VII.

On your left, the sheep are cropping
The slant grass and daisies pale,
And five apple-trees stand dropping
Separate shadows toward the vale

Over which, in choral silence, the hills look you their 'All hail!'

VIII.

Far out, kindled by each other,

Shining hills on hills arise,

Close as brother leans to brother

When they press beneath the eyes

Of some father praying blessings from the gifts of

paradise.

IX.

While beyond, above them mounted,

And above their woods alsò,

Malvern hills, for mountains counted

Not unduly, loom a-row—

Keepers of Piers Plowman's visions through the sunshine and the snow.*

*

X.

Yet, in childhood, little prized I
That fair walk and far survey;

'Twas a straight walk unadvised by

The Malvern Hills of Worcestershire are the scene of Langlande's visions, and thus present the earliest classic ground of English poetry.

The least mischief worth a nay;

Up and down-as dull as grammar on the eve of holiday.

XI.

But the wood, all close and clenching
Bough in bough and root in root,-
No more sky (for over-branching)
your head than at your foot,—

At

Oh, the wood drew me within it by a glamour past

dispute !

XII.

Few and broken paths showed through it,
Where the sheep had tried to run,—

Forced with snowy wool to strew it

Round the thickets, when anon

They, with silly thorn-pricked noses, bleated back into

But

the sun.

XIII.

my childish heart beat stronger Than those thickets dared to grow:

I could pierce them! I could longer

Travel on, methought, than so:

Sheep for sheep-paths! braver children climb and creep where they would go.

XIV.

And the poets wander, said I,

Over places all as rude:

Bold Rinaldo's lovely lady

Sate to meet him in a wood:

Rosalinda, like a fountain, laughed out pure with solitude.

XV.

And if Chaucer had not travelled

Through a forest by a well,

He had never dreamt nor marvelled

At those ladies fair and fell

Who lived smiling without loving in their island-citadel.

XVI.

Thus I thought of the old singers
And took courage from their song,
Till my little struggling fingers
Tore asunder gyve and thong

Of the brambles which entrapped me, and the barrier branches strong.

XVII.

On a day, such pastime keeping,

With a fawn's heart debonair,

Under-crawling, overleaping

Thorns that prick and boughs that bear, I stood suddenly astonied-I was gladdened unaware.

XVIII.

From the place I stood in, floated

Back the covert dim and close,

And the open ground was coated

Carpet-smooth with grass and moss,

And the blue-bell's purple presence signed it worthily

across.

XIX.

Here a linden-tree stood, brightning

All adown its silver rind;

For as some trees draw the lightning,

So this tree, unto my mind,

Drew to earth the blessed sunshine from the sky where

it was shrined.

XX.

Tall the linden-tree, and near it
An old hawthorn also grew;

And wood-ivy like a spirit

Hovered dimly round the two,

Shaping thence that bower of beauty which I sing of

thus to you.

XXI.

'Twas a bower for garden fitter
Than for any woodland wide:
Though a fresh and dewy glitter

Struck it through from side to side,

Shaped and shaven was the freshness, as by gardencunning plied.

XXII.

Oh, a lady might have come there,
Hooded fairly like her hawk,

With a book or lute in summer,

And a hope of sweeter talk,

Listening less to her own music than for footsteps on the walk!

XXIII.

But that bower appeared a marvel

In the wildness of the place;

With such seeming art and travail,

Finely fixed and fitted was

Leaf to leaf, the dark-green ivy, to the summit from the base.

XXIV.

And the ivy veined and glossy
Was enwrought with eglantine;

And the wild hop fibred closely,

And the large-leaved columbine,

Arch of door and window-mullion, did right sylvanly entwine.

XXV.

Rose-trees either side the door were

Growing lithe and growing tall,

Each one set a summer warder

For the keeping of the hall,

With a red rose and a white rose, leaning, nodding at the wall.