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Coridon's Song

That quiet contemplation
Possesseth all my mind:

Then care away,

And wend along with me.

For courts are full of flattery,
As hath too oft been tried;
High trolollie lollie loe,
High trolollie lee,

The city full of wantonness,
And both are full of pride:

But oh, the honest countryman
Speaks truly from his heart,

High trolollie lollie loe,
High trolollie lee,

His pride is in his tillage,

His horses and his cart:

Our clothing is good sheepskins,

Gray russet for our wives,

High trolollie lollie loe,

High trolollie lee,

'Tis warmth and not gay clothing

That doth prolong our lives:

The plowman, though he labor hard,

Yet on the holiday,

High trolollie lollie loc,

High trollolie lee,

No emperor so merrily
Does pass his time away:

To recompense our tillage
The heavens afford us showers;
High trolollie lollie loe,

High trolollie lee,

And for our sweet refreshments

The earth affords us bowers:

1637

The cuckoo and the nightingale
Full merrily do sing,

High trolollie lollie loe,

High trolollie lee,

And with their pleasant roundelays

Bid welcome to the spring:

This is not half the happiness
The countryman enjoys;

High trolollie lollie loe,

High trolollie lee,

Though others think they have as much

Yet he that says so lies:

Then come away, turn

Countryman with me.

John Chalkhill (fl. 1648]

THE OLD SQUIRE

I LIKE the hunting of the hare
Better than that of the fox;
I like the joyous morning air,
And the crowing of the cocks.

I like the calm of the early fields,
The ducks asleep by the lake,
The quiet hour which nature yields
Before mankind is awake.

I like the pheasants and feeding things
Of the unsuspicious morn;

I like the flap of the wood-pigeon's wings
As she rises from the corn.

I like the blackbird's shriek, and his rush
From the turnips as I pass by,

And the partridge hiding her head in a bush,
For her young ones cannot fly.

I like these things, and I like to ride,

When all the world is in bed,

To the top of the hill where the sky grows wide,

And where the sun grows red.

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The Old Squire

The beagles at my horse-heels trot

In silence after me;

There's Ruby, Roger, Diamond, Dot,
Old Slut and Margery,―

A score of names well used, and dear,
The names my childhood knew;
The horn with which I rouse their cheer,
Is the horn my father blew.

I like the hunting of the hare
Better than that of the fox;

The new world still is all less fair
Than the old world it mocks.

I covet not a wider range

Than these dear manors give;
I take my pleasures without change,
And as I lived I live.

I leave my neighbors to their thought;
My choice it is, and pride,

On my own lands to find my sport,
In my own fields to ride.

The hare herself no better loves
The field where she was bred,
Than I the habit of these groves,
My own inherited.

I know my quarries every one,
The meuse where she sits low;
The road she chose to-day was run

A hundred years ago.

The lags, the gills, the forest ways,
The hedgerows one and all,

These are the kingdoms of my chase,
And bounded by my wall;

1639

Nor has the world a better thing,

Though one should search it round, Than thus to live one's own sole king, Upon one's own sole ground.

I like the hunting of the hare;
It brings me, day by day,
The memory of old days as fair,
With dead men passed away.

To these, as homeward still I ply
And pass the churchyard gate,
Where all are laid as I must lie
I stop and raise my hat.

I like the hunting of the hare;
New sports I hold in scorn.
I like to be as my fathers were,
In the days ere I was born.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt [1840

INSCRIPTION IN A HERMITAGE
BENEATH this stony roof reclined,
I soothe to peace my pensive mind;
And while, to shade my lowly cave,
Embowering elms their umbrage wave;
And while the maple dish is mine-
The beechen cup, unstained with wine-
I scorn the gay licentious crowd,
Nor heed the toys that deck the proud.

Within my limits, lone and still,
The blackbird pipes in artless trill;
Fast by my couch, congenial guest,
The wren has wove her mossy nest;
From busy scenes and brighter skies,
To lurk with innocence, she flies,
Here hopes in safe repose to dwell,
Nor aught suspects the sylvan cell.

The Retirement

At morn I take my customed round,
To mark how buds yon shrubby mound,
And every opening primrose count,
That trimly paints my blooming mount;
Or o'er the sculptures, quaint and rude,
That grace my gloomy solitude,

I teach in winding wreaths to stray
Fantastic ivy's gadding spray.

At

eve, within yon studious nook,
I ope my brass-embossèd book,
'Portrayed with many a holy deed

Of martyrs, crowned with heavenly meed;
Then, as my taper waxes dim,

Chant, ere I sleep, my measured hymn,
And at the close, the gleams behold
Of parting wings, be-dropt with gold.

While such pure joys my bliss create,
Who but would smile at guilty state?
Who but would wish his holy lot
In calm oblivion's humble grot?
Who but would cast his pomp away,
To take my staff, and amice gray;
And to the world's tumultuous stage
Prefer the blameless hermitage?

1641

Thomas Warton [1728-1790]

THE RETIREMENT

FAREWELL, thou busy world, and may

We never meet again;

Here I can eat and sleep and pray,

And do more good in one short day

Than he who his whole age outwears

Upon the most conspicuous theaters,
Where naught but vanity and vice appears.

Good God! how sweet are all things here!
How beautiful the fields appear!

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