Birket Foster's pictures of English landscape . of its unrest In visions of cool-shadowing willow, That with its fresh green boughs doth look In the mirror of the brook, Where it broadens to a bay, Letting the currents go their way, And lying dark and glassy-still As a pool above a mill, Save when stirred by red-webbed oar Of sultan drake who puts from shore, And proud his painted harem leads To their seraglio in the reeds ; Or when at eve the weary team With loosened traces seek the stream, And, eager their parched throats to cool, Drive widening circles oer the pool. Above the sleepers head
Birket Foster's pictures of English landscape . of its unrest In visions of cool-shadowing willow, That with its fresh green boughs doth look In the mirror of the brook, Where it broadens to a bay, Letting the currents go their way, And lying dark and glassy-still As a pool above a mill, Save when stirred by red-webbed oar Of sultan drake who puts from shore, And proud his painted harem leads To their seraglio in the reeds ; Or when at eve the weary team With loosened traces seek the stream, And, eager their parched throats to cool, Drive widening circles oer the pool. Above the sleepers head the punkah swings, The dreamer sees the waving of the willows ; Outside, the jackal yelps, the cicale rings, The dreamer hears the brooklets tiny billows Over the gravelled shallows playing, The sedge and rush and burdock swaying, And tinkling in the shiny pebbles— Ah me, dream fancies ! kindly rebels, Gainst waking facts, that from above Come down, of lifes dead weights relieving, Why are you so quickly wove, Or so quick in the unweaving ?. 13 XIV. COWS IN THE POOL. Might I choose, with iEsops bent, Aptest type of self-content, It should be a herd of cows, Who when heat forbids to browze, And when midges sting and tease, In dry shadow of the trees, Seek a still and sheltered pool, Rush-begirt, and dark and cool, And in knee-deep bath sedate, Flick off flies and ruminate On the fever and the fret Of silly sheep whose hearts are set On pasture in the suns hot glare, Or on the fooli;?h nights in air Of the swallows flashing by, Now to stream and now to sky. Do-nothing philosophers, Whom nor midge stings, nor gad-fly sti Who in serene contempt look down On toilers in the worlds fierce day, Or on the flighty spirits frown, That spend in fancys flash and play The hours you ruminate away In tepid water and soft clay. i 14 XV. THE MARKET-CART. Our farms six miles from market-town,— Three miles of high-banked lane,And three across as steep a down As eer set team a Id not
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