The natural history of Selborne. Observations on various parts of nature and the Naturalist's calendar / by Gilbert White. With additions by Sir William Jardine, Bart.

  • Gilbert White
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The natural history of Selborne. Observations on various parts of nature and the Naturalist's calendar / by Gilbert White. With additions by Sir William Jardine, Bart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The pointed spire, the hall, the pasture plain, The russet fallow, or the golden grain, The breezy lake that sheds a gleaming light, Till all the fading picture fail the sight. Each to his task; all different ways retire: Cull the dry stick; call forth the seeds of fire; © Deep fix the kettle’s props, a forky row, Or give with fanning hat the breeze to blow. Whence is this taste, the furnish’d hall forgot, To feast in gardens, or th’ unhandy grot? Or novelty with some new charms surprises, Or from our very shifts some joy arises. Hark, while below the village bells ring round, Echo, sweet nymph, returns the soften’d sound ; But if gusts rise, the rushing forests roar, Like the tide tumbling on the pebbly shore. Adawn the vale, in lone, sequestered nook, Where skirting woods imbrown the dimpling brook, The ruin’d convent lies: here wont to dwell The lazy canon midst his cloister’d cell,* While Papal darkness brooded o’er the land, Ere Reformation made her glorious stand: Still oft at eve belated shepherd swains See the cowl’d spectre skim the folded plains. To the high Temple would my stranger go,f The mountain-brow commands the woods below: In Jewry first this order found a name, When madding Croisades set the world in flame ; When western climes, urged on by pope and priest, Pour’d forth their millions o’er the deluged East: Luxurious knights, ill suited to defy To mortal fight Turcéstan chivalry. Nor be the parsonage by the muse forgot— The partial bard admires his native spot ; Smit with its beauties, loved, as yet a child, Unconscious why, its capes, grotesque and wild. High on a mound th’ exalted gardens stand, Beneath, deep valleys, scoop’d by Nature’s hand. * The ruins of a Priory, founded by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of Win- chester. + The remains of a Preceptory of the Knights Templars; at least it was a farm dependent upon some preceptory of that order. I findit was a preceptory, called the Preceptory of Suddington; now called Southington,
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