4 88 The Natural History of Selborne 



By Fancy plann'd; as once th' inventive maid 

 Met the boar sage amid the secret shade ; 

 Romantic spot! from whence in prospect lies 

 Whatever of landscape charms our feasting eyes ; 

 The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture-plain, 

 The russet fallow, or the golden grain, 

 The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light, 

 Till all the fading picture fail the sight. 



Each to his task ; all different ways retire ; 

 Cull the dry stick; call forth the seeds of fire ; 

 Deep fix the kettle's props, a forky row, 

 Or give with fanning hat the breeze to blow. 



Whence is this taste, the furnish' d hall forgot, 

 To feast in gardens, or the unhandy grot ? 

 Or novelty with some new charms surprises. 

 Or from our very shifts some joy arises. 

 Hark, while below the village bells ring round, 

 Echo, sweet nymph, returns the soften'd sound; 

 But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar, 

 Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore. 

 Adown the vale, in lone, sequestered nook, 



Where skirting woods embrown the dimpling brook, 



The ruirfd Convent lies; here wont to dwell 



The lazy canon midst his cloistr'd cell ; * 



While papal darkness brooded o'er the land, 



Ere Reformation made her glorious stand: 



Still oft at eve belated shepherd-swains 



See the cowfd spectre skim the folded plains. 

 To the high Temple would my stranger go,j 



The mountain-brow commands the woods below ; 



In Jewry first this order found a name, 



When madding Croisades set the world in fiame ; 



When western climes, urg'd on by Pope and priest, 



Pour'd forth their millions o'er the deluged East : 



* The ruins of a priory, founded by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Winchester. 



t The remains of a preceptory of the Knights Templars ; at least it was a 

 farm dependant upon some preceptory of that order. I find it was a preceptor)', 

 called the Preceptory of Sudington ; now called Southington. 



