Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Francis T. Palgrave, ed. (1824–1897). The Golden Treasury. 1875.

William Cowper

CXLIII. The Poplar Field

THE POPLARS are fell’d! 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 last took a view

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,

And the scene where his melody charm’d 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,

Ere another such grove shall arise in its stead.

The change both my heart and my fancy employs,

I reflect on the frailty of man and his joys;

Short-lived as we are, yet our pleasures, we see,

Have a still shorter date, and die sooner than we.