ΙΟ How often have I paused on every charm, Along the glades, a solitary guest, The hollow sounding bittern guards its nest; Amidst thy desert walks the lapwing flies, 45 The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. the shade Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall; And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, Far, far away thy children leave the land. Il fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, 51 Thy glades forlorn confess the tyrant's power. Here, as I take my solitary rounds Amidst thy tangling walks and ruined grounds, And, many a year elapsed, return to view Where once the cottage stood, the hawthorn grew, 80 Remembrance wakes with all her busy train, Swells at my breast, and turns the past to pain. In all my wanderings round this world of care, In all my griefs and God has given my share I still had hopes, my latest hours to crown, Amidst these humble bowers to lay me Around my fire an evening group to draw, And tell of all I felt, and all I saw; And, as an hare whom hounds and horns pursue Pants to the place from whence at first she flew, I still had hopes, my long vexations past, 95 Here to return-and die at home at last. O blest retirement, friend to life's decline, Retreats from care, that never must be mine, How happy he who crowns in shades like She, wretched matron, forced in age, for these bread, To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread, To pick her wintry faggot from the thorn, To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn; She only left of all the harmless train, 135 The sad historian of the pensive plain. Near yonder copse, where once the garden smiled, And still where many a garden flower grows wild; |