Do not suppose I shall ever outgrow
the feeling, in spite of its having been borne in on me, when
I first conversed with readers of poetry in England, that
Thomson is no longer read - that he is unreadable.
After such a find I naturally went back many times to burrow
in that delightful rubbish heap, and was at length rewarded by
the discovery of yet another poem of rural England - the
Farmer's Boy. I was prepared to like it, for although I did
not know anything about the author's early life, the few
passages I had come across in quotations in James Rennie's and
other old natural history compilations had given me a strong
desire to read the whole poem. I certainly did like it - this
quiet description in verse of a green spot in England, my
spiritual country which so far as I knew I was never destined
to see; and that I continue to like it is, as I have said, the
reason of my being in this place.
While thus freely admitting that the peculiar circumstances
of the case caused me to value this poem, and, in fact, made
it very much more to me than it could be to persons born in
England with all its poetical literature to browse on, I am
at the same time convinced that this is not the sole reason
for my regard.
