Charnwood Forest

[wolfinthewood]

For me, the ancient crags of Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire have a numinous quality about them. It fascinates me to know that four centuries back they struck the poet Michael Drayton in much the same way. He knew the Charnwood area pretty well; he was a friend of the dramatist Francis Beaumont, whose family lived at Gracedieu Manor in the heart of the Forest.

O Charnwood, be thou cald the choycest of thy kind,
The like in any place, what Flood hath hapt to find?
No Tract in all this Isle, the proudest let her be,
Can shew a Sylvan Nymph, for beautie like to thee:
The Satyrs, and the Fawnes, by Dian set to keepe,
Rough Hilles, and Forrest holts, were sadly seene to weepe,
When thy high-palmed Harts the sport of Bowes and Hounds,
By gripple Borderers hands, were banished thy grounds.
The Driades that were wont about thy Lawnes to rove,
To trip from Wood to Wood, and scud from Grove to Grove,
On Sharpley* that were seene, and Cadmans* aged rocks,
Against the rising Sunne, to brayd their siluer locks;
And with the harmelesse Elves, on Heathy Bardons** height,
By Cynthia’s colder beames to play them night by night,
Exil’d their sweet aboad, to poore bare Commons fled,
They with the Okes that liv’d, now with the Okes are dead.
Who will describe to life, a Forrest, let him take
Thy Surface to himselfe, nor shall he need to make
An other forme at all, where oft in thee is found
Fine sharpe but easie Hills, which reverently are crownd
With aged Antique Rocks, to which the Goats and Sheepe,
(To him that stands remoat) doe softly seeme to creepe,
To gnaw the little shrubs, on their steepe sides that grow;
Upon whose other part, on some descending Brow,
Huge stones are hanging out, as though they downe would drop,
Where under-growing Okes, on their old shoulders prop
The others hory heads, which still seeme to decline,
And in a Dimble neere, (even as a place divine,
For Contemplation fit) an Ivy-seeled Bower,
As Nature had therein ordayn’d some Sylvan power.

* Marginal note: Two mightie Rocks in the Forrest.

** Marginal note: A Hill in the Forrest.

Michael Drayton (1563–1631)

from Poly-Olbion (1622)


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