In the pleasant orchard-closes,
'God bless all our gains,' say we;

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
Steps in jocund childhood played,
Dimpled close with hill and valley,
Dappled very close with shade;

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,
How the birds do leap and call

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
The slant grass and daisies pale,
And five apple-trees stand dropping
Separate shadows toward the vale

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
That fair walk and far survey;

'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.