University of Virginia Library

2. The Poems of JOHN CLARE

INSECTS

These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing summer brings,
Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;
And where they fly for dinner no one knows—
The dew-drops feed them not—they love the shine
Of noon, whose sun may bring them golden wine.
All day they're playing in their Sunday dress—
Till night goes sleep, and they can do no less;
Then, to the heath-bell's silken hood they fly,
And like to princes in their slumbers lie,
Secure from night, and dropping dews, and all,
In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer day,
Now in the cornfields, now the new-mown hay,
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings,
Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,
Keeping their merry pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.

CHILDHOOD

THE VOICE OF NATURE

There is a language wrote on earth and sky
By God's own pen in silent majesty;
There is a voice that's heard and felt and seen
In spring's young shades and summer's endless green;
There is a book of poesy and spells
In which that voice in sunny splendour dwells;
There is a page in which that voice aloud
Speaks music to the few and not the crowd;
Though no romantic scenes my feet have trod,
The voice of nature as the voice of God
Appeals to me in every tree and flower,
Breathing his glory, magnitude and power.
In nature's open book I read, and see
Beauty's rich lesson in this seeming-pea;
Crowds see no magic in the trifling thing;
Pshaw! 'tis a weed, and millions came with spring.
I hear rich music wheresoe'er I look,
But heedless worldlings chide the brawling brook;
And that small lark between me and the sky
Breathes sweetest strains of morning's melody;
Yet by the heedless crowd 'tis only heard
As the small warbling of a common bird
That o'er the plough teams hails the morning sun;
They see no music from such magic won.
Yet I see melody in nature's laws,
Or do I dream?—still wonder bids me pause:
I pause, and hear a voice that speaks aloud:
'Tis not on earth nor in the thundercloud;
The many look for sound—'tis silence speaks,
And song like sunshine from her rapture breaks.
I hear it in my bosom ever near;
'Tis in these winds, and they are everywhere.
It casts around my vision magic spells
And makes earth heaven where poor fancy dwells.
I read its language, and its speech is joy;
So, without teaching when a lonely boy,
Each weed to me did happy tidings bring,
And laughing daisies wrote the name of spring,
And God's own language unto nature given
Seemed universal as the light of heaven
And common as the grass upon the plain,
That all may read and meet with joy again,
Save the unheeding heart that, like the tomb,
Shuts joy in darkness and forbids its bloom.

WALKS IN THE WOODS

WILL-O'-WISP

I've seen the midnight morris-dance of hell
On the black moors while thicker darkness fell,
Like dancing lamps or bounding balls of fire,
Now in and out, now up and down, now higher,
As though an unseen horseman in his flight
Flew swinging up and down a lamp alight;
Then fixed, as though it feared its end to meet,
It shone as lamps shine in a stilly street;
Then all at once it shot and danced anew,
Till mixed with darkness out of sight it grew.
The simple shepherd under fear's eclipse
Views the dread omens of these will-o'-wisps
And thinks them haunting spirits of the earth
That shine where midnight murders had their birth;
With souls of midnight and with heads of fire
To him they shine, and bound o'er moor and mire,
Blazing like burning, crackling wisps of straw;
He sees and hears them, then with sudden awe
He pictures thieves with lanthorn light in hand,
That in lone spots for murder waiting stand.
Upon the meadow bridge's very wall
He sees a lanthorn stand, and pictures all
The muttered voices that derange his ears;
And when more near the spot, his sickening fears
See the imagined lanthorn, light and all,
Without a plash into the water fall,
And in one moment on his stifled sight
It blanks his hopes and sets his terrors right.
For furlongs off it simmers up and down,
A will-o'-wisp; and breathless to the town
He hastes, and hardly dares to catch his breath,
Existing like a doubt of life or death
Until the sight of houses cools his fears
And fireside voices greet his happy ears.
And then he rubs his hands beside his fire,
And quakes, and tells how over moor and mire
The jack-o'-lanthorn with his burning tails
Had like to led him; and he bites his nails
With very fear to think out how the blaze
Had like to cheat him into dangerous ways:
How that he thought he heard some people stand
As likely thieves with lanthorn in their hand,
When in a moment—yet he heard no fall—
Down went the lanthorn from the arches' wall
Into the flood; and on that brig alone
How his heart seemed as growing into stone.

