Inscribed

ON THE BACK OF A LANDSCAPE, COPIED FROM GLOVER,

It is a golden view, the sunny glow Sleeps on the water!—Of unnumber’d tints Gorgeous, this bordering wood, with its proud oak, That lords it on the bank, have now put on The burnish’d livery of receding suns, Ere yet their fires grow pale. Pure, glassy stream, The forest, skirting to thine utmost edge, Curtains thee amply; while the far-off hill Lifts its grey, barren summit, faintly gleam’d. Look on the herd, how leisurely they pace, In social line, the narrow, bloomy lane Descending to the flood! Do you not see A luxury of quiet in their step, Congenial to the landscape?—farther on, In yonder little goats?—how calm they sit Close to the brink, and with declining head Muse on their watry image!—Then the boy, Heedfully following the full-udder’d train On his staid horse! while up the left-hand glade Streams the rich setting sun, and on his back And shoulders warmly plays. No child, I ween, Of fancy he; for sure his sober eye Marks little of the beauty he beholds; Yet we perceive a measureless content Sit on his sun-burnt cheek. Dale, to thy charms Pays or the poet’s or the painter’s mind A better homage?—’Tis a right good boy; He loves the brutes he follows;—they love him, And we will say he earns his supper well.