III.
Fear not the heat, though full and high
The sun has scorch’d the autumn sky,
And scarce a forest straggler now
To shade us spreads a greenwood bough
These fields have seen a hotter day
Than e’er was fired by sunny ray.
Yet one mile on—yon shatter’d hedge
Crests the soft hill whose long smooth ridge
Looks on the field below,
And sinks so gently on the dale,
That not the folds of Beauty’s veil
In easier curves can flow.
Brief space from thence, the ground again
Ascending slowly from the plain,
Forms an opposing screen,
Which, with its crest of upland ground,
Shuts the horizon all around.
The soften’d vale between
Slopes smooth and fair for courser’s tread;
Not the most timid maid need dread
To give her snow-white palfrey head
On that wide stubble-ground;
Nor wood, nor tree, nor bush are there,
Her course to intercept or scare,
Nor fosse nor fence are found,
Save where, from out her shatter’d bowers,
Rise Hougoumont’s dismantled towers.