John Dyer

Bedford Level

Yet much may be performed, to check the force
Of nature's rigour: the high heath, by trees
Warm-sheltered, may despise the rage of storms:
Moors, bogs, and weeping fens, may learn to smile,
And leave in dykes their soon-forgotten tears.
Labour and art will ev'ry aim achieve
Of noble bosoms. Bedford Level, erst
A dreary pathless waste, the coughing flock
Was wont with hairy fleeces to deform;
And, smiling with her lure of summer flow'rs,
The heavy ox, vain-struggling, to ingulph;
Till one, of that high-honoured patriot name,
RUSSELL, arose, who drained the rushy fen,
Confined the waves, bid groves and gardens bloom,
And through his new creation led the Ouze,
And gentle Camus, silver-winding streams:
Godlike beneficence; from chaos drear
To raise the garden and the shady grove.