THE FIRST SIGHT
OF
GREEN FIELDS
XXXIII
Lately an equipage I overtook,
And help’d to lift it o’er a narrow brook;
No horse it had, except one boy, who drew
His sister out in it the fields to view.
O happy town-bred girl, in fine chaise going
For the first time to see the green grass growing!
This was the end and purport of the ride,
I learn’d, as walking slowly by their side
I heard their conversation. Often she—
“Brother, is this the country that I see?”
The bricks were smoking and the ground was broke,
There were no signs of verdure when she spoke.
He, as the well-inform’d delight in chiding
The ignorant, these questions still deriding,
To his good judgment modestly she yields;
Till, brick-kilns past, they reach’d the open fields.
Then, as with rapturous wonder round she gazes
On the green grass, the buttercups and daisies,—
“This is the country, sure enough!” she cries:
“Is’t not a charming place?” The boy replies,
“We’ll go no further.” “No,” says she, “no need:
No finer place than this can be, indeed!”
I left them gathering flowers, the happiest pair
That ever London sent to breathe the fine fresh air.