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Holkham Hall

by William Roscoe

 

Where Holkham rears in graceful pride
     Her marble halls and crested towers,
And stretches 0'er the champaign wide
     Her lengthened suite of social bowers;

Where, led by Leicester's forming hand,
     To Nature Art her succour gives,
Touches the desert with her wand,
     And sculpture breathes and painting lives;

Sheltered beneath this friendly dome,
     Far from the world's tumultuous rage,
I ope the venerated tome,
     And read, and glow along the page.

                  *    *    *   

But happier far the moments fly
     When, resting from my lengthened toil,
I meet with Coke's benignant eye,
     And share his kind approving smile;

Friend of the country and mankind,
     To more than titled honours born;
Who looks with independent mind
     On all the venal tribes with scorn.

His the firm soul to freedom true,
     The open heart, the liberal hand
That from the rock the waters drew,
     The glow of life and happiness:

Not with scant hand the pittance small
     To starving industry to give;
But grant their general rights to all,
     And as he lives, let others live.

And sees, with all a parent's pride,
     His healthful village train display'd,
To heal the wounds in nature's side,
     By tyrants and by heroes made.

 
Norfolk Poems
 

 

 

 

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