Sonnets V

My own dear country! thy remembrance comes
Like softly-flowing music on my heart;
With thy green sunny hills, and happy homes,
And cots rose-bowered, bosomed in dells apart:
The merry pealings of our village-bells
Gush ever and anon upon mine ear;
And is there not a far-off sound that tells
Of many-voiced laughter shrill and clear?
Oh! were I now with thee — to sit and play
Under the hawthorn on the slope 'o th' hill,
As I was wont to do; or pluck all day
The cowslip and the flaunting daffodil,
Till shepherds whistled homeward, and the west
Folded the large sun in her crimson breast!