The Poets Herds. 289 



weather and fine, hot and cold, present us with just as 

 different aspects of the herds as the seasons. In the 

 morning 



'•' The cattle are grazing, 

 Their heads never raising, 

 There are forty feeding like one " ( Wordsworth) ; 



and there is 



" A balm, 

 Of palpable and breathing calm. 

 By song of birds confessed. 

 And gentle kine that graze and move, 

 Spotting the misty pastures o'er." — Faber. 



The sun rises higher over "green valleys musical with 

 lowing kine " — the " lowing vales," as several poets auda- 

 ciously called them^ — and with "the heifer's wandering 

 bell." And then noon. If it be summer — 



* ' A various group the herds and flocks compose — 

 Rural confusion ! On the grassy bank 

 Some ruminating lie ; while others stand 

 Half in the flood, and, often bending, sip 

 The circling surface. In the middle droops 

 The strong laborious ox, of honest front. 

 Which incomposed he shakes ; and from his sides 

 The troublous insects lashes with his tail. 

 Returning stilL Amid his subjects safe, 

 Slumbers the monarch swain ; his careless arm 

 Thrown round his head, on downy moss sustained ; 

 Here laid his scrip, with wholesome viands filled ; 

 There, listening every noise, his watchful dog. " 



If winter, there is Cowper's picture — 



" The very kine that gambol at high noon, 

 The total herd receiving first from one 

 That leads the dance, a summons to be gay, 



^ Tennyson says the ox fills "the horned valleys" with his lowing., e 

 Is this an analogous instance of the transfer of epithet ? 



