- THE village-stile – and has it gone,
- Supplanted by this niche of stone,
- So formal and so new?
- And worse, still worse, the elder-bush,
- Where sang the linnet and the thrush,
- Say, has that vanished too?
- Dear, ancient friend! it was to me
- So needful to the scenery,
- "I could have better spared
- A better thing;" – but be it so,
- Change meets us wheresoe'er we go –
- It fares as all have fared.
- Old chronicler! to me it spoke
- Like oracle from ancient oak,
- Save only that its tone
- (Unskilled the future to forecast)
- Upon the present or the past
- Dwelt ever and anon.
- 'Twas thronged with memories of old –
- Yea. many a scene it could unfold
- To truth and fancy dear;
- For not the thorn upon the green
- More frequent confidant had been
- Of tales they love to hear.
- Age sat upon 't when tired of straying;
- And children, that had been a-Maying,
- There twined their garlands gay:
- What tender partings, blissful meetings –
- What faint denials, fond entreatings,
- It witnessed in its day!
- The milkmaid on its friendly rail
- Would ofttimes rest her brimful pail;
- And lingering there awhile,
- Some lucky chance (that tell-tale cheek
- Doth something more than chance bespeak)
- Brings Lubin to the stile.
- But what he said, or she replied –
- Whether he asked her for his bride,
- And she, so sought, was won –
- There is no chronicler to tell;
- For silent is the oracle –
- The village-stile is gone.
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