EXTRACT FROM THE CONCLUSION OF A POEM, COMPOSED UPON LEAVING SCHOOL. EAR native regions, I foretell, That, wherefoc'er my fteps fhall tend, And whenfoe'er my courfe fhall end, If in that hour a fingle tie My foul will caft the backward view, Thus, when the fun, prepared for reft, Though his departing radiance fail A lingering light he fondly throws B Winandermere. AN EVENING WALK. AR from my dearest Friend, 'tis mine to rove cove; His wizard courfe where hoary Derwent takes, Thro' crags and foreft glooms and opening lakes, Staying his filent waves, to hear the roar That stuns the tremulous cliffs of high Lodore; Where peace to Grafmere's lonely island leads, To willowy hedge-rows, and to emerald meads: Leads to her bridge, rude church, and cottaged grounds, Her rocky fheepwalks, and her woodland bounds; Where, bofom'd deep, the shy Winander peeps 'Mid clustering ifles, and holly-fprinkled steeps: Where twilight glens endear my Efthwaite's fhore, And memory of departed pleasures more. WINANDERMERE. Fair fcenes, erewhile, I taught, a happy child, The echoes of your rocks my carols wild: Then did no ebb of cheerfulness demand Sad tides of joy from melancholy's hand, In youth's wild eye the livelong day was bright, Alike, when first the vales the bittern fills Or the first woodcocks roamed the moonlight hills. In thoughtless gaiety I courfed the plain, At times, while young Content forfook her feat, Depicted in the dial's moral round; But why, ungrateful, dwell on idle pain? To show her yet fome joys to me remain, Say, will my Friend, with soft affection's car, The history of a poet's evening hear? AN EVENING WALK. When, in the fouth, the wan noon, brooding ftill, green; And round the humming elm, a glimmering scene, Then, as I wandered where the huddling rill Inverted fhrubs, and mofs of darkest green, Cling from the rocks, with pale wood-weeds between; Save that aloft the fubtile funbeams fhine On withered briars that o'er the crags recline; Illumines with sparkling foam the twilight shade; 5 |