Cowper by Goldwin Smith

Author:Goldwin Smith [Smith, Goldwin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2004-06-29T04:00:00+00:00

The low Berkshire hills wrapt in clouds on a sunny day; a sable desert in the neighbourhood of Windsor; fruitful fields arising in it, and crowned with tufted trees and springing corn—evidently Pope saw all this, not on an eminence, in the ruffling wind, but in his study with his back to the window, and the Georgics or a translation of them before him.

Here again is a little picture of rural life from the Winter Morning

Walk.

The cattle mourn in corners, where the fence

Screens them, and seem half-petrified to sleep

In unrecumbent sadness. There they wait

Their wonted fodder; not like hungering man,

Fretful if unsupplied; but silent, meek,

And patient of the slow-paced swain's delay.

He from the stack carves out the accustomed load

Deep-plunging, and again deep-plunging oft,

His broad keen knife into the solid mass:

Smooth as a wall the upright remnant stands,

With such undeviating and even force

He severs it away: no needless care,

Lest storms should overset the leaning pile

Deciduous, or its own unbalanced weight.

Forth goes the woodman, leaving unconcern'd

The cheerful haunts of man; to wield the axe

And drive the wedge in yonder forest drear,

from, morn to eve, his solitary task.

Shaggy, and lean, and shrewd, with pointed ears

And tail cropp'd short, half lurcher and half cur,

His dog attends him. Close behind his heel

Now creeps he slow; and now, with many a frisk

Wide-scampering, snatches up the drifted snow

With ivory teeth, or ploughs it with his snout;

Then shakes his powder'd coat, and barks for joy.

Heedless of all his pranks, the sturdy churl

Moves right toward the mark; nor stops for aught

But now and then with pressure of his thumb

To adjust the fragrant charge of a short tube,

That fumes beneath his nose: the trailing cloud

Streams far behind him, scenting all the air.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.