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

 Thro' Ken, swift rolling down his rocky dale, 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 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. 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 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, 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; 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 Across irriguous dales and hollow'd rocks. Far easier pains may swell our gentler floods, And thro' the centre of the isle conduct