English poem
They Called Thee Merry England, In Old Time
They called Thee MERRY ENGLAND, in old time; A happy people won for thee that name With envy heard in many a distant clime; And, spite of change, for me thou keep'st the same Endearing title, a responsive chime To the heart's fond belief; though some there are Whose sterner judgments deem that world a snare For inattentive Fancy, like the lime Which foolish birds are caught with. Can, I ask, This face of rural beauty be a mask For discontent, and poverty, and crime; These spreading towns a cloak for lawless will? Forbid it, Heaven!-and MERRY ENGLAND still Shall be thy rightful name, in prose and rhyme!
More by William Wordsworth
- There Is A Bondage Worse, Far Worse, To Bear
- There Is A Little Unpretending Rill
- There Is An Eminence,--Of These Our Hills
- There Never Breathed A Man Who, When His Life
- Those Words Were Uttered As In Pensive Mood
- Three Years She Grew In Sun And Shower
- True Is It That Ambrosio Salinero
- Weak Is The Will Of Man, His Judgment Blind