Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, INVITATION TO A PAINTER: 2, by WILLIAM ALLINGHAM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

INVITATION TO A PAINTER: 2, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: We are barren, I confess it; but our scope of view is fine
Last Line: But, bring shoes to stand a mudding.
Alternate Author Name(s): Pollex, D.; Walker, Patricius
Subject(s): Paintings & Painters


We are barren, I confess it; but our scope of view is fine;
Dignifying shapes of mountains wave on each horizon-line,
So withdrawn that never house-room utmost pomp of cloud may lack,
Dawn or sunset, moon or planet, or mysterious Zodiac;
Hills beneath run all a-wrinkle, rocky, moory, pleasant green;
From its Lough the Flood descending, flashes like a sword between,
Through our crags and woods and meadows, to the mounded harbour-sand,
To the Bay, calm blue, or sometimes, whose Titanic arms expand
Welcome to the mighty billow rolling in from Newfoundland.
Oats, potatoes, cling in patches round the rocks and boulder-stones,
Like a motley ragged garment for the lean Earth's jutting bones;
Moors extend, and bogs and furzes, where you seldom meet a soul,
But the Besom-man or woman, who to earn a stingy dole
Stoops beneath a nodding burden of the scented heather-plant,
Or a jolly gaiter'd Sportsman, striding near the grouse's haunt,—
Slow the anchoritic heron, musing by his voiceless pond,
Startled with the startled echo from the lonely cliff beyond,
Rising, flaps away. And now a summit shows us, wide and bare,
All the brown uneven country, lit with waters here and there;
Southward, mountains—northward, mountains—westward, golden mystery
Of coruscation, when the Daystar flings his largesse on the sea;
Peasant cots with humble haggarts; mansions with obsequious groves;
A Spire, a Steeple, rival standards, which the liberal distance loves
To set in union. There the dear but dirty little Town abides,
And you and I come home to dinner after all our walks and rides.
You shall taste a cleanly pudding:
But, bring shoes to stand a mudding.





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