8‘2 
I know a nook just meet for Dryad’s bower, 
So pleasant’t is and leafy; not a (lower 
That loves the shade is wanting, not a tree, 
From the light birch that springs so airily, 
To the wide-spreading beech and giant oak, 
Whose massy shade no sunbeam ever broke. 
But chiefly there the alder, darkly green, 
In such fix’d attitude doth fondly lean 
O’er the clear brook, as’t would not lose one tone 
Of its sweet parley as it murmur’d on ; 
And then, what time the soft winds gently stirr’d 
Its darkling leaves, it too would breathe some word 
Of answering kindness. Ah ! in by-gone hours, 
When Fancy, proud to try her new-born powers, 
From all she heard or saw stole some sweet thought, 
Oft has that tree some theme for musing brought. 
If harsh of mood, too hardly would she deem 
’T was in self-homage bending o’er the stream, 
Like Beauty o’er her mirror, pleased to find 
Its image in that glassy stream enshrined. 
Anon, repenting of a thought so rude, 
’T would seem to her the type of gratitude, 
Shading the brook that fed it, lest the sun 
In mid career should gaze too fierce thereon; 
