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(From The Lover’s Journey)
ON rode Orlando, counting all the while | |
| The miles he passed, and every coming mile; | |
| Like all attracted things, he quicker flies, | |
| The place approaching where the attraction lies; | |
| When next appeared a dam—so call the place— | 5 |
| Where lies a road confined in narrow space; | |
| A work of labor, for on either side | |
| Is level fen, a prospect wild and wide, | |
| With dikes on either hand by ocean’s self supplied: | |
| Far on the right the distant sea is seen, | 10 |
| And salt the springs that feed the marsh between; | |
| Beneath an ancient bridge, the straitened flood | |
| Rolls through its sloping banks of slimy mud; | |
| Near it a sunken boat resists the tide, | |
| That frets and hurries to the opposing side; | 15 |
| The rushes sharp, that on the borders grow, | |
| Bend their brown flowerets to the stream below, | |
| Impure in all its course, in all its progress slow: | |
| Here a grave Flora scarcely deigns to bloom, | |
| Nor wears a rosy blush, nor sheds perfume; | 20 |
| The few dull flowers that o’er the place are spread | |
| Partake the nature of their fenny bed; | |
| Here on its wiry stem, in rigid bloom, | |
| Grows the salt lavender that lacks perfume; | |
| Here the dwarf sallows creep, the septfoil harsh, | 25 |
| And the soft slimy mallow of the marsh; | |
| Low on the ear the distant billows sound, | |
| And just in view appears their stony bound; | |
| No hedge nor tree conceals the glowing sun, | |
| Birds, save a watery tribe, the district shun, | 30 |
| Nor chirp among the reeds where bitter waters run. | |
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