Page:Old Castles.djvu/9



AREL! O canny Carel of the past, How sweetly flow the streams that bound thee round: The Eden fair, upon whose waves are cast Thy oft repeated chimes–a pleasant sound To the worn wanderer on its rock-bound sides; And, east and west, its affluents, whose soft tides, Flow where they will, are still with beauty crowned. And every beck and little streamlet found, Or far or near thy fell-bound precincts round, Has something more, a something quite apart From every other streamlet, the great heart Of Nature, in her freest fairest moods, Throbs in their flow, and fills their solitudes. Beauteous for ever! Time on them has laid No trace of age or change; they brightly fall As glide the seasons, either swift or staid. As when the Roman cohorts fierce and tall First made these valleys ring with Latian sounds. And everywhere about them still abounds Their virgin Beauty, by the years unspoiled. Art’s modern wonder, which no more astounds, (Showing the heights to which the world has toiled,)