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Needwood Forest

Chapter 9: A RURAL CORONATION, Inscribed to Mr. MUNDY, On reading his Poem ON NEEDWOOD FOREST.
By Francis Noel Clarke Mundy
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Poetry

About This Book

A long pastoral ode that celebrates a particular woodland through vivid natural description and mythic personification. It moves between close observation of trees, flowers, birds, and seasonal changes and imaginative scenes where nymphs, sylvan deities, and the Genius of the place animate the landscape. The poem praises rural leisure, hunting, and traditional country life while mourning legal enclosure and human encroachment that diminish the forest. Interwoven reflections consider beauty, fidelity, and the mingling of joy and loss, ending in elegiac remembrance.

A
RURAL CORONATION,
Inscribed to Mr. MUNDY,
On reading his Poem
ON
NEEDWOOD FOREST.

Haste from your dells, your woods, and lawns,
Nymphs, Naiads, Satyrs, Fays, and Fauns,
Haste! hither bring your flowers and boughs,
And weave a wreath for Mundy’s brows!
First twigs of oak from Swilcar rend,
And round his auburn temples bend;
Then tye the ends, that twisting meet,
With tendrils from the wood-bine sweet:
With laurel-blossoms next be spread
Pale ivy crosswise o’er his head;
These holly sprigs insert between,
—The berries blush amid the green—
While hare-bells blue, and lilies fair,
Mix’d with the wild-rose, deck his hair.
Now with fantastick step advance,
And hand in hand around him dance;
To oaten pipe attune his lays,
And hail the bard, who sings your praise.
“While the gay choirings of the grove
“Give breath to harmony and love,
“And golden furze and purple ling
“Around their mix’d embroidery fling,
“And, all irregularly join’d,
“Th’ according outline waves behind.”
A. S.