Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/287

 THE ASS ABET BROOK AND RIVER 2//

And the near cataract all night long Lulls the ear with murmuring song.

��Most beauteous, when the uprisen sun Begins at morn his race to run, And, levelling his arrowy beam, Pierces the pines with fitful gleam. Where, towering up the steep ascent, Their tall tops sweep the firmament. But soon the rays spill softly o'er, And stream along the opposing shore, Scattering in air the misty wreath That broods upon the lake beneath. On whose fair bosom night and day Both at once their charms display. Gleaming half like molten gold. Shrouded half in shadows cold ; While the broad hill, so darkly brown, Dips in the wave its pine-capped crown, And dives full many a fathom down.

Such, at least in days of yore.

Was the look the landscape wore ;

Such a look it wears no more.

Long ago the hands of men

Lopped the elms, laid waste the glen.

Swept the forest from the hill.

Closed the sluiceway, shut the mill.

All its beauties are defaced ;

Now the scene 's a naked waste.

Sweet Acton vales and woods, farewell !

No more the autumn breeze shall swell

Through your green boughs ; no sign appears

Of all I loved in earlier years,

Save where even yet the maples sigh

�� �