WYTHAM WOODS.


'Mid the waving Woods of Wytham,
Now so far, so far from me,
Where the grand old beeches be,
And the deer-herds feeding by them:
'Mid the mossy Woods of Wytham,
Oft I roam in memory;

Down the grand wide-arching alleys,
Marged by plumy ferns and flowers,
Whence all through the noontide hours
Many a fearless leveret sallies;
For amid those grassy alleys
Never hound nor huntsman scours.

Still I see, through leafy casements,
Wytham Hall so quaint and old,
Remnant of the age of gold,
Gabled o'er from roof to basement
In most fanciful enlacement,
Looking far o'er wood and wold;

With the mere outspread before it;
Whitest swans upon its tide,