Page:Scenes in my Native Land.pdf/204

THE STOCKBRIDGE BOWL.

The Stockbridge Bowl!—Hast ever seen
    How sweetly pure and bright
Its foot of stone, and rim of green,
    Attract the traveller's sight?
High set among the breezy hills
    Where spotless marble glows,
It takes the tribute of the rills
    Distilled from mountain snows.

You've seen, perchance, the classic vase
    At Adrian's villa found,
The grape-vines, that its handles chase,
    And twine its rim around,
But thousands such as that which boasts
    The Roman's name to keep,
Might in this Stockbridge bowl be lost
    Like pebbles in the deep.

It yields no sparkling draught of fire
    To mock the maddened brain,
Like that which warmed Anacreon's lyre
    Amid the Tean plain;