The Excursion

MP3 Audio CD. THE EXCURSION



BOOK FIRST



THE WANDERER



'TWAS summer, and the sun had mounted high:

Southward the landscape indistinctly glared

Through a pale steam; but all the northern downs,

In clearest air ascending, showed far off

A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung

From brooding clouds; shadows that lay in spots

Determined and unmoved, with steady beams

Of bright and pleasant sunshine interposed;

To him most pleasant who on soft cool moss

Extends his careless limbs along the front

Of some huge cave, whose rocky ceiling casts

A twilight of its own, an ample shade,

Where the wren warbles, while the dreaming man,

Half conscious of the soothing melody,

With side-long eye looks out upon the scene,

By power of that impending covert, thrown

To finer distance. Mine was at that hour

Far other lot, yet with good hope that soon

Under a shade as grateful I should find

Rest, and be welcomed there to livelier joy.

Across a bare wide Common I was toiling

With languid steps that by the slippery turf

Were baffled; nor could my weak arm disperse

The host of insects gathering round my face,

And ever with me as I paced along.



Upon that open moorland stood a grove,

The wished-for port to which my course was bound.