Classic Poem

Where shall we sit us down to rest
To see the place you like the best?
Beneath that hollow oak's grey shell
We see the river-cloven dell,
Where pebble-broken waters flow
To dark bridge arches, bow by bow;
And you, as in your early days
You took your ways, went to and fro.

By yonder ash, above our track,
You see high Hambledon's blue back,
With rings cast up in olden time
Too steep, in hope, for foes to climb;
And there is Cromwell's Gap, where died
So many men of ours, who tried
To keep at bay, in deadly fight,
Old Cromwell's might, on that hill side.

On yonder knoll you have in sight
The broad-spread Duncliffe's lonesome height,
In upper winds, that sigh around
His wooded sides, with moansome sound;
The hill our elders, in the run
Of years on years, from sire to son,
Beheld from village homes beside
The Stour undried, one after one.

And on that right-hand hill, as falls
The sun, shine out high Shaston's walls,
That keep the height where stood of yore
The many tower'd Paladour,
Far up above the floods of Stour,
Although full many houses cow'r
Below the hill, and there is seen
A churchyard green, above the tower.