Sunday, November 4, 2012

"The Fleece" 18th Century Poetry

 

"The Fleece"

by John Dyer
1757
          • Thus all is here in motion, all is life:
          • The creaking wain brings copious store of corn:
          • The grazier's sleeky kine obstructs the roads;
          • The neat-dressed housewives, for the festal board
          • Crowned with full baskets, in the field-way paths
          • Come tripping on; th-echoing hills repeat
          • The stroke of axe and hammer; scaffolds rise,
          • And growing edifices; heaps of stone,
          • Beaneath the chisel, beauteous shapes assume
          • Of frieze and column. Some, with even line,
          • New streets are marking in the neighbouring fields,
          • And sacred domes of worship. Industry,
          • Which dignifies the artist, lifts the swain,
          • And the straw cottage to a palace turns,
          • Over the work presides. Such was the scene
          • Of hurrying Carthage, when the Trojan chief
          • First viewed her growing turrets. So appear
          • Th'increasing walls of busy Manchester,
          • Sheffield, and Birmingham, whose reddening fields
          • Rise and enlarge their suburbs
 
Robert Dyer II
Painted by John Dyer
 

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