160 SYLVAN SKETCHES. 



Among the roots 



Of hazel, pendent o'er the plaintive streams, 

 They frame the first foundation of their domes : 

 Dry sprigs of trees, in artful fabric laid, 

 And bound with clay together." 



Spring. 



Gay, in his Rural Sports, among which, however, he has 

 not included the pleasant one of nutting, slightly men- 

 tions the Hazel (as it is generally pictured by the poets), 

 as growing by the margin of a brook : 



" O lead me, guard me, from the sultry hours, 

 Hide me, ye forests, in your closest bowers, 

 Where the tall oak his spreading arms entwines, 

 And with the beech a mutual shade combines ; 

 Where flows the murmuring brook, inviting dreams : 

 Where bordering hazel overhangs the streams, 

 Whose rolling current, winding round and round, 

 With frequent falls makes all the woods resound." 



Thomson gives a pretty picture on this subject : 



" Ye swains, now hasten to the hazel bank, 



Where down yon dale, the wildly winding brook 



Falls hoarse from steep to steep. In close array, 



Fit for the thickets and the tangling shrub, 



Ye virgins come. For you their latest song 



The woodlands raise : the clustering nuts for you 



The lover finds amid the secret shade ; 



And where they burnish on the topmost bough, 



With active vigour crushes down the tree, 



Or shakes them ripe from the resigning husk, 



A glossy shower, and of an ardent brown 



As are the ringlets of Melinda's hair." 



Autumn. 



Wordsworth speaks with great delight of the pleasures 

 of nutting : 