THE MOLE-CATCHER

APPROACH OF SPRING

Dear heart, I love to see the quiet spring
Come teaching first the little birds to sing,
Then loitering in the sunny field and street
Like people telling stories when they meet,
And often pausing in a shower's delay
As if she feared some danger in the way,
Sending her heralds forward one by one
To try the journey she herself is on;
Now starts a daisy, then a buttercup,
And then a little primrose trembles up;
And thus she comes like to a timid maid
Of ruffling winds and dirty roads afraid.

THE PLOUGHBOY

Soon the night in mantle dark
Disperses at the singing lark,
When the morning breaks the cloud,
And the yard dog, barking loud,
Calls the men and maidens up;
And the fowl, a noisy crowd,
From the hen-roost cackle loud,
When the farm-boy blundering up
Drives the old hens 'neath the coop,
And from the stack, at maid's desire,
Throws the faggot for the fire,
Then in the hovel milks the cow
And from the stackyard drives the sow;
And when the chimney smokes, goes in
Till breakfast's ready to begin,
And in the corner grunts to stoop
And does his unlaced hightops up;
Then off behind the plough afield
He goes, the whalebone whip to wield.

DAWN

Dun-grey and high the morning lies,
And light spreads widely through the skies,
And o'er the sloping fields of corn
Gentle and sleeping lies the morn;
And through the grain one's walk may go
And not a dewdrop moist the shoe,
For not a blade or leaflet green
Deckt with a single drop is seen;
The deepest woodland path is dry
And not a cloud is in the sky,
And yet the dun spreads far away
As if 'twas all a cloud of grey.

APPROACHING NIGHT

Approaching night to dusky shadows grows
And one dun covering huddles o'er the sky;
The grey owl hoo-hoos in the elms just by,
And one lone couple of unwearied crows
To distant woods in sluggish motion fly
Amid the fading foliage to repose.
Yet still the west a streak of radiance throws
Enough to see the horizon's distant rim,
While all beside in aimless masses rest,
Trees, fields and cottages all fading dim
In seeming nothingness, by glooms deprest.

FAIRY THINGS

FRAGMENTS

VIRTUE LIVES ON

Fame will grow old like garments; time will tear
The scutcheoned tinsel and make worse for wear
The proudest trials to prolong their power;
E'en marbles, by and by, with sculpture deckt,
Shall mingle with the ashes they protect;
Brass eats itself away in canker rust;
Names writ on adamant shall creep to dust.
A good name only has the longest run,
As virtue graves it on the golden sun,
Peering its influence on the happy day—
While bad ones in night's darkness meet decay.

THE SHEPHERD'S SONG

A WORLD FOR LOVE

DECAY

DEATH

BIRDS' LAMENT

LANGLEY BUSH

PRAYER

HONESTY (II)

The rich man claims it; but he often buys
Its substitute, that is not what it seems;
While poverty, ennobled in disguise,
Its simple bloom oft worships and esteems.
Knaves boast possession, but they forge its name;
Mobs laud and praise it, but with them 'tis noise,
Or the mere passport to some hidden game,
Beneath whose garb self-interest lurks and lies.
'Tis by the good man only deemed a prize
Too valued to be scoffed at or oppressed;
'Tis ever more respected by the wise,
Though thousands treat it as a common jest:
And that thou mayst not slight so grand a dower,
'Tis Honesty. Go thou, and wear the flower.

SLANDER (II)

It feeds on falsehood and on clamour lives,
And Truth, like sunshine, dims its watering eyes;
It cannot bear the searching light she gives,
But in her splendour struggles, writhes, and lies
A crushed and wounded worm, that vainly turns
All ways for rest and ease, yet findeth none.
Of its own venom-breath it wastes and burns
Away, like putrid waters in the sun.
It stains, as footmarks in a frosty morn,
Left on the bruising grass by early swain;
Truth's spring soon comes, and laughs them all to scorn;
Stains disappear—the grass is green again;
And hearts that feed the falsehood Slander brings
Are all that feel at last the venom of its stings.

BOSTON CHURCH (II)

Smiling in sunshine, as the storm frowns by,
Whose dreadful rage seems to thy quiet thrall
As small birds' twitterings, that beneath thee fly.
Winds call aloud, and they may louder call,
For, deaf to danger's voice, sublime and grand
Thou tower'st in thy old majesty o'er all.
Tempests, that break the tall masts like a wand,
Howl their rage weary round thee; and no more
Impression make than summer winds that bow
The little trembling weeds upon thy wall.
Lightnings have blazed their centuries round thy brow,
And left no print-marks:—so in shadows hoar
Time decks and spares thee, till that doom is hurled
That sears the ocean dry and wrecks the world.

