Anna Seward

Sonnet 15. The evening shines in May's luxuriant pride

 WRITTEN ON RISING GROUND NEAR LICHFIELD.

The evening shines in May's luxuriant pride,
    And all the sunny hills at distance glow,
    And all the brooks, that thro' the valley flow,
    Seem liquid gold.—O! had my fate denied
Leisure, and power to taste the sweets that glide
    Thro' waken'd minds, as the soft seasons go
    On their still varying progress, for the woe
    My heart has felt, what balm had been supplied?
But where great Nature smiles, as here she smiles,
    'Mid verdant vales, and gently swelling hills,
    And glassy lakes, and mazy, murmuring rills,
And narrow wood-wild lanes, her spell beguiles
    Th' impatient sighs of Grief, and reconciles
    Poetic Minds to Life, with all her ills.