IN GREAT BRITAIN. 255 



The sweetest visions of our boyish years 

 Come to our spirits with a murmuring tone 

 Of running waters, and one stream appears, 

 Remember' d all, tree, willow, bank, and stone ; 

 How glad were we, when after sunny showers 

 Its voice came to us issuing from the school I 

 How fled the vacant, solitary hours, 

 By dancing rivulet, or silent pool ! 

 And still our souls retain in manhood's prime 

 The love of joys our childish years that blest ; 

 So now encircled by these hills sublime, 

 We Anglers, wandering with a tranquil breast, 

 Build in this happy vale a fairy bower of rest ! 



Within that bower are strewn in careless guise, 

 Idle one day, the angler's simple gear ; 

 Lines that, as fine as floating gossamer, 

 Dropt softly on the stream the silken flies ; 

 The limber rod that shook its trembling length, 

 Almost as airy as the line it threw, 

 Yet often bending in an arch of strength 

 When the tired salmon rose at last to view, 

 Now lightly leans across the rushy bed, 

 On which at night we dream of sports by day ; 

 And, empty now, beside it close is laid 

 The goodly pannier framed of osiers gray ; 

 And, maple bowl in which we 're wont to bring 

 The limpid water from the morning wave, 

 Or from some mossy and sequester' d spring 

 To which dark rocks a grateful coolness gave, 

 Such as might Hermit use in solitary cave ! 