ETERNITY OF TIME

Amazing, grand eternity of time!
Where things of greatest standing grow sublime,
Less from long fames, and universal praise,
Than wearing as the ‘ancient of old days.’
‘Old days,’ once spoken, seems but half the way
To reach that night-leap of eternal day.
Miltonic centuries, each a mighty boast,
Shakespearian eras—worlds, without their host,
Engraved upon the adamant of fame
By pens of steel, in characters of flame—
To which the forest oaks' eternal stay
Are but as points and commas in their way,—
These less than nothings are to ruin's doom,
When suns grow dark, and earth a vast and lonely tomb.

FLATTERY

Go, flattery, go, thou nothing clothed in sound,
The voice of ages lives not on thy tongue;
Time treads thee like a shadow on the ground
As nothing were, and laugheth at the wrong.
Thou ten days' wonder of an idle noise,
Cease teasing truth with subtleties and lies;
Truth, that thy every spider-web destroys,
With higher aim bids upward thoughts arise,
Where past the storm of strife, the sickly praise,
The barefaced lie, in secret hatched and bred,
Is left unto the storm of after days,
And thy gay-fluttering streets untenanted
Of friendships, age-swept, silent and alone,
Buried and chilled like cities into stone.

TO HEALTH

Mild health, I seek thee; whither? Art thou found
Mid daisies sleeping in the morning dew,
Along the meadow paths where all around
May smells so lovely? Thither would I go.
Where art thou, envious blessing? now the cold
Is gone away, and hedge and wood is seen
All lovely, and the gay marsh marigold
Edges the meadow lakes so freshly green,
My straining eye is anxious to behold
Thee up and journeying on the swallow's wing,
To see thee up and shining everywhere
Among the sweet companions of the spring.

ENGLAND, 1830

These vague allusions to a country's wrongs,
Where one says ‘Ay’ and others answer ‘No’
In contradiction from a thousand tongues,
Till like to prison-cells her freedoms grow
Becobwebbed with these oft-repeated songs
Of peace and plenty in the midst of woe—
And is it thus they mock her year by year,
Telling poor truth unto her face she lies,
Declaiming of her wealth with gibe severe,
So long as taxes drain their wished supplies?
And will these jailers rivet every chain
Anew, yet loudest in their mockery be,
To damn her into madness with disdain,
Forging new bonds and bidding her be free?

MAY

All nature breathes of joy and hails the May;
The very flowers nod dances to the wind,
The fluttering birds about the bushes play
That shine like sheets of snow with flowers belined,
Thro' schoolhouse door; in wandering fancy's way,
The boy repeats his play-games in his mind,
And builds anew his huts of stone and clay,
That freedom left, when school hours called away,
By some barn wall or low cot's sunny side.
Among the pasture mole-hills madly play
The wool-wrapt-leggèd lambs, and in gay pride
The wild foal gallops with excess of joy,
And happy moos the calf in colours pied,
Ignorant of cares that human peace destroy.

SPRING MORNING

How beautiful is daybreak! light betimes
Threads thro' the clouds; the red sun sweetly climbs
Up to our chamber windows; thwart the sky
The clouds like bright volcanoes slumber by
Slowly and grand. Toil, early out of doors,
Goes praising the sweet time devoid of sorrow
And prophesies the cuckoo's song to-morrow.
Birds hop about each hedge, and by the stack
The small wren twits with tail cocked o'er his back,
Building his nest right early 'neath the shed
Where cows in winter found a pleasant bed.
Flowers thicken everywhere; the very tops
Of walls are thronged with spring's delicious crops
Of tiny snow-white blossoms thickly spread.

SPRING SONGS

The blossom-burthened, never-weary May
Again with nature's folks keeps holiday;
Trees hide themselves in green, and happy birds
Sing sweeter songs that can be breathed in words;
The very winds sing sonnets to the sky,
And sunshine bids them welcome—so that I
Feel a new being, as from healthier climes,
And shape my idle fancies into rhymes
Of nature's ecstasy in bursting flowers,
And birds nest-building, and sunshiny showers
That on the south-west wind in singing moods
Sprinkle their drops like manna o'er the woods,
Where I still love my careless limbs to fling
Among the shadows of young leafy spring.

