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In many a local tale of harmless Of thought and texture, may assimi

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LOVE OF THE COUNTRY.

[Written at Clare Hall, Herts, June, 1804.] WELCOME, silence! welcome, peace! Oh, most welcome, holy shade! Thus I prove, as years increase,

My heart and soul for quiet made. Thus I fix my firm belief

While rapture's rushing tears descend,

That every flower and every leaf
Is moral Truth's unerring friend.

I would not for a world of gold
That Nature's lovely face should
tire;

Fountain of blessings yet untold: Pure source of intellectual fire! Fancy's fair buds, the germs of song, Unquickened midst the world's rude

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Build me a shrine, and I could kneel
To rural gods, or prostrate fall;
Did I not see, did I not feel,

That one GREAT SPIRIT governs all.
O Heaven, permit that I may lie

Where o'er my corse green branches

wave;

And those who from life's tumult fly With kindred feelings, press my grave.

GLEANER'S SONG.

DEAR Ellen, your tales are all plenteously stored
With the joys of some bride, and the wealth of her lord;
Of her chariots and dresses,

And worldly caresses,

And servants that fly when she's waited upon:
But what can she boast if she weds unbeloved?
Can she e'er feel the joy that one morning I proved,
When I put on my new gown and waited for John ?

These fields, my dear Ellen, I knew them of yore,
Yet to me they ne'er look'd so enchanting before;
The distant bells ringing,

The birds round us singing,

For pleasure is pure when affection is won:
They told me the troubles and cares of a wife;
But I loved him; and that was the pride of my life,
When I put on my new gown and waited for John."

He shouted and ran, as he leapt from the stile;
And what in my bosom was passing the while?
For love knows the blessing
Of ardent caressing,

When virtue inspires us, and doubts are all gone.
The sunshine of Fortune you say is divine;
True love and the sunshine of Nature were mine,
When I put on my new gown and waited for John.

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But then came autumn, when Thy dry and tattered leaves fell dead;

And sadly on the gale

Thou drop'dst them one by

one

Drop'dst them, with a low, sad wail,

On the cold, unfeeling stone. Next Winter seized thee in his iron grasp,

And shook thy bruised and straining form;

Or locked thee in his icicle's cold clasp,

And piled upon thy head the shorn cloud's snowy fleece. Wert thou not joyful, in this bitter storm,

That the green honors, which erst decked thy head,

Sage Autumn's slow decay, had mildly shed?

Else, with their weight, they'd given thy ills increase,

And dragged thee helpless from thy uptorn bed.

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