IV. TAKE, cradled Nursling of the mountain, take A Protean change seems wrought while I pursue The curves, a loosely-scattered chain doth make; Thridding with sinuous lapse the rushes, through And laughing dares the Adventurer, who hath clomb Else let the Dastard backward wend, and roam, Seeking less bold achievement, where he will ! V. SOLE listener, Duddon! to the breeze that played And thou hast also tempted here to rise, 'Mid sheltering pines, this Cottage rude and grey; Whose ruddy children, by the mother's eyes Carelessly watched, sport through the summer day, VI. FLOWERS. ERE yet our course was graced with social trees And caught the fragrance which the sundry flowers, There bloomed the strawberry of the wilderness; Invited, forth they peeped so fair to view, All kinds alike seemed favourites of Heaven. VII. "CHANGE me, some God, into that breathing rose !" The darts of song from out its wiry cage; Enraptured, could he for himself engage The thousandth part of what the Nymph bestows, And what the little careless Innocent Ungraciously receives. Too daring choice! There are whose calmer mind it would content To be an unculled floweret of the glen, Fearless of plough and scythe; or darkling wren, That tunes on Duddon's banks her slender voice. VIII. WHAT aspect bore the Man who roved or fled, What hopes came with him? what designs were spread What dreams encompassed? Was the intruder nursed That thinned the living and disturbed the dead? Of ignorance thou might'st witness heretofore, To soothe and cleanse, not madden and pollute! |