“Clear Colne and lively Leech have down from Cotswold’s plain,
At Lechlade linking hands, come likewise to support
The mother of great Thames. When, seeing the resort,
From Cotswold Windrush scrowers; and with herself doth cast
The train to overtake; and therefore hies her fast
Through the Oxfordian fields; when (as the last of all
Those floods that into Thames out of our Cotswold fall,
And farthest unto the north) bright Elnlode forth doth beare.”
Woodstock is not more than four miles from Eynsham, but it is generally reached from Oxford. The river winds now round the foot of Witham Hill, and we are on close terms with the outskirts of the immense wood through which one could walk for eight miles before losing its shade. The portion that comes to within a few yards of the Thames consists of oak-trees, with an occasional ash, and as we halt to sit a while under the umbrageous canopy we receive as a salute the cooing of doves, agreeable contrast to the reception, a few miles higher up, conveyed in the harsh squawk of a couple of herons. Longfellow might have sat amongst these identical brackens when he wrote:—