 | Reuben and Other Poems |  |
Outside our village, up within a croft,
Shelter'd from all the winds except the soft
Sweet clover breath that comes out of the west,
There lived a widow in a lonely nest—
A clay-built cottage in against a bank,
Choked up with brambles, docks and nettles rank;
Before the door a small potato bed,
A bush or two of roses, white and red,
Some herbs we used to know in days of old,
As rue, and thyme, and balm and marigold;
And one tall willow, in whose wiry top
A pair of pyets came to jibe and hop:
A sleepy place but for the little stream
That brattled through the croft and broke its dream.
Shelter'd from all the winds except the soft
Sweet clover breath that comes out of the west,
There lived a widow in a lonely nest—
A clay-built cottage in against a bank,
Choked up with brambles, docks and nettles rank;
Before the door a small potato bed,
A bush or two of roses, white and red,
Some herbs we used to know in days of old,
As rue, and thyme, and balm and marigold;
And one tall willow, in whose wiry top
A pair of pyets came to jibe and hop:
A sleepy place but for the little stream
That brattled through the croft and broke its dream.
| Reuben and Other Poems | |