Now the Kilmansegg Moon,—­it must be told—­
Though instead of silver it tipp’d with gold—­
Shone rather wan, and distant, and cold,
  And before its days were at thirty,
Such gloomy clouds began to collect,
With an ominous ring of ill effect,
As gave but too much cause to expect
  Such weather as seamen call dirty!

CCLXX.

And yet the moon was the “Young May Moon,”
And the scented hawthorn had blossom’d soon,
  And the thrush and the blackbird were singing—­
The snow-white lambs were skipping in play,
And the bee was humming a tune all day
To flowers, as welcome as flowers in May,
  And the trout in the stream was springing!

CCLXXI.

But what were the hues of the blooming earth,
Its scents—­its sounds—­or the music and mirth
  Of its furr’d or its feather’d creatures,
To a Pair in the world’s last sordid stage,
Who had never look’d into Nature’s page,
And had strange ideas of a Golden Age,
  Without any Arcadian features?

CCLXXII.

And what were joys of the pastoral kind
To a Bride—­town-made—­with a heart and a mind
  With simplicity ever at battle? 
A bride of an ostentatious race,
Who, thrown in the Golden Farmer’s place,
Would have trimm’d her shepherds with golden lace,
  And gilt the horns of her cattle.

CCLXXIII.

She could not please the pigs with her whim,
And the sheep wouldn’t cast their eyes at a limb
  For which she had been such a martyr: 
The deer in the park, and the colts at grass,
And the cows unheeded let it pass;
And the ass on the common was such an ass,
    That he wouldn’t have swopp’d
    The thistle he cropp’d
For her Leg, including the Garter!

CCLXXIV.

She hated lanes and she hated fields—­
She hated all that the country yields—­
  And barely knew turnips from clover;
She hated walking in any shape,
And a country stile was an awkward scrape,
Without the bribe of a mob to gape
  At the Leg in clambering over!

CCLXXV.

O blessed nature, “O rus!  O rus!”
Who cannot sigh for the country thus,
  Absorb’d in a wordly torpor—­
Who does not yearn for its meadow-sweet breath,
Untainted by care, and crime, and death,
And to stand sometimes upon grass or heath—­
  That soul, spite of gold, is a pauper!

CCLXXVI.

But to hail the pearly advent of morn,
And relish the odor fresh from the thorn,
  She was far too pamper’d a madam—­
Or to joy in the daylight waxing strong,
While, after ages of sorrow and wrong,
The scorn of the proud, the misrule of the strong,
And all the woes that to man belong,
The Lark still carols the selfsame song
  That he did to the uncurst Adam!