LIFE IN LONE PLACES

I've felt the loneliest pictures in my mind
When in a nook, a very dread by day,
I've found a scarce-dead night-fire left behind
Where robbers hurdled or where gipsies lay;
And I have turned me round a different way,
Half fearing lest a danger lingered still,
And almost dreaded further on to stray
Lest lurking mischief hid, devising ill;
Feeling like someone in a dreadful book,
Thinking how dismal such a spot would be
In midnight darkness, when lone travellers look
Up to their hands and yet can nothing see,
While all is black and deep and still as death,
And fear e'en startles at its stifled breath.

THE BOYS' PLAYGROUND

Here lies the germ and happiness of life—
The foot-beat playground of the village boys;
Echo is weary of the rapturous strife,
And almost fades 'neath the excessive noise;
Some race at leap-frog o'er each other's back,
Some chase their shadows in the evening sun,
Some play at hare and hounds, a noisy pack,
Or ‘Duck, duck under water’ shout, and run;
Others at hopscotch try their cautious skill,
Or nine-peg morris cut on grassy hill;
Astraddle upon clapping gates some swee,
Or tie the branches down of willow tree.
A passing-bell scarce makes a deeper sigh
Than the remembrances of days gone by.

WINTER SNOWSTORM (II)

One almost sees the hermit from the wood
Come bending with his sticks beneath his arm,
And then the smoke curl up its dusky flood
From the white little roof his peace to warm;
One shapes his books, his quiet, and his joys,
And in romances' world-forgetting mood
The scene so strange so fancy's mind employs
It seems heart-aching for his solitude:
Domestic spots near home and trod so oft,
Seen daily, known for years—by the strange wand
Of winter's humour changed; the little croft
Left green at night, when morn's loath looks obtrude,
Trees, bushes, grass, to one wild garb subdued,
Have gone and left us in another land.

ASHTON LAWN (II)

In Ashton Lawn, condemned to slow decay,
Close to the south-east nook, a ruined hill
Lies choked in thorns and briers: yet to this day
Reality may trace the castle still.
A fragment of the moat still forms a pond,
Beset with hoof-tracked paths of horse and cow,
That often go to drink; and all beyond
Greensward with little mole-hills on its brow,
And fairy-rings in its old mystery dark,
Still wears its ancient name, and shepherds call
The closen all around it still ‘Old Park,’
Still traced by buried fragments of a wall.
The castle's self will soon be nothing's heir,
Peckt up to mend old roads, old garden walls repair.

JUNE

Go where I will, naught but delight is seen;
The blue and luscious sky is one broad gleam
Of universal ecstasy; the green,
Rich, sweeping meadows and the laughing stream,
As sweet as happiness on heaven's breast,
Lie listening to the never-ceasing song
That day or night ne'er wearies into rest
But hums unceasingly the summer long.
The very grass, to music's rapture stirred,
Dances before the breeze's wanton wing,
While every bush stirs with a startled bird
Who eager wakes morn's dewy praise to sing.
Yet mid this summer glee I cannot borrow
One joy, for sadness chills them all to sorrow.

SUMMER AMUSEMENTS

I love to hide me on a spot that lies
In solitudes where footsteps find no track
To make intrusions; there to sympathize
With nature: often gazing on the rack
That veils the blueness of the summer skies
In rich varieties; or o'er the grass
Behold the spangled crowds of butterflies
Flutter from flower to flower, and things that pass
In urgent travel by my still retreat,
The bustling beetle tribes; and up the stem
Of bents see lady-cows with nimble feet
Climb tall church-steeple heights—or more to them—
Till at its quaking top they take their seat,
Which bows, and off they fly fresh happiness to meet.

FIELD FLOWERS

Hark from amid the corn that happy brawl!
'Tis village children running after flowers.
To this void bosom how the sounds recall
Memories again of childhood's merry hours;
When thro' the garden pales or o'er the wall
We reached at garden flowers with eager hands,
Or boldly sought the field flowers free for all,
Wading breast-high amid the green corn-lands
For crimson poppies and corn-bottles blue,
Startling the partridge covey unawares,
That o'er our head in wild disorder flew.
Here we, like them, were blest; life laid no snares
To rob our joys; he was a partner too.
Why did he turn a foe and fill our path with cares?

