes—showing where the woodlands hid Leigh Hall; While far above, a jut of table-land, A promontory without water, stretched,— You could not catch it if the days were thick, Or took it for a cloud; but, otherwise The vigorous sun would catch it up at eve And use it for an anvil till he had filled The shelves of heaven with burning thunderbolts, And proved he need not rest so early:—then, When all his setting trouble was resolved To a trance of passive glory, you might see In apparition on the golden sky (Alas, my Giotto’s background!) the sheep run Along the fine clear outline, small as mice That run along a witch’s scarlet thread.

Not a grand nature. Not my chestnut-woods