Henry Alford

Sonnet LX. Wymeswold, April 1837.

Dear streamlet, tripping down thy devious course, Or lulled in smoothest pools of sombre hue, Or breaking over stones with murmurs hoarse, To thee one grateful strain is surely due From me, the poet of thy native wolds, Now that the sky is golden in the west, And distant flocks are bleating from their folds, And the pale eve--star lifts her sparkling crest. Would it were thus with thee, when summer suns Shed their strong heats, and over field and hill Swims the faint air, and all the cattle shuns The brighter slopes; but then thy scanty rill Has dwindled to a thread, and, creeping through The tangled herbage, shelters from the view.