Came wet-shod alder from the wave, Each plucked his one foot from the grave, Old elms came breaking from the vine, And, sweating rosin, plumped the pine And was n 't it a sight to see, When, ere his song was ended, Like some great landslip, tree by tree, The country-side descended; And shepherds from the mountain-eaves As dashed about the drunken leaves O, nature first was fresh to men, So youthful and so flexile then, You moved her at your pleasure. Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs! And make her dance attendance: Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, 'Tis vain! in such a brassy age I could not move a thistle ; But what is that I hear? a sound They read Botanic Treatises, And Works on Gardening through there, And Methods of transplanting trees, To look as if they grew there. The withered Misses! how they prose Came wet-shod alder from the wave, Each plucked his one foot from the grave, Old elms came breaking from the vine, And, sweating rosin, plumped the pine And was n 't it a sight to see, When, ere his song was ended, Like some great landslip, tree by tree, The country-side descended; And shepherds from the mountain-eaves Looked down, half-pleased, half-frightened, As dashed about the drunken leaves O, nature first was fresh to men, So youthful and so flexile then, You moved her at your pleasure. Twang out, my fiddle! shake the twigs! And make her dance attendance: Blow, flute, and stir the stiff-set sprigs, 'Tis vain! in such a brassy age I could not move a thistle; But what is that I hear? a sound They read Botanic Treatises, And Works on Gardening through there, And Methods of transplanting trees, To look as if they grew there. The withered Misses! how they prose They read in arbors clipt and cut, By squares of tropic summer shut, But these, though fed with careful dirt, Better to me the meanest weed That blows upon its mountain, The vilest herb that runs to seed Beside its native fountain. And I must work through months of toil, And years of cultivation, |