From Country to Town: Written in Leeds, July, 1832

I left the land where men with Nature dwelling,
Know not how much they love her lovely forms, —
Nor heed the history of forgotten storms,
On the blank folds inscribed of drear Helvellyn ;
I sought the town, where toiling, buying, selling —
Getting and spending, poising hope and fear,
Make but one season of the live-long year.
Now for the brook from moss-girt fountain welling,
I see the foul stream hot with sleepless trade ;
For the slow creeping vapours of the morn,
Black hurrying smoke, in opake mass up-borne,
O'er dinning engines hangs, a stifling shade : —
Yet Nature lives e'en here, and will not part
From her best home, the lowly-loving heart.