How changed is thy appearance, beauteous hill! Thou hast put off thy wintry garb, brown heath And russet fern, thy seemly-colour’d cloak To bide the hoary frosts and dripping rains Of chill December, and art gaily robed In livery of the spring: upon thy brow A cap of flowery hawthorn, and thy neck Mantled with new-sprung furze and spangles thick Of golden bloom: nor lack thee tufted woods Adown thy sides: tall oaks of lusty green, The darker fir, light ash, and the nesh tops Of the young hazel join, to form thy skirts In many a wavy fold of verdant wreath:— So gorgeously hath Nature drest thee up Against the birth of May: and, vested so, Thou dost appear more gracefully array’d Than Fashion’s worshippers, whose gaudy shows, Fantastical as are a sick man’s dreams, From vanity to costly vanity Change ofter than the moon. Thy comely dress, From sad to gay returning with the year, Shall grace thee still till Nature’s self shall change. These are the beauties of thy woodland scene At each return of spring: yet some[1] delight Rather to view the change; and fondly gaze On fading colours, and the thousand tints Which Autumn lays upon the varying leaf: I like them not, for all their boasted hues Are kin to Sickliness; mortal Decay Is drinking up their vital juice; that gone, They turn to sear and yellow. Should I praise Such false complexions, and for beauty take A look consumption-bred? As soon, if gray Were mixt in young Louisa’s tresses brown, I’d call it beautiful variety, And therefore dote on her. Yet I can spy A beauty in that fruitful change, when comes The yellow Autumn and the hopes o’ the year Brings on to golden ripeness; nor dispraise The pure and spotless form of that sharp time, When January spreads a pall of snow O’er the dead face of th’ undistinguish’d earth. Then stand I in the hollow comb beneath, And bless this friendly mount, that weather-fends My reed-roof’d cottage, while the wintry blast From the thick north comes howling: till the Spring Return, who leads my devious steps abroad, To climb, as now, to LEWESDON’S airy top.