William Cowper (1731-1800). The Poplar Field. William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. 1909. The Book of Georgian Verse

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. The Book of Georgian Verse. 1909.

The Poplar Field

By William Cowper (1731–1800)


THE POPLARS are felled; farewell to the shade,
And the whispering sound of the cool colonnade;
The winds play no longer and sing in the leaves,
Nor Ouse on his bosom their image receives.

Twelve years have elapsed since I first took a view	5
Of my favourite field, and the bank where they grew:
And now in the grass behold they are laid,
And the tree is my seat that once lent me a shade!

The blackbird has fled to another retreat,
Where the hazels afford him a screen from the heat,	10
And the scene where his melody charmed me before
Resounds with his sweet-flowing ditty no more.

My fugitive years are all hasting away,
And I must ere long lie as lowly as they,
With a turf on my breast, and a stone at my head,	15
Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.

’Tis a sight to engage me, if anything can,
To muse on the perishing pleasures of man;
Though his life be a dream, his enjoyments, I see,
Have a being less durable even than he.	20