Classic Poem

I .

Bright hill-sides, covered thick with yellow heads
Of daffodils — a primrose here and there;
The subtle smell of spring-time in the air;
A brimstone-plumaged butterfly who speeds
On wings ecstatic through the shining meads,
As if a flying daffodil it were;
A distant prospect sweet beyond compare,
Showing the silver Thames amid its reeds:

Such was the scene that met our earnest gaze,
O Violet, when we rested on the hill,
Marking the slow departure of the haze
From valley, upland, and meandering rill,
A prospect whose pure soothing presence stays
Within me as a sunny comfort still.

II .

I felt the sweet sense of the spring-time steal
Throughout me, renovating every nerve;
I marked the distant river's every curve
And the far echo of a church-bell's peal,
As we were making our sequestered meal,
With appetites the forest airs did serve:
Upon a neighbouring bark with cunning swerve
A creeper climbed and twisted, wheel on wheel.

The silence and the pleasure of the place
Pervaded us — we could not but be sure
That here was manifest the perfect grace
Of Beauty, and her bosom soft and pure,
And the exceeding grandeur of her face:
The eyeless smoke-fed city ceased to allure.