Pleasures of Fancy

A path, old tree, goes by thee crooking on, And through this little gate that claps and bangs Against thy rifted trunk, what steps hath gone? Though but a lonely way, yet mystery hangs Oer crowds of pastoral scenes recordless here. The boy might climb the nest in thy young boughs That's slept half an eternity; in fear The herdsman may have left his startled cows For shelter when heaven's thunder voice was near; Here too the woodman on his wallet laid For pillow may have slept an hour away; And poet pastoral, lover of the shade, Here sat and mused half some long summer day While some old shepherd listened to the lay.