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THIS LIME-TREE BOWER 



ELL, they are gone, and here must I remain. 

 This hme-tree bower my prison ! I have lost 

 Beauties and feelings, such as would have been 

 Most sweet to my remembrance even when age 

 Had dimmed my eyes to blindness ! They, mean- 

 while, 

 Friends, whom I never more may meet again, 

 On springy heath, along the hill-top edge. 

 Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance, 

 To that still roaring dell, of which I told ; 

 The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep. 

 And only speckled by the mid-day sun ; 

 WTiere its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock 

 Flings arching like a bridge ; — that branchless ash, 

 Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves 

 Ne'er tremble to the gale, yet tremble still, 

 Fanned by the waterfall ! and there my friends 

 Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds. 

 That all at once (a most fantastic sight !) 

 Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge 

 Of the blue clay-stone. 



Now, my friends emerge 

 Beneath the wide wide heaven — and view again 

 The many-steepled tract magnificent 

 Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea. 

 With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up 

 The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two isles 

 Of purple shadow ! Yes ! they wander on 

 In gladness all ; but thou, methinks, most glad. 

 My gentle-hearted Charles ! for thou hast pined 

 And hungered after Nature, many a year, 

 In the great city pent, winning thy way 



