Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: AN ENGLISH IDYLL. Once I remember, in a far-off June, Leaving the studious cloister of my youth, Beside the young Thames’ stream I laid me down, Wearied, upon a bank. ‘Twas midsummer; The warm earth teemed with flowers; the kingcup’s gold, The perfumed clover, 'mid the crested grass, The plantains rearing high their flowery crowns Above the daisied coverts; overhead, The hawthorns, white and rosy, bent with bloom, The broad-spread chestnuts spiked with frequent flowers, And white gold-hearted lilies on the stream; All these made joy within my heart, and woke The fair idyllic phantasies of Greece; And dreaming, well content with the rich charm Of summer England, long I idly mused:
And were the deep-set vales of Thessaly Or fair Olympian beech-groves more than this ? Or the Sicilian meads more rich in flowers, Where the lost goddess plucked the asphodel ? Or flowed the clear stream through a lovelier shade Where Dian bathed and rapt Actseon saw ? Or were they purer depths where Hylas played Till the nymphs drew him down ? Ah, fairer dreams Than our poor England holds ! Grave, toil-worn land ! Poor aged mother of a graceless brood, With shambling gait and limbs by labour bent! What should she know of such ?
When straight I heard A ripple of boyish mirth, and looking saw Far off along the meads a gliding boat Float noiselessly; lithe forms at either end? The self-same forms which Phidias fixed of old? With tall poles, pressed it forward, others lay Reclined, and all had crowned their short smooth hair With lilies from the stream, while one had shaped Some hollow reed in semblance of a pipe, Making a shrill faint sound?a joyous crew, Clothed with the grace of innocent nakedness. Then, while th…