But the son and heir of Squire Tennyson often descended from the 'mansion mounted high;' and
'I met in all the close green ways,
While walking with my line and rod,'
A metonymy for 'rod and line'—
'The wealthy miller's mealy face,
Like the moon in an ivytod.
'He looked so jolly and so good—
While fishing in the mill-dam water,
I laughed to see him as he stood,
And dreamt not of the miller's daughter.'—p. 33.
He, however, soon saw, and, need we add, loved the miller's daughter, whose countenance, we presume, bore no great resemblance either to the 'mealy face' of the miller, or 'the moon in an ivy-tod;' and we think our readers will be delighted at the way in which the impassioned husband relates to his wife how his fancy mingled enthusiasm for rural sights and sounds, with a prospect of the less romantic scene of her father's occupation.
'How dear to me in youth, my love,
Was everything about the mill;
The black, the silent pool above,
The pool beneath that ne'er stood still;
The meal-sacks on the whitened floor,
The dark round of the dripping wheel,
The very air about the door,
Made misty with the floating meal!'—p. 36.
The accumulation of tender images in the following lines appears not less wonderful:—
'Remember you that pleasant day
When, after roving in the woods,
('Twas April then) I came and lay
Beneath those gummy chestnut-buds?