Oliver Goldsmith - The Deserted Village - poem

Verse 9 from:The Deserted Village'
by Oliver Goldsmith.
read by NiamhCusack

Oliver Goldsmith 1730 or 1728 --1774 was an Anglo-Irish writer, poet, and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), & his pastoral poem The Deserted Village (1770) (written in memory of his brother),


Sweet was the sound when oft, at evening's close,
Up yonder hill the village murmur rose;
There, as I past with careless steps and slow,
The mingling notes came soften'd from below:
The swain responsive as the milkmaid sung,
The sober herd that low'd to meet their young;
The noisy geese that gabbled o'er the pool,
The playful children, just let loose from school;
The watch-dog's voice, that bay'd the whispering wind,
And the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind—
These all in sweet confusion sought the shade,
And fill'd each pause the nightingale had made.
But now the sounds of population fail;
No cheerful murmurs fluctuate in the gale;
No busy steps the grass-grown footway tread,
For all the bloomy flush of life is fled—
All but yon widow'd, solitary thing,
That feebly bends beside the plashy spring;
She, wretched matron—forc'd in age, for bread,
To strip the brook with mantling cresses spread,
To pick her wintry fagot from the thorn,
To seek her nightly shed, and weep till morn—
She only left of all the harmless train,
The sad historian of the pensive plain.


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[sulochanansree]

What a lovely poem ! The Village School master, The Village Preacher all takes me back to my childhood days.I also wished as the poet say:

"I still had hopes,my long vexations past,

Here to return and die at home at last."

and in my case God has fulfilled my wish of returning to my village after a tiresome long service throughout the country for several years and I too hope to die at my home in my village . My special thanks to the uploader.

[NO1WARCHILD]

lovely lovely, I born and lived in that village [seat of my youth] come visit ,we can walk the lanes and fields of joy.

[ospreymate]

Line 93 - 94..i think is brilliant..the assonance works lovely and we can really feel ..Tired..just like the hare..

Please

Please ..

Do some More...?..

[ospreymate]

89 I still had hopes, for pride attends us still,

90 Amidst the swains to show my booklearn'd skill,

91 Around my fire an evening group to draw,

92 And tell of all I felt and all I saw;

93 And as a hare whom hounds and horns pursue,

94 Pants to the place from whence at first she flew,

95 I still had hopes, my long vexations past,

96 Here to return, and die at home at last.

..........

[ospreymate]

Excellent...Well Read...Sends a chiver down the spine..

She only left of all the harmless train,

The sad historian of the pensive plain.

The Background noises really adds to your recital...Where is the Picture from?

Please Post More...,,,

[SpokenVerse]

Excellent! You read it meaningfully without being intrusive. The poem is immortal, we are only transitory. Goldsmith would not have been displeased.

[killingdeathsson]

2 short.there is like 13 pages 2 the poem.(CRY)