SUMMER

The woodman's axe renews its hollow stroke,
And barkmen's noises in the woods awake,
Ripping the stained bark from the fallen oak,
Where crumpled fox-fern and the branching brake
Fade 'neath their crushing feet. The timid hare
Starts from its mossy root or sedgy seat,
And listening foxes leave their startled lair
And to some blackthorn's spinney make retreat.
Haymakers with their shouldered rakes sojourn
To hedgy closes, and amid the wheat
The schoolboy runs, while pleasures thickly burn
Around his heart, to crop corn-bottle flowers,
Scaring the partridge from its quiet bourn,
That hides for shelter from the summer heat.

THE WOODLAND STILE

When one's been walking in the open plain,
Where the sun ne'er winks his eye, 'tis sweet awhile
To meet the shadows of a narrow lane
Or quiet arbour of a woodland stile,
To sit and hear the little bees complain
Among the woodbine blossoms o'er their toil,
And the hoarse murmurs of the distant swain,
Driving his horses o'er the sunburnt soil;
While shadows hide me and leaves entertain
My fancies with their freaks around my seat,
Dancing and whispering with the wooing wind
Like lovers o'er their secrets; while the heat
Glimmers without and can no passage find
To hurt the joys which rest so longed to meet.

A HARVEST MORNING

The mist hangs thick about the early field,
And many a shout is heard while naught appears
Till close upon the gaze, so thick concealed
Are things in morning's mist—mayhap her tears
For summer's sad departure. Silence hears
Brown harvest's ditties that disturb full soon
Her rest—toil's lusty brawl that daily cheers
Its ignorance of sorrow with the boon
Of pastoral tunes. Ere morn's red sun appears,
Till dreary evening's ruddy harvest moon
Hangs its red lamp to light them home again,
The little children in their harvest dress
Among the stubs of trifling ills complain.

STEPPING-STONES

Those stepping-stones, that stride the meadow-streams,
Look picturesque amid spring's golden gleams,
Where steps the traveller with a weary pace;
And boy, with laughing leisure in his face,
Sits on the midmost stone, in very whim,
To catch the struttles that beneath him swim.
Even stones across the hollow lakes are bare,
And winter floods no more rave dangers there;
But, mid the scum left where it roared and fell,
The schoolboy hunts to find the pooty shell.
Yet there the boisterous geese, with golden broods,
Hiss fierce and daring in their summer moods:
The boys pull off their hats, while passing by,
In vain to fright—themselves being forced to fly.

THE FAIRY-RINGS (I)

Here on the greensward, mid the old mole-hills,
Where ploughshares never come to hurt the things
Antiquity hath charge of, fear instils
Her footsteps, and the ancient fairy-rings
Shine black, and fresh, and round; the gipsy's fire,
Left yesternight, scarce leaves more proof behind
Of midnight sports, when they from day retire,
Than in these rings my fancy seems to find
Of fairy revels; and I stoop to see
Their little footmarks in each circling stain,
And think I hear them, in their summer glee,
Wishing for night, that they may dance again;
Till shepherds' tales, told 'neath the leaning tree
While shunning showers, seem Bible-truths to me—

THE FAIRY-RINGS (II)

Ay, almost Scripture-truths! My poorer mind
Grows into worship of these mysteries,
While fancy doth her ancient scrolls unbind
That time hath hid in countless centuries;
And when the morning's mist doth leave behind
The fuzz-ball round, and mushroom white as snow,
They strike me, to romantic moods inclined,
As shadows of things modelled long ago:
Halls, palaces, and marble-columned domes,
And modern shades of fairies' ancient homes,
Erected in these rings and pastures still,
For midnight balls and revelry; and then
Left like the ruins of all ancient skill,
To wake the wonder of mere common men.

THE FLOOD (II)

Those wrecky stains dart on the floods away
More swift than shadows on a stormy day.
Things trail and turn and steady—all in vain;
The engulfing arches shoot them quickly through;
The feather dances, flutters, and again
Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat,
Seeming as fairies whisked it from the view
And danced it o'er the waves as pleasure's boat,
Light-hearted as a merry thought in May.
Trays, uptorn bushes, fence-demolished rails,
Loaded with weeds, in sluggish motions stray;
Like water monsters lost, each winds and trails
Till near the arches—then as in affright
It plunges, reels, and shudders out of sight.

