Page:Poems Barrett.djvu/227

      While beyond, above them mounted,
      And above their woods also,
      Malvern Hills, for mountains counted
      Not unduly, loom a-row—
Keepers of Piers Plowman's visions, through the sunshine and the snow.^[1]

      Yet in childhood little prized I
      That fair walk and far survey:
      'Twas a straight walk, unadvised by
      The least mischief worth a nay—
Up and down—as dull as grammar on an eve of holiday!

      But the wood, all close and clenching
      Bough in bough and root in root,—
      No more sky (for over-branching)
      At your head than at your foot,—
Oh, the wood drew me within it, by a glamour past dispute.

      Few and broken paths showed through it,
      Where the sheep had tried to run,—
      Forced, with snowy wool to strew it
      Round the thickets, when anon
They with silly thorn-pricked noses, bleated back into the sun.

      But my childish heart beat stronger
      Than those thickets dared to grow:
      I could pierce them! I could longer
      Travel on, methought, than so!
Sheep for sheep-paths 1 braver children climb and creep where they would go.

      And the poets wander, said I,
      Over places all as rude!
      Bold Rinaldo's lovely lady
      Sate to meet him in a wood—
Rosalinda, like a fountain, laughed out pure with solitude.

1. The Malvern Hills of Worcestershire are the scene of Langlande's visions; and thus present the earliest classic ground of English poetry.