Poems and Extracts/And now, perch'd proudly on the topmost spray
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And now, perch'd proudly on the topmost spray,
The sooty blackbird chaunts his vespers shrill;
While twilight spreads his robe of sober grey,
And to their bowers the rooks loud cawing wing their way;
And bright behind the Cambrian mountains hoar
Flames the red beam; while on the distant east.
Led by her star, the horned moon looks o'er
The bending forest, and with rays increast
Ascends; while trembling on the dappled west
The purple radience shifts and dies away;10
The willows with a deeper green imprest
Nod o'er the brooks; the brooks with gleamy ray
Glide on, and holy Peace assumes her woodland sway.
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Sooth'd by the murmurs of a plaintive stream,
A wild romantic dell its fragrance shed;
Safe from the thunder shower and scorching beam
Their faery charms the summer bowers display'd;
Wild by the banks the bashful cowslips spread,
And from the rocks above each ivied seat,19
The spotted foxgloves hung the purple head,
And lowly violets kiss'd the wanderer's feet;
Sure never Hybla's bees rov'd through a wild so sweet.
As winds the streamlet serpentine along,
So leads a solemn walk its bowery way,
The pale-leaved palms and darker limes among.
To where a grotto lone and secret lay;
The yellow broom, where chirp the linnets gay.
Waves round the cave; and to the blue-streaked skies
A shattered rock towers up in fragments grey:
The she-goat from its height the landscape eyes.
And calls her wanderd young, the call each bank replies.31