The poplars are fell’d,
farewell to the shade |
And the whispering sound
of the cool colonnade, |
The winds play no
longer, and sing in the leaves, |
Nor Ouse on his bosom
their image receives.
|
Twelve years have
elaps’d since I last took a view |
Of my favourite field
and the bank where they grew, |
And now in the grass
behold they are laid, |
And the tree is my seat
that once lent me a shade.
|
The blackbird has fled
to another retreat |
Where the hazels afford
him a screen from the heat, |
And the scene where his
melody charm’d me before, |
Resounds with his
sweet-flowing ditty no more.
|
My fugitive years are
all hasting away, |
And I must ere long lie
as lowly as they, |
With a turf on my
breast, and a stone at my head, |
Ere another such grove
shall arise in its stead.
|
Tis a sight to engage
me, if any thing can, |
To muse on the perishing
pleasures of man ; |
Though his life be a
dream, his enjoyments, I see, |
Have a being less
durable even than he.
|
William
Cowper |
Classic Poems |
|
[ The Castaway ] [ Epitaph on a Hare ] [ Light shining out of darkness ] [ The Poplar-Field ] |