248 The Poets Beasts. 



Thomson's shepherd therefore "dwells with Peace," and 

 "the porch of his mossy cottage" is in Wordsworth 

 rendered more touchingly home-like by the corner-stones 

 on either side being 



"With dull red stains discoloured, and stuck o'er 

 With tufts and hairs of wool, 



As if the sheep that fed upon the common, thither came 

 Familiarly, and found a couching place 

 Even at the threshold." 



It follows therefore that any accidental association of 

 sheep with stirring scenes or sounds of the chase or battle 

 — as lambs "in friskful glee" that sport round "the mossy 

 mound, the rampart once of iron war " — should give the 

 poets a point of strong contrast. So (in Pitt) " the bleating 

 flocks that along the bastion pass, and from the awful ruins, 

 crop the grass," illustrates the peaceful meeting of generals 

 to sign a truce upon their recent battlefield. The utter- 

 ness of change is shown in Byron by sheep feeding on the 

 lost site of Ilion's outworks — " where I sought for Ilion's 

 walls, the quiet sheep feeds, and the tortoise crawls," and 

 so too in Leyden — 



" Green waves the harvest, and the peasant boy 

 Stalls his rough herds, within the towers of Troy ; 

 Prowls the sly fox, the jackal rears her brood, 

 Where once the towers of mighty Ilion stood." 



Though thus idealised as a genus, the various species are 

 all practically rendered. A poet's acquaintance with Nature 

 is not, as a rule, so extensive that he can afford to waste a 

 variety of sheep. The "small black-legged sheep" that, 

 " fleshless, lank, and lean," devour "the meagre herbage " 

 of the Cumbrian hills; the "goat-horned" animals "of 

 fleece hairy and coarse, of long and nimble shank," that 

 "browse their thinly-scattered meal o'er tlie bleak wilds " of 

 the Cambrian ; the Cotswold, " hills of milder air, that 



