YE

SONNET

WRITTEN AT PENSHURST IN AUTUMN, 1788.

E towers sublime, deserted now and drear, Ye woods deep sighing to the hollow blast, The musing wanderer loves to linger near, While history points to all your glories past; And, startling from their haunts the timid deer, To trace the walks obscured by matted fern Which Waller's soothing lyre were wont to hear, But where now clamors the discordant hern! The spoiling hand of time may overturn These lofty battlements, and quite deface The fading canvas whence we love to learn Sidney's keen look and Sacharissa's grace; But fame and beauty still defy decay,

Saved by the historic page, the poet's tender lay!

PENSHURST.

Charlotte Smith.

ENIUS Penshurst old!

GEWU Sa of at the birth of each immortal oak,

Here sacred from the stroke;

And all thy tenants of yon turrets bold

Inspir'st to arts or arms;

Where Sidney his Arcadian landscape drew,

Genuine from thy Doric view;

And patriot Algernon unshaken rose

Above insulting foes;

And Sacharissa nursed her angel charms.
O, suffer me with sober tread
To enter on thy holy shade;
Bid smoothly gliding Medway stand,
And wave his sedgy tresses bland,
A stranger let him kindly greet,
And pour his urn beneath my feet.

*

But come, the minutes flit away, And eager Fancy longs to stray: Come, friendly Genius! lead me round Thy sylvan haunts and magic ground; Point every spot of hill or dale, And tell me, as we tread the vale, "Here mighty Dudley once would rove, To plan his triumphs in the grove: There looser Waller, ever gay, With Sachariss in dalliance lay; And Philip, sidelong yonder spring, His lavish carols wont to sing." Hark! I hear the echoes call, Hark! the rushing waters fall; Lead me to the green retreats, Guide me to the Muses' seats, Where ancient bards retirement chose, Or ancient lovers wept their woes. What Genius points to yonder oak? What rapture does my soul provoke ? There let me hang a garland high, There let my Muse her accents try; Be there my earliest homage paid,

Be there my latest vigils made:
For thou wast planted in the earth

The day that shone on Sidney's birth.

Meanwhile attention loves to mark
The deer that crop the shaven park,
The steep-browed hill, or forest wild,
The sloping lawns, and zephyrs mild,
The clouds that blush with evening red,
Or meads with silver fountains fed,
The fragrance of the new-mown hay,
And blackbird chanting on the spray;
The calm farewell of parting light,
And evening saddening into night.

Francis Coventry.

Pentridge.

PENTRIDGE BY THE RIVER.

DIALECT OF DORSET.

ENTRIDGE! —oh! my heart's a-swellen

PENT

Vull wi' jay to hear ye tellen
Any news o' thik wold pleace,
An' the boughy hedges round it,
An' the river that do bound it

Wi' his dark but glisnen feace.
Vor there's noo land, on either hand,
To me lik' Pentridge by the river.

Be there any leaves to quiver
On our aspen by the river?

Doo er sheade the water still,
Where the rushes be a-growen,
Where the sullen Stour 's a-flowen

Droo the meads vrom mill to mill? Vor if a tree wer' dear to me, Oh! 't wer' thik aspen by the river.

There, in eegrass newly shooten,
I did run on even vooten,

Happy, awver new-mown land;
Or did zing wi' zingen drushes
While I plaited, out o' rushes,
Little baskets vor my hand;
Bezide the clote that there did float,
Wi' yollor blossoms, on the river.

When the western zun 's a-vallen,
What shill vaice is now a-callen
Hwome the deairy to the pails?
Who do dreve em on, a-flingen
Wide-bow'd horns, or slowly zwingen
Right an' left their tufty tails?

As they do goo a-huddled droo
The geate a-leaden up vrom river.

Bleaded grass is now a-shooten

Where the vloor wer' oonce our vooten, While the hall wer' still in pleace,

Stwones be looser in the wallen;

Hollor trees be nearer vallen;

Ev'ry thing ha' chang'd its feace.
But still the neame do bide the seame,-
"T is Pentridge,-Pentridge by the river.

William Barnes.

Pevensey.

PEVENSEY.

PILE! I ask not what has been thy fate,

FALLEN ! I not, wrafted from the main,

But when the weak winds, wafted from the main, Through each lone arch, like spirits that complain, Come hollow to my ear, I meditate

On this world's passing pageant, and the lot
Of those who once might proudly, in their prime,
Have stood with giant port, till, bowed by time
Or injury, their ancient boast forgot,

They might have sunk like thee; though thus forlorn
They lift their heads with venerable hairs
Bespent, majestic yet, and as in scorn
Of mortal vanities and short-lived cares;
Even so dost thou, lifting thy forehead gray,
Smile at the tempest, and Time's sweeping sway!

William Lisle Bowles.