Gilbert White

Invitation to Selborne

SEE, Selborne spreads her boldest beauties round
The varied valley, and the mountain ground,
Wildly majestic! What is all the pride
Of flats, with loads of ornaments supplied?—
Unpleasing, tasteless, impotent expense,
Compared with Nature’s rude magnificence!

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Romantic spot! from whence in prospect lies
Whate’er of landscape charms our feasting eyes,—
The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture plain,
The russet fallow, or the golden grain,
The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light,
Till all the fading picture fail the sight.

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Hark, while below the village bells ring round,
Echo, sweet nymph, returns the softened sound;
But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar,
Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore.

  Adown the vale, in lone, sequestered nook,
Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook,
The ruined convent lies: here wont to dwell
The lazy canon midst his cloistered cell,
While papal darkness brooded o’er the land,
Ere Reformation made her glorious stand;
Still oft at eve belated shepherd swains
See the cowled spectre skim the folded plains.

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  Now climb the steep, drop now your eye below
Where round the blooming village orchards grow;
There, like a picture, lies my lowly seat,
A rural, sheltered, unobserved retreat.
Me far above the rest Selbornian scenes,
The pendent forests and the mountain greens,
Strike with delight; there spreads the distant view,
That gradual fades till sunk in misty blue;
Here Nature hangs her slopy woods to sight,
Rills purl between and dart a quivering light.