Page:The Romance of Nature; or, The Flower-Seasons Illustrated.djvu/351

217 A NOVEMBER STROLL.

' in late Autumn, that I rambled lone

Along a country path—nay, 'twas a road—

A common turnpike road;—that thing so far

From landscape loveliness, as Poets deem;

Yet I could find that myriad beauties lay

E'en in that beaten track:—beauties to me,

Though hundreds daily passed along, to whom

The things I gloried in were all unknown,

Unseen—unloved; and, doubtless, I must seem

A strange, odd, uncouth being unto them—

Because I sought delightful lore in books

Whose language they knew not; while foreign tongues,

And fashion's erudition, they would strive,

Ambitious, to acquire. Had they e'er read

One page of Nature, with the love devout

Which some are blessed withal, they would not think

That mind distraught, which could delight itself

In contemplation of the smallest weed,

Pebble—leaf—insect—which the lap of earth

Holds in exhaustless wealth. Envy they might

In their small spirits suffer to arise,

Could they conceive the pleasures, high, refined,