THE FLOOD (III)

Waves trough, rebound, and furious boil again,
Like plunging monsters rising underneath,
Who at the top curl up a shaggy mane,
A moment catching at a surer breath,
Then plunging headlong down and down and on,
Each following boil the shadow of the last;
And other monsters rise when those are gone,
Crest their fringed waves, plunge onward, and are past.
The chill air comes around me ocean-blea,
From bank to bank the water-strife is spread;
Strange birds like snow-spots o'er the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled.
On roars the flood, all restless to be free,
Like troubles wandering to eternity.

SHEPHERD'S HUT (II)

Those rude old tales!—man's memory augurs ill
Thus to forget the fragments of old days,
Those long old songs; their sweetness haunts me still,
Nor did they perish for my lack of praise.
But old disciples of the pasture sward,
Rude chroniclers of ancient minstrelsy,
The shepherds, vanished all; and disregard
Left their old music, like a vagrant bee,
For summer's breeze to murmur o'er and die.
And in these ancient spots mind, ear, and eye
Turn listeners, till the very wind prolongs
The theme, as wishing, in its depths of joy,
To recollect the music of old songs,
And meet the hut that blessed me when a boy.

A WOODLAND SEAT (II)

Observe the flowers around us, how they live
Not only for themselves, as we may feel,
But for the joy which they to others give;
For Nature never will her gifts conceal
From those who love to seek them. Here amid
These trees, how many blooms disclose their pride,
From the unthinking rustic only hid,
Who never turns him from the road aside
To look for beauties which he values not.
It gives one greater zest to feel the joys
We meet in this sweet solemn-suited spot;
And with high ecstasy one's mind employs
To bear the worst that fickle life prepares,
Finding her sweets as common as her cares.

A WOODLAND SEAT (III)

In every trifle something lives to please
Or to instruct us. Every weed and flower
Heirs beauty as a birthright, by degrees
Of more or less; though taste alone hath power
To see and value what the herd pass by.
This common dandelion—mark how fine
Its hue!—the shadow of the day's proud eye
Glows not more rich of gold: that nettle there,
Trod down by careless rustics every hour—
Search but its slighted blooms, kings cannot wear
Robes prankt with half the splendour of a flower,
Pencilled with hues of workmanship divine,
Bestowed to simple things, denied to power,
And sent to gladden hearts as mean as mine.

SWORDY WELL

I've loved thee, Swordy Well, and love thee still.
Long was I with thee, tending sheep and cow,
In boyhood ramping up each steepy hill
To play at ‘roly-poly’ down; and now,
A man, I trifle on thee, cares to kill,
Haunting thy mossy steeps to botanize
And hunt the orchis tribes, where nature's skill
Doth, like my thoughts, run into phantasies,
Spider and bee all mimicking at will,
Displaying powers that fool the proudly wise,
Showing the wonders of great nature's plan
In trifles insignificant and small,
Puzzling the power of that great trifle, man,
Who finds no reason to be proud at all.

MARCH

The insect world, now sunbeams higher climb,
Oft dream of spring, and wake before their time:
Bees stroke their little legs across their wings,
And venture short flights where the snowdrop hings
Its silver bell, and winter aconite
Its buttercup-like flowers that shut at night,
With green leaf furling round its cup of gold,
Like tender maiden muffled from the cold;
They sip and find their honey-dreams are vain,
Then feebly hasten to their hives again.
The butterflies, by eager hopes undone,
Glad as a child come out to greet the sun,
Beneath the shadows of a sunny shower
Are lost, nor see to-morrow's April flower.

ADIEU TO MY FALSE LOVE FOR EVER

A FAITHLESS SHEPHERD

O SILLY LOVE! O CUNNING LOVE!

NOBODY COMETH TO WOO

FARE-THEE-WELL

MARY NEELE

LOVE SCORNED BY PRIDE

BETRAYED

THE MAIDEN'S WELCOME

THE FALSE KNIGHT'S TRAGEDY

LOVE'S RIDDLE

THE BANKS OF IVORY

THE MAID OF OCRAM:

or, LORD GREGORY

THE LOST MAID

THE MOTHER'S LULLABY

A MAID'S TRAGEDY

THE TRIUMPHS OF TIME.

THE HEART THAT'S SMIT

MAN'S VANITY AND LIFE

VERSES ON LIFE

SONG

[I dreamed of love and thought it sweet]

SONG

[Whence comes this coldness, prithee say!]

