Classic Poem

FROM COUNTRY TO TOWN.

I LEFT the land where men with nature dwelling,
Know not how much they love her lovely forms —
Nor heed the history of forgotten storms,
On the blank folds inscribed of drear Helvellyn;
I sought the town, where toiling, buying, selling —
Getting and spending, poising hope and fear,
Make but one season of the live-long year —
Now for the brook from moss-girt fountain welling,
I see the foul stream hot with sleepless trade,
For the slow creeping vapours of the morn,
Black hurrying smoke in opake mass up-borne,
O'er dinning engines hangs, a stifling shade —
Yet nature lives e'en here, and will not part
From her best home, the lowly-loving heart.