242 The Poets Beasts. 



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Her smiles, sweet-beaming, on her shepherd-king, 

 While the glad circle round them yield their souls 

 To festive mirth and wit that knows no gall." 



Thomson's description of the scene, " while, ever and 

 anon, to his shorn peers a ram goes bleating " (Keats), is 

 excellent — 



** In one diffusive band 

 They drive the troubled flocks, by many a dog 

 Compelled, to where the mazy, running brook 

 Forms a deep pool : this bank, abrupt and high, 

 And that fair-spreading in a pebbled shore, 

 Urged to the giddy brink, much is the toil. 

 The clamour much of men and boys and dogs, 

 Ere the soft, fearful people to the flood 

 Commit their woolly sides. And oft the swain, 

 On some impatient seizing, hurls them in : 

 Emboldened then, nor hesitating more. 

 Fast, fast, they plunge amid the flashing wave. 

 And, panting, labour to the farthest shore. 

 Repeated this, till deep the well-washed fleece 

 Has drunk the flood, and frorti his lively haunt 

 The trout is banished by the sordid stream; 

 Heavy and dripping, to the breezy brow 

 Slow move the harmless race ; where, as they spread 

 Their swelling treasures to the sunny ray, 

 Inly disturbed, and wondering what this wild 

 Outrageous tumult means, their loud complaints 

 The country fill ; and, tost from rock to rock. 

 Incessant bleatings run around the hills. 

 At last, of snowy white, the gathered flocks 

 Are in the wattled pen innumerous pressed, 

 Head above head : and, ranged in lusty rows. 

 The shepherds sit, and whet the sounding shears." 



Then stormy Autumn comes with its "huddling" flocks, 

 and 



"The sheep before the pinching he.iven 

 To sheltered dale and down are driven 

 Where yet some faded herbage pines. 

 And yet a watery sunbeam shines. 



