Gentle creatures haunted it, and there was none to make afraid; wood-pigeons cooed and crickets chirped their shrill roundelays, anemones and lady-ferns looked up from the moss that kissed the wanderer's feet.

My only guide, a brook whose joyous song, Seemed like a boy's light-hearted roundelay, As down it rushed, the leafy bowers among, Scattering o'er bud and bloom its pearly spray A beauteous semblance of life's opening day.

The valley rings with mirth and joy; And, pleased to welcome in the May, From hill to hill the echoes fling Their liveliest roundelay. 1836.

The ass brays, the horse neighs, the sheep bleatsthe feathered denizens of the grove call to their mates in more musical roundelays.