Classic Poem

Down the mountain as I wandered,
And upon the landscape pondered,
Where, as in a net,
Lordly hedge and stately railing
With the farmer's wooden paling
Intersecting met,

Compassing the field of azure
Of the lake no rigid measure
Mapped unequally, —
I bethought me, " Such division
Of the plain is a derision, "
When my roving eye.

Rested on the sexton's barrow
Shrinking near the portal narrow
Of the churchyard green,
Where fill prince and peasant places
Equal as the chessboard's spaces,
Hold they pawn or queen.

Still the zig-zag path descending,
Came I to a painter blending,
On a tinier scale,
Under April's sunshine merry,
Meadow, lake, and cemetery
Sparkling in the vale.

And with passionate expansion,
Free from envy, I the mansion
And the cot surveyed,
Coveting nor manor pleasant,
Nor the patches which the peasant
Vexed with hoe and spade.

Happy, though without an acre,
While supplies the paper-maker
Sod like this fair page,
Into which, at Fancy's hours,
I transplant the wayside flowers
Of my pilgrimage.