An Evening Address to the Rocks near Tunbridge Wells
Romantic guardians of this peaceful vale,
That over yon raftered shed raise high your brow:
Say, does some wizard up your cleft side scale
And like a blighted pollard seem to grow?
Wrapped in the mazy windings of the dale,
Do elfin monarchs hold their court below,
Or down the devious rill by moonlight sail,
Their bark a shell, a grassy blade their prow?
Whate'er your residents, whate'er their task,
To shield the sounding cliff or springs unlock,
Whether they now in sloping sunbeams bask,
Or doze till midnight in the rifted rock;
Still let a stranger mark their hallowed reign
And hear in rising winds their mystic strain.
Romantic guardians of this peaceful vale,
That over yon raftered shed raise high your brow:
Say, does some wizard up your cleft side scale
And like a blighted pollard seem to grow?
Wrapped in the mazy windings of the dale,
Do elfin monarchs hold their court below,
Or down the devious rill by moonlight sail,
Their bark a shell, a grassy blade their prow?
Whate'er your residents, whate'er their task,
To shield the sounding cliff or springs unlock,
Whether they now in sloping sunbeams bask,
Or doze till midnight in the rifted rock;
Still let a stranger mark their hallowed reign
And hear in rising winds their mystic strain.