Читать книгу Poems - William Anderson - Страница 15

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The orchard's plenteous store,

The apple-boughs o'erburdened with their load,

That passers-by may gather from the road,

Hang now the near walls o'er:

And filberts, bursting fair,

Seduce the loiterer to reach the hand,

And pluck the offered treasures of the land,

With wood-nuts that are there.

The still hill-sides are clad

With bloom; the distant moorland now is bright

With blossom, and with beauty; the rich sight

The heart of man makes glad.

The hamlet is at peace;

And, in the ripened fields, the reapers ply

Their useful labour; while a golden sky

Smiles on the soil's increase.

To the romantic spring,

That gushes lone beneath the neighbouring hill,

The cottage maidens go, their jars to fill,

While carols rude they sing!

Sweet is the cuckoo's song

In early Spring, and musical and blessed

The nightingale—young Summer's lutenist—

Pours its gay notes-along;

And, in the thunder's roar,

In Autumn, when the sudden lightnings flash,

Sweet sings the missel-thrush amid the crash,

The bursting tempest o'er!

As solitary tree,

That, pilgrim-like, scathless, amid the shock

Of rudest storms, that burst the sterner rock,

Stands in its grandeur free.

But sweeter than them all,

And softer than the voice of love returned,

Are the untutored lays of lips sunburned,

From village maids that fall!

To schoolboys' feelings dear

Is rich-toned Autumn. Oh! with what a zest

They plunge in stream retired—despoil a nest—

Or ramble far and near.

How oft, when changeful Time

Has sprinkled o'er our locks its silver threads,

Remembrance brings to mind—and gladness sheds—

The pastimes of our prime!

The lowing of the kine,

In distant meadow-glades, comes on the ear,

With taste of nature fresh, like far-off cheer

Of rustics, as they join

The merry dance at eve;

Each rural sound has in it joy and health:

Man now should garner thought, as well as wealth,

And gladly truth receive.

The calm and picturesque;

The foliaged cedar, and the wreathëd beech,

More glowing thoughts and impulses can teach

Than Learning from his desk!