The Old Squire The beagles at my horse-heels trot There's Ruby, Roger, Diamond, Dot, A score of names well used, and dear, The horn with which I rouse their cheer, I like the hunting of the hare I covet not a wider range Than these dear manors give; I leave my neighbors to their thought; On my own lands to find my sport, The hare herself no better loves I know my quarries every one, The meuse where she sits low; The road she chose to-day was run A hundred years ago. The lags, the gills, the forest ways, 1593 Nor has the world a better thing, Though one should search it round, Than thus to live one's own sole king, Upon one's own sole ground. I like the hunting of the hare; To these, as homeward still I ply I like the hunting of the hare; Wilfred Scawen Blunt [1840– INSCRIPTION IN A HERMITAGE Within my limits, lone and still, The Retirement At morn I take my customed round, At eve, within yon studious nook, Of martyrs, crowned with heavenly meed; Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn, While such pure joys my bliss create, 1595 Thomas Warton [1728-1790] THE RETIREMENT FAREWELL, thou busy world, and may We never meet again; Here I can eat and sleep and pray, Than he who his whole age outwears Upon the most conspicuous theaters, Good God! how sweet are all things here! How cleanly do we feed and lie! Lord! what good hours do we keep! How quietly we sleep! What peace, what unanimity! How innocent from the lewd fashion Is all our business, all our recreation! O, how happy here's our leisure! By turns to come and visit ye! Dear solitude, the soul's best friend, That man acquainted with himself dost make, With thee I here converse at will, And would be glad to do so still, For it is thou alone that keep'st the soul awake. How calm and quiet a delight Is it, alone, To read and meditate and write, By none offended, and offending none! To walk, ride, sit, or sleep at one's own ease; O my beloved nymph, fair Dove, Princess of rivers, how I love Upon thy flowery banks to lie, And view thy silver stream, When gilded by a Summer's beam! Playing at liberty, And, with my angle, upon them The all of treachery I ever learned industriously to try! Such streams Rome's yellow Tiber cannot show, The Iberian Tagus, or Ligurian Po; The Retirement The Maese, the Danube, and the Rhine, Are puddle-water, all, compared with thine; The rapid Garonne and the winding Seine Beloved Dove, with thee To vie priority; Nay, Tame and Isis, when conjoined, submit, O my beloved rocks, that rise To awe the earth and brave the skies! Giddy with pleasure to look down; 1597 And from the vales to view the noble heights above; O my beloved caves! from dog-star's heat, And all anxieties, my safe retreat; What safety, privacy, what true delight, In the artificial light Your gloomy entrails make, Have I taken, do I take! How oft, when grief has made me fly, To hide me from society E'en of my dearest friends, have I, In your recesses' friendly shade, All my sorrows open laid, And my most secret woes intrusted to your privacy! Lord! would men let me alone, What an over-happy one Should I think myself to be Might I in this desert place, (Which most men in discourse disgrace) Live but undisturbed and free! Here, in this despised recess, Would I, maugre Winter's cold, And the Summer's worst excess, Try to live out to sixty full years old; |