IX.
PORT MEADOW.
The plain gives freedom. Hither, from the town,
How oft a dreamer and a book of yore
Escaped the lamplit Square, and heard no more
From Cowley border surge the game’s renown;
But bade the vernal sky with spices drown
His head by Plato’s in the grass, before
Yon oar that’s never old, the sunset oar,
At Medley Lock was lain in music down!
So seeming far the confines and the crowd,
The gross routine, the cares that vex and tire,
From this large light, sad thoughts in it, high-driven,
Go happier than the inly-moving cloud
That lets her vesture fall, a floss of fire,
Abstracted, on the ivory hills of heaven.