Poems, partly of rural life, (in national English.) ::

I love the narrow lane's dark bows,
When summer glows or winter blows;
Or when the hedge-born primrose hides
Its head upon the dry banksides,
By ribby-rinded maple shoots,
Or round the dark-stemm'd hazel's roots;
Where weather-beaten ivy winds
Unwith'ring o'er the elms' brown rinds,
And where the ashes white bough whips
The whistling air with coal-black tips;
And where the grassy ground, beside
The gravel-washing brook, lies wide,
And leaping lambs, with shrill-toned throats,
Bleat loudly in their first white coats,
And rooks through clear air cleave, in black
And cloud-high flocks, their unmark'd track,
And merry larks are whistling loud,
Aloft, unshaded by a cloud.

I like the narrow lane's dark bows,
When winter blows or summer glows;
Where under summer suns, between
The sappy boughs of lively green,
The playful shadows mutely mock
The moving trees that breezes rock,
And robinhoods

The name given in Dorset to the Red Campion, Lychnis: especially to the Lychnis dioica.

bloom red below
The rough-stemm'd bramble's flow'ry bow,
And stitchwort's bending stalks upbear
Their starlike cups to sultry air,
Where I may hear the wind-brought words
Of workfolk, with the songs of birds,
And rubb'd scythes reared upon their sneads,
And ringing in the roadside meads.

I love the narrow lane's dark bows,
When summer glows or winter blows;
Or in the fall, when leaves all fade,
Yet flutt'ring in the airy shade,
And in the shelter'd shaw the blast
Has shaken down the green-cupp'd mast,
And time is black'ning blue-skinn'd sloes,
And blackberries on bramble bows,
And ripening haws are growing red
Around the grey-rin'd hawthorn's head,
And hazel branches, brokentipp'd
And brown, of all their nuts are stripp'd,

And in the leazes, whiffling white,
The whirling thistle seeds alight
In sunshine, struck from bents' brown stalks
By strolling girls in Sunday walks.

I love the narrow lane's dark bows,
When summer glows or winter blows,
And wildly driven wet is cast
Through windy gates upon the blast,
And trickling down the trees, around
Their trunks, the rain drops fall to ground,
And wither'd leaves, too wet to ride
The winds, line ev'ry ditches side,
Nor songs of birds, nor merry sounds,
Of souls at work are in the grounds:
O then the lane affords its lee
Of limber bough, and sturdy tree,
And so I love its winding bows
When summer glows or winter blows.

University of Virginia Library

THE LANE.