"The Fleece" 18th Century Poetry

 

"The Fleece"

by John Dyer

1757

• Thus all is here in motion, all is life:
• The creaking wain brings copious store of corn:
• The grazier's sleeky kine obstructs the roads;
• The neat-dressed housewives, for the festal board
• Crowned with full baskets, in the field-way paths
• Come tripping on; th-echoing hills repeat
• The stroke of axe and hammer; scaffolds rise,
• And growing edifices; heaps of stone,
• Beaneath the chisel, beauteous shapes assume
• Of frieze and column. Some, with even line,
• New streets are marking in the neighbouring fields,
• And sacred domes of worship. Industry,
• Which dignifies the artist, lifts the swain,
• And the straw cottage to a palace turns,
• Over the work presides. Such was the scene
• Of hurrying Carthage, when the Trojan chief
• First viewed her growing turrets. So appear
• Th'increasing walls of busy Manchester,
• Sheffield, and Birmingham, whose reddening fields
• Rise and enlarge their suburbs

 

Robert Dyer II

Painted by John Dyer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/artists/dyer-reverend-john-16991757/paintings/slideshow#/0