Walcott Hall & Surrounding Scenery

I love thee in thy mouldering trance
Old Walcott like a wild romance
Thy memory meets the strangers gaze
Ruins that speak of better days
The substance & the shade of pride
The all & nothing near alied
I love thy scenes too wild & free
For scenes more wild there cannot be
I love to climb till out of breath
The uneven surface of thy heath
In rabbit tracks that streak wi brown
Steep hill & hollow hurrying down
Or sidling round the hedges free
Of pleasant sloping cavity
That sinks two sun burnt hills between
Small snub grass vales of velvet green
That yet may live in fancys ryhmes
Quarries or camps of ancient times
Were art broke on creations sleep
& draggd the stone from chaos heap
To give religions mysterys birth
In massy grandeur oer the earth
Thro many a stubborn age to tire
Time yet in lingering arch & spire
Defying mossy mouldering age
& forked lightnings scar[r]ing rage
The oldest chron[i]cles she owns
In spite of Scepters crowns or thrones
Such causes may have made each scene
That looks so picturesque & green
& many a stone now hid agen
In ruins arms as sound as when
It slept within the infant land
Laid by creations mighty hand
May once have stood wi ripping scar
The sulphry blunt of tugging war
Pild up in castles hugh & high
That coud all storms but times defye
Now leveld all neath bedded grass
The shades that are of things that was
Their proud beginnings age & ends
Laid wi 3 universal friends
Who take mortality in trust
Oblivion mystery & dust
The first & last of empty fame
The somthing that might have a name
The boasted rise forgotten fall
Their shade their nothing & their all
Such barnack heath thy wilderd sight
Gives taste a picturesque delight
Tho industrys mad meddling toils
Thy wild seclusions yearly spoils
Yet there are nooks still left behind
As wild as taste coud wish to find
That toil has tryd & tryd in vain
& left neglect its own again
Which nature turns at freedoms will
More sweet more wild & varied still
Staining in dyes of greens & browns
Each little mountains ups & downs
& climbing here & there to drop
Her wild thyme on each sandy top
& were each hollow streaks between
Spreading grass beds of deepning green
& snubby bushes here & there
Were hares & rabbits love to lare
& sheep in summer eager run
To their short shadows from the sun
& were she finds a rocks edge bare
Or hugh stone carless lingering there
She sprinkles oer them passing bye
Her witching tints of varied dye
Mosses rust brown & green & grey
& when chance leaves them long from use
Ones loath to see them movd away
Touchd with her pencils living hues
Such are wild heath thy hills & holes
Down whose slant sides the childern rolls
Full many idle hours away
In the hot summers burning day
& coud thy hills have met regard
In earlier days from lingering bard
Ere this he'd found fit room for thee
In the sweet page of poesy
& spard the fate that now is thine
To dye in lays so mean as mine


Here walcotts long deserted hall
To warm reflections eyes recall
Its long lost days of pride again
& wealth & luxurys busy reign
Now fallen from its haughty birth
Shund like an evil upon earth
Whose empty rooms & lengthend aisles
Are throngd no more wi beautys smiles
Nor bustling feet nor merry hum
Of pleasures buzz in lighted room
All dead & dark & gloom & chill
A tomb is not more sad & still
Its pride now stript of tinsel all
Left in times scornfull arms to fall
While one of fortunes wealth fed clowns
Picks jewels from her rusty crowns
Neglected like to worthless things
The lot of great & little kings
The grass kept its long sabbath there
Nor dreamd of delving spade or share
Till neglect left him there to spoil
Wi rebel ploughs the sacred soil
& leveld trees that stood to mark
The vision that had been a park
All by his deeds are torn away
In vile rebellion every day
At swath eve from the empty rooms
The owl as lawful tenant comes
& when the morning wakes again
Thro crevisd wall & broken pane
The jackdaw calls wi joys elate
& says twas he that slept in state
The garden none attend its bowers
Nor leave their smiles on opening flowers
The few that yet remain behind
Untied & broken in the wind
One visitor is all they see
The wild & lonly humming bee
That seems to add to its distress
Sad hermit in a wilderness
Een the few groves that yet remain
In tyrannys destructive reign
The pleasant noisey busy rook
Have now its ancient home forsook
Save now & then an oddling pair
That spring leaves mellancholy there
To sigh oer desolate distress
& make more lone its lonliness


The many whims that wealth require
Slopd mounts to peep at distant spire
& bone pavd grotts were fancy tries
How winter glooms suit sumer skys
& hermitage wi wooden latch
& ivy creeping oer the thatch
That might in her forgotten day
My ladys pleasing taste display
Pretended love for simple things
A veil such as religion flings
Oft oer deciples vague & hollow
To chuse a road they never follow
& gravel walks by patches known
With weeds & grass nigh overgrown
These all in ruins slumbers lye
& live the dream of what is bye
Ambitions tomb in its decay
Were time from memory blots away
Wi eating rust that yearly falls
Oer all pride told & she recalls
Leaving one small portion plain
To say that pride hath had its reign


A monument its column shows
Hilld high in picturesque repose
Upon a gently sloping mound
In memory of a favourd hound
Which time as heedless leaves alone
Nor hides the tale nor scars the stone
Nor cares as yet to climb the hill
But leaves his name to memory still
& here entomb[d] poor " pompey" lies
& lessons still to pride supplys
Shows vanity its tinsel lot
That dogs can live when mans forgot.
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