Hast thou a heart to prove the power

Of a landscape lovely, soft, and serene?

Go—when its fragrance hath left the flower,

When the leaf is no longer glossy and green;

When the clouds are careering across the sky,

And the rising winds tell the tempest nigh,

Though the slanting sunbeams are lingering still,

On the tower's grey top, and the side of the hill;—

Then go to the village of Playford, and see

If it be not a lovely spot;

And, if Nature can boast of charms for thee,

Thou wilt love it, and leave it not,

Till the shower shall warn thee no longer to roam,

And then thou wilt carry its picture home;

To feed thy fancy when far away,

A source of delight for a future day.

Its sloping green is verdant and fair,

And between its tufts of trees

Are white cottages, peeping here and there,

The pilgrim's eye to please:—

A white farm-house may be seen on its brow,

And its grey old hall in the valley below,

By a moat encircled round;

And from the left verge of its hill you may hear,

If you chance on a Sabbath to wander near

A sabbath-breathing sound:

’Tis the sound of the bell which is slowly ringing

In that tower, which lifts its turrets above

The wood-fring’d bank, where birds are singing,

And from spray to spray are fearlessly springing,

As if in a lonely and untrodden grove;

For the grey church-tower is far over head;

And so deep is the winding lane below,

They hear not the sound of the traveller's tread,

If a traveller there should chance to go:—

But few pass there, for most who come

At the bell's loud summons have left their home,

That bell which is tolling so slow.

And grassy and green may the path be seen

To the village-church that leads;

For its glossy hue is as verdant to view

As you see it in lowly meads.

And he who the ascending pathway scales,