Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Bramble-Rise

Bramble-Rise

By Frederick Locker-Lampson (1821–1895)

WHAT wonders greet my waking eyes

At last! Can this be Bramble-Rise,

Once smallest of its shire?

How changed, and changing from my dream;

The dumpy church used not to seem

So dumpy in the spire.

This village is no longer mine;

And though the inn has changed its sign,

The beer may not be stronger:

The river, dwindled by degrees,

Is now a brook,—the cottages

Are cottages no longer.

The thatch is slate, the plaster bricks,

The trees have cut their ancient sticks,

Or else the sticks are stunted:

I ’m sure these thistles once grew figs,

The geese were swans, and once the pigs

More musically grunted.

Where early reapers whistled shrill,

A whistle may be noted still,

The locomotive’s ravings.

New custom newer want begets,—

I loved a bank for violets,—

I loathe a bank for savings.

That voice I have not heard for long!

So Patty still can sing the song

A merry playmate taught her;

I know the strain, but much suspect

’T is not the child I recollect,

But Patty, Patty’s daughter;

And has she too outlived the spells

Of breezy hills and silent dells

Where childhood loved to ramble?

Then life was thornless to our ken,

And, Bramble-Rise, thy hills were then

A rise without a bramble.