THE EARLY JULY FLOWERS. 
A pleasing land of drowsyhead it was, 
Of dreams that wave before the half-shut eye; 
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass, 
Forever flushing round a summer sky: 
There eke the soft delights that witchingly 
Instil a wanton sweetness through the breast; 
And the calm pleasures always hover’d nigh; 
But whate’er smack’d of noyance or unrest, 
Was far, far off expell’d from this delicious nest. 
— THomson — The Castle of Indolence. 
The Castle of Indolence lies in fairy Summer Land. 
The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, sees it set amid 
sleep-soothing groves and quiet lawns and flowery beds, 
and his keen ear listens to the prattle of the purling 
rills, to the lowing of the herds along the vale and to 
the flocks loud-bleating from the distant hills: and 
there rises to our minds as fair a picture of the poet’s 
dream as words can paint. Such pictures belong to 
summer only. Winter is too serious for such trifling. 
The stern realities of life are then too apparent, are not 
to be concealed. 
