| |
| CORSTON, twelve years in various fortunes fled | |
| Have passed with restless progress o’er my head, | |
| Since in thy vale, beneath the master’s rule, | |
| I dwelt an inmate of the village school. | |
| Yet still will Memory’s busy eye retrace | 5 |
| Each little vestige of the well-known place; | |
| Each wonted haunt and scene of youthful joy, | |
| Where merriment has cheered the careless boy; | |
| Well pleased will Fancy still the spot survey | |
| Where once he triumphed in the boyish play, | 10 |
| Without one care where every morn he rose, | |
| Where every evening sunk to calm repose. | |
| |
| Large was the house, though fallen, in course of fate, | |
| From its old grandeur and manorial state. | |
| Lord of the manor, here the jovial squire | 15 |
| Once called his tenants round the crackling fire; | |
| Here, while the glow of joy suffused his face, | |
| He told his ancient exploits in the chase, | |
| And, proud his rival sportsmen to surpass, | |
| He lit again the pipe and filled again the glass. | 20 |
| |
| But now no more was heard at early morn | |
| The echoing clangor of the huntsman’s horn; | |
| No more the eager hounds with deepening cry | |
| Leaped round him as they knew their pastime nigh; | |
| The squire no more obeyed the morning call, | 25 |
| Nor favorite spaniels filled the sportsman’s hall; | |
| For he, the last descendant of his race, | |
| Slept with his fathers, and forgot the chase. | |
| There now in petty empire o’er the school | |
| The mighty master held despotic rule; | 30 |
| Trembling in silence all his deeds we saw, | |
| His look a mandate and his word a law; | |
| Severe his voice, severe and stern his mien, | |
| And wondrous strict he was, and wondrous wise I ween. * * * * * | |
| Such was my state in those remembered years, | 35 |
| When two small acres bounded all my fears; | |
| And therefore still with pleasure I recall | |
| The tapestried school; the bright, brown-boarded hall; | |
| The murmuring brook, that every morning saw | |
| The due observance of the cleanly law; | 40 |
| The walnuts, where, when favor would allow, | |
| Full oft I went to search each well-stripped bough; | |
| The crab-tree, which supplied a secret hoard | |
| With roasted crabs to deck the wintry board: | |
| These trifling objects then my heart possessed, | 45 |
| These trifling objects still remain impressed; | |
| So, when with unskilled hand some idle hind | |
| Carves his rude name within a sapling’s rind, | |
| In after-years the peasant lives to see | |
| The expanding letters grow as grows the tree; | 50 |
| Though every winter’s desolating sway | |
| Shake the hoarse grove, and sweep the leaves away, | |
| That rude inscription uneffaced will last, | |
| Unaltered by the storm or wintry blast. * * * * * | |
| Cold was the morn, and bleak the wintry blast | 55 |
| Blew o’er the meadow, when I saw thee last. | |
| My bosom bounded as I wandered round | |
| With silent step the long-remembered ground, | |
| Where I had loitered out so many an hour, | |
| Chased the gay butterfly, and culled the flower, | 60 |
| Sought the swift arrow’s erring course to trace, | |
| Or with mine equals vied amid the chase. | |
| I saw the church where I had slept away | |
| The tedious service of the summer day; | |
| Or, hearing sadly all the preacher told, | 65 |
| In winter waked and shivered with the cold. | |
| Oft have my footsteps roamed the sacred ground | |
| Where heroes, kings, and poets sleep around; | |
| Oft traced the mouldering castle’s ivied wall, | |
| Or aged convent tottering to its fall; | 70 |
| Yet never had my bosom felt such pain, | |
| As, Corston, when I saw thy scenes again; | |
| For many a long-lost pleasure came to view, | |
| For many a long-past sorrow rose anew; | |
| Where whilom all were friends I stood alone, | 75 |
| Unknowing all I saw, of all I saw unknown. | |
| |
