Volume 3 — SONNET,
Reading edition
Laid in the drawer of the thatched shed by the brook at Plas Nwydd, the Villa of the Right Hon. Lady Eleanor Butler, and Miss Ponsonby, in Llangollen Vale.
WRITTEN IN AUTUMN 1799.
Stranger, when o’er yon slant, warm field no cloud Steals,—at its foot, the verge of a wild brook, In tangled dell, where sun-beams never look, Press this screen’d seat, and mark the waters crowd Close to the cliff down their steep channel rude; Leaping o’er rugged stones, that aye provoke Foam and hoarse murmur; while the pendant oak Frowns o’er the little, clamorous, lonely flood.— Impetuous Deva’s honours yield to thine, Dear brook, for O! thy scanty billows lave Friendship and Fancy’s consecrated shrine; And thou may’st tell the stream of mightier wave, Here off they muse the noontide hours away, Who gild thy vale with intellectual ray.