Page:White - The natural history of Selborne, and the naturalist's calendar, 1879.djvu/486

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Bard, who sang so late in blithest strain Selbornian prospects, and the rural reign, Now suits his plaintive pipe to sadden'd tone, While the blank swains the changeful year bemoan.
 * How fallen the glories of these fading scenes!

The dusky beech resigns his vernal greens, The yellow maple mourns in sickly hue, And russet woodlands crowd the dark'ning view.
 * Dim, clustering fogs involve the country round,

The valley and the blended mountain-ground Sink in confusion; but with tempest-wing Should Boreas from his northern barrier spring, The rushing woods with deafening clamour roar, Like the sea tumbling on the pebbly shore. When spouting rains descend in torrent tides, See the torn Zigzag weep its channel'd sides: Winter exerts its rage; heavy and slow, From the keen east rolls on the treasured snow; Sunk with its weight the bending boughs are seen, And one bright deluge whelms the works of men. Amidst this savage landscape, bleak and bare, Hangs the chill hermitage in middle air; Its haunts forsaken, and its feasts forgot, A leaf-strown, lonely, desolated cot!
 * Is this the scene that late with rapture rang,

Where Delphy danced, and gentle Anna sang; With fairy-step where Harriet tripped so late, And on her stump reclined the musing Kitty sate?
 * Return, dear Nymphs; prevent the purple spring,

Ere the soft nightingale essays to sing;