The Borough

by George Crabbe

Then whence this quiet, tell me, I beseech?

One might believe you heard your Rector preach,

Or his assistant dreamer: - Oh! return,

Ye times of burning, when the heart would burn;

Now hearts are ice, and you, my freezing fold,

Have spirits sunk and sad, and bosoms stony-cold.

“Oh! now again for those prevailing powers,

Which, once began this mighty work of ours;

When the wide field, God’s Temple, was the place,

And birds flew by to catch a breath of grace;