I leave the town, and take a well-known way To that old Mansion in the closing day, When beams of golden light are shed around, And sweet is every night and every sound. Pass but this hill, and I shall then behold The Seat so honour’d, no admired of old, And yet admired—— Alas! I see a change, Of odious kind, and lamentably strange. Who had done this? The good old Lady lies 110 Within her tomb; but, who could this advise? What barbarous hand could all this mischief do, And spoil a noble house, to make it new? Who had done this? Some genuine Son of Trade Has all this dreadful devastation made; Some man with line and rule, and evil eye, Who could no beauty in a tree descry, Save in a clump, when stationed by his hand, And standing where his genius bade them stand; Some true admirer of the time’s reform, 120 Who strips an ancient dwelling like a storm; Strips it of all its dignity and grace, To put his own dear fancies in their place. He hates concealment: all that was enclosed By venerable wood is now exposed, And a few stripling elms all oaks appear, Fenced round by boards, to keep them from the deer. I miss the grandeur of the rich old scene, And see not what these clumps and patches mean! This shrubby belt that runs the land around 130 Shuts freedom out! what being likes a bound? The shrubs indeed, and ill-placed flowers, are gay, } And some would praise; I wish they were away, } That in the wild-wood maze I as of old might stray. } The things themselves are pleasant to behold, But not like those which we beheld of old— That half-hid mansion, with its wide domain, } Unbound and unsubdued!—but sighs are vain; } It is the rage of Taste—the rule and compass reign. } As thus my spleen upon the view I fed, 140 A man approach’d me, by his grandchild led— A blind old man, and she a fair young maid, Listening in love to what her grandsire said. And thus with gentle voice he spoke— “Come lead me, lassie, to the shade, Where willows grow beside the brook; For well I know the sound it made, When, dashing o’er the stony rill, It murmur’d to St. Osyth’s Mill.” The Lass replied—“The trees are fled, 150 They’ve cut the brook a straighter bed: No shades the present lords allow, The miller only murmurs now; The waters now his mill forsake, And form a pond they call a lake.”— “Then, lassie, lead thy grandsire on, And to the holy water bring; A cup is fasten’d to the stone, And I would taste the healing spring, That soon its rocky cist forsakes, 160 And green its mossy passage makes.”— “The holy spring is turn’d aside, The rock is gone, the stream is dried; The plough has levell’d all around, And here is now no holy ground.”—