NEW LETTERS. XV 



Now climb the steep, drop now your eye below, 

 Where round the verdurous village orchards blow ; 

 There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat 

 A rural, shelter'd, unobserv'd retreat. 



Me, far above the rest, Selbornian scenes, 

 The pendent forest, and the mountain-greens, 

 Strike with delight : . . . there spreads the distant view 

 That gradual fades, 'til sunk in misty blue : 

 Here Nature hangs her slopy woods to sight, 

 Rills purl between, and dart a wavy light. 



When deep'ning shades obscure the face of day, 

 To yonder bench leaf-shelter'd let us stray, 

 To hear the drowzy dor come brushing by 

 With buzzing wing ; or the field-cricket cry ; 

 To see the feeding bat glance thro' the wood ; 

 Or catch the distant falling of the flood : 

 While high in air, and poised upon his M'ings 

 Unseen, the soft enamour'd wood-lark sings : (7) 

 These, Nature's works, the curious mind employ, 

 Inspire a soothing, melancholy joy : 

 As fancy warms a pleasing kind of pain 

 Steals o'er the cheek, and thrills the creeping vein ! 



Each rural sight, each sound, each smell combine ; 

 The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine ; 

 The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze ; 

 Or cottage-chimney smoking thro' the trees. 



The chilling night-dews fall : . . . . away, retire, 

 What time the glow-worm lights her amorous fire. (S) 



Selborne: Nov : 3: 1774. 



DEAR SAM, 



When I sat down to write to you in verse, my whole 

 design was to shew you at once how easy a thing it might be 

 with a little care for a Nephew to excell his Uncle in the 



*(/.) In hot summer nights woodlarks soar to a prodigious height, and han<; 

 singing in the air. 



(8.) The light of the glow-worm is a signal to her paramour, a, slender 

 dusky scarab. 



