Though somewhat faint. I clenched my brows across
My blue eyes greatening in the looking-glass,
And said, ‘We’ll live, Aurora! we’ll be strong.
The dogs are on us—but we will not die.’
Whoever lives true life, will love true love.
I learnt to love that England. Very oft,
Before the day was born, or otherwise
Through secret windings of the afternoons,
I threw my hunters off and plunged myself
Among the deep hills, as a hunted stag
Will take the waters, shivering with the fear
And passion of the course. And when, at last
Escaped,—so many a green slope built on slope
Betwixt me and the enemy’s house behind,
I dared to rest, or wander,—like a rest
Made sweeter for the step upon the grass,—
And view the ground’s most gentle dimplement,
(As if God’s finger touched but did not press
In making England!) such an up and down
Of verdure,—nothing too much up or down,
A ripple of land; such little hills, the sky
Can stoop to tenderly and the wheatfields climb;
Such nooks of valleys, lined with orchises,
Fed full of noises by invisible streams;
And open pastures, where you scarcely tell
White daisies from white dew,—at intervals
The mythic oaks and elm-trees standing out
Self-poised upon their prodigy of shade,—
