voice. It is a poem in the metre and manner of Gray, with the same
silver tones of twilit peace--heartrending by contrast with the
Continental scene.

How still this quiet cornfield is to-night;
By an intenser glow the evening falls,
Bringing, not darkness, but a deeper light;
Among the stocks a partridge covey calls.

The windows glitter on the distant hill;
Beyond the hedge the sheep-bells in the fold
Stumble on sudden music and are still;
The forlorn pinewoods droop above the wold.

An endless quiet valley reaches out
Past the blue hills into the evening sky;
Over the stubble, cawing, goes a rout
Of rooks from harvest, flagging as they fly.

So beautiful it is I never saw
So great a beauty on these English fields
Touched, by the twilight's coming, into awe,
Ripe to the soul and rich with summer's yields.

The fields are inhabited with the ghosts of ploughmen of old who gave
themselves for England, even as the faithful farmers now leave scenes
inexpressibly dear. For the aim of our poet is to magnify the lives of
the humble and the obscure, whether on land or sea. In the beautiful
_Consecration_ that he prefixed to _Salt-Water Ballads,_ he
expressly turns his back on Commanders, on Rulers, on Princes and