In the pleasant orchard-closes, But May God bless all our losses,' Better suits with our degree. Listen, gentle-ay, and simple! listen, children on the knee! II. Green the land is where my daily Summer-snow of apple-blossoms running up from glade VOL. III. to glade. B III. There is one hill I see nearer In my vision of the rest; And a little wood seems clearer As it climbeth from the west, Sideway from the tree-locked valley, to the airy upland crest. IV. Small the wood is. green with hazels, And, completing the ascent, Where the wind blows and sun dazzles Thrills in ieaty tremblement, Like a heart that after climbing beateth quickly through content. Not a step the wood advances O'er the open hill-top's bound; There, in green arrest, the branches See their image on the ground: You may walk beneath them smiling, glad with sight and glad with sound. VI. For you harken on your right hand, In the greenwood, out of sight and Out of reach and fear of all; And the squirrels crack the filberts through their cheerful madrigal. VII. On your left, the sheep are cropping Over which, in choral silence, the hills look you their Far out, kindled by each other, Shining hills on hills arise, Close as brother leans to brother When they press beneath the eyes Of some father praying blessings from the gifts of paradise. IX. While beyond, above them mounted, And above their woods alsò, Malvern hills, for mountains counted Not unduly, loom a-row Keepers of Piers Plowman's visions through the sun shine and the snow.* * X. Yet, in childhood, little prized I 'Twas a straight walk unadvised by The Malvern Hills of Worcestershire are the scene of Langlande's visions, and thus present the earliest classic ground of English poetry. |