Page:The Poems of John Dyer (1903).djvu/54

 For cumbent sheep; from broken slumber oft They rise benumb'd, and vainly shift the couch; Their wasted sides their evil plight declare: Hence, tender in his care, the shepherd swain Seeks each contrivance. Here it would avail At a meet distance from the sheltr'ing mound To sink a trench, and on the hedge-long bank Sow frequent sand, with lime, and dark manure, Which to the liquid element will yield A porous way, a passage to the foe. Plough not such pastures; deep in spongy grass The oldest carpet is the warmest lair, And soundest: in new herbage coughs are heard. Nor love too frequent shelter, such as decks The vale of Severn, Nature's garden wide, By the blue steeps, of distant Malvern wall'd, Solemnly vast. The trees of various shade, Scene behind scene, with fair delusive pomp Enrich the prospect, but they rob the lawns. Nor prickly brambles, white with woolly theft, Should tuft thy fields. Applaud not the remiss Dimetians, who along their mossy dales Consume, like grasshoppers, the summer hour, While round them stubborn thorns and furze increase, And creeping briars. I knew a careful swain Who gave them to the crackling flames, and spread Their dust saline upon the deepening grass; And oft with labour-strengthen'd arm he delv'd The draining trench across his verdant slopes, To intercept the small meandring rills Of upper hamlets. Haughty trees, that sour The shaded grass, that weaken thorn-set mounds, And harbour villain crows, he rare allow'd; Only a slender tuft of useful ash, And mingled beech and elm, securely tall,