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YOUTHFUL DAYS.

And witness, dear companion of my walks,
Whose arm this twentieth winter I perceive
Fast locked in mine, with pleasure such as love,
Confirmed by long experience of thy worth
And well-tried virtues, could alone inspire-
Witness a joy that thou hast doubled long.
Thou know'st my praise of Nature most sincere,
And that my raptures are not conjured up
To serve occasions of poetic pomp,

But genuine, and art partner of them all.

How oft upon yon eminence our pace

Has slackened to a pause, and we have borne

The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While admiration, feeding at the eye,

And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene!

Thence with what pleasure have we just discerned
The distant plough still moving, and beside

His labouring team, that swerved not from the track,
The sturdy swain diminished to a boy!
Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
Of spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along his sinuous course
Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank,
Stand, never overlooked, our favourite elms,
That screen the herdsman's solitary hut;
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream
That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,
The sloping land recedes into the clouds;
Displaying on its varied side the grace

Of hedge-row beauties numberless, square tower,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the listening ear,

Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote.

129

Youthful Days.

I still remember, nor without regret
Of hours that sorrow since has much
endeared,

How oft, my slice of pocket-store consumed,
Still hungering, penniless, and far from
home,

I fed on scarlet hips and stony haws,
Or blushing crabs, or berries that emboss
The bramble, black as jet, or sloes austere.
Hard fare! but such as boyish appetite
Disdains not, nor the palate, undepraved
By culinary arts, unsavoury deems.

No SOFA then awaited my return,
Nor SOFA then I needed. Youth repairs
His wasted spirits quickly, by long toil
Incurring short fatigue; and though our years,
As life declines, speed rapidly away,
And not a year but pilfers as he goes
Some youthful grace that age would gladly keep,
A tooth, or auburn lock, and by degrees

Their length and colour from the locks they spare;
The elastic spring of an unwearied foot,

That mounts the stile with ease, or leaps the fence,
That play of lungs inhaling, and again
Respiring freely, the fresh air, that makes
Swift pace or steep ascent no toil to me,
Mine have not pilfered yet; nor yet impaired
My relish of fair prospect; scenes that soothed
Or charmed me young, no longer young, I find
Still soothing, and of power to charm me still.

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Scenes must be beautiful, which daily viewed
Please daily, and whose novelty survives
Long knowledge and the scrutiny of years:
Praise justly due to those that I describe.

COWPER. [From "The Task."]

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