Part 3 — A RHAPSODY On the Peak of Derbyshire.
Reading edition
The following exquisite lines by my late highly-gifted father,[91] on the land he loved so well,—the glorious district of the Peak of Derbyshire,—may well claim a place in this part of my present volume. I give them, not as being the most favourable example I could choose of his style, but as being the most appropriate for my present purpose.
O, give me the land where the wild thyme grows, The heathery dales among; Where Sol's own flow'er with crimson eye Creeps the sun-burnt banks along! Where the beetling Tor hangs over the dell, While its pinnacles pierce the sky, And its foot is laved by the waters pure, Of the lively murmuring Wye; Oh! give me the land, where the crimson heather, The thyme and the bilberry grow together. O! where upon earth is another land So green, so fine, so fair? Can any within Old England's bounds With this heathery land compare? The mountain air, the crystal springs, Where health has established her throne, The flood-swollen torrent, the bright cascade, Belong to this land alone; O! give me the land where grow together The marj'ram, cistus, and purple heather. Oxford may boast of its hundred spires, Its colleges, halls, and towers; Built in an ague-producing marsh, Are the Muses' and Learning's bowers; O! tell me not of the sluggish stream, Too lazy to creep along; Too dull to inspire a poet's dream! This is not the land of song! No! give me the land where grow together The cistus, the thyme, and the purple heather.