Marmion by Sir Walter Scott
page 37 of 235 (15%)
page 37 of 235 (15%)
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Which gave again the prospect fair.
INTRODUCTION TO CANTO SECOND. TO THE REV. JOHN MARRIOTT, A.M. Ashestiel, Ettrick Forest. The scenes are desert now, and bare, Where flourished once a forest fair When these waste glens with copse were lined, And peopled with the hart and hind. Yon thorn--perchance whose prickly spears Have fenced him for three hundred years, While fell around his green compeers - Yon lonely thorn, would he could tell The changes of his parent dell, Since he, so grey and stubborn now, Waved in each breeze a sapling bough: Would he could tell how deep the shade A thousand mingled branches made; How broad the shadows of the oak, How clung the rowan to the rock, And through the foliage showed his head, With narrow leaves and berries red; What pines on every mountain sprung, O'er every dell what birches hung, In every breeze what aspens shook, What alders shaded every brook! |
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