THE LOVER'S SONG

THE WORLD'S END

THE BLACKCAP

THE MISSEL-THRUSH'S NEST

In early March, before the lark
Dare start, beside the huge oak tree,
Close fixed agen the powdered bark,
The mavis' nest I often see;
And mark, as wont, the bits of wool
Hang round about its early bed;
She lays six eggs in colours dull,
Blotched thick with spots of burning red.

KINGFISHERS

THE SPIDER-CATCHER

THE LANDRAIL (II)

THE REDCAP

THE WILLOW-BITER

THE LARK'S NEST

THE SWALLOW'S NEST

THE MOOR-HEN'S NEST

I in my summer rambles love to see
A flood-washed bank support an aged tree,
Whose roots are bare; yet some with foothold good
Crankle and spread and strike beneath the flood;
Yet still it leans as safer hold to win
On t'other side, and seems as tumbling in.
Yet every summer finds it green and gay
And winter leaves it safe as did the May;
Nor does the moor-hen find its safety vain,
For on its roots their last year's homes remain;
And once again a couple from the brood
Seek their old birthplace, and in safety's mood
Build up their flags and lay; though danger comes,
It dares and tries and cannot reach their homes;
And still they hatch their eggs and sweetly dream
On their shelfed nest hung just to touch the stream;
And soon their sooty brood from fear elope
Where bulrush forests give them sweeter hope;
Their hanging nest that aids their wishes well
Each leaves for water as it leaves the shell;
They dive and dare and every gambol try
Till they themselves to other scenes can fly.

THE FIRETAIL

THE GREEN WOODPECKER AND THE WRYNECK

THE FERN-OWL

THE CHIFF-CHAFF

LONE HAPPINESS

THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS

The crow goes flopping on from wood to wood,
The wild duck wherries to the distant flood,
The starnels hurry o'er in merry crowds,
And overhead whew by like hasty clouds;
The wild duck from the meadow-water plies
And dashes up the water as he flies;
The pigeon suthers by on rapid wing,
The lark mounts upward at the call of spring.
In easy flights above the hurricane
With doubled neck high sails the noisy crane.
Whizz goes the pewit o'er the ploughman's team,
With many a whew and whirl and sudden scream;
And lightly fluttering to the tree just by,
In chattering journeys whirls the noisy pie;
From bush to bush slow swees the screaming jay,
With one harsh note of pleasure all the day.

THE WOODLARK (II)

Yet chance will sometimes prove a faithless guest,
Leading some wanderer by her haunts to roam;
And startled by the rustle, from her nest
She flutters out and so betrays her home;
Yet it is seldom accident can meet
With her weed-hidden and surrounded nest;
I've often wondered, when agen my feet
She fluttered up and fanned the anemone
That blossomed round in crowds, how birds could be
So wise to find such hidden homes again;
And this in sooth oft puzzled me—they go
Far off and then return; but nature's plain—
She giveth what sufficeth them to know
That they of comfort can their share retain.

ON SEEING TWO SWALLOWS LATE IN OCTOBER (II)

But, little lingerers, old esteem detains
Ye haply thus to brave the chilly air
When skies grow dull with winter's heavy rains
And all the orchard trees are nearly bare;
Yet the old chimneys still are peeping there
Above the russet thatch where summer's tide
Of sunny joys gave you such social fare
As makes you haply wishing to abide
In your old dwelling through the changing year.
I wish ye well to find a dwelling here,
For in the unsocial weather ye would fling
Gleanings of comfort through the winter wide,
Twittering as wont above the old fireside,
And cheat the surly winter into spring.

THE BUMBARREL'S NEST

The oddling bush, close sheltered hedge new plashed,
Of which spring's early liking makes a guest
First with a shade of green though winter-dashed—
There, full as soon, bumbarrels make a nest
Of mosses grey with cobwebs closely tied,
And warm and rich as feather-bed within,
With little hole on its contrary side
That pathway peepers may no knowledge win
Of what her little oval nest contains—
Ten eggs and often twelve, with dusts of red
Soft frittered; and full soon the little lanes
Screen the young crowd and hear the twitting song
Of the old birds who call them to be fed,
While down the hedge they hang and hide along.

THE FLITTING

BOYHOOD PLEASURES

APPROACHING NIGHT

Oh, take this world away from me!
Its strife I cannot bear to see,
Its very praises hurt me more
Than e'en its coldness did before,
Its hollow ways torment me now
And start a cold sweat on my brow,
Its noise I cannot bear to hear,
Its joy is trouble to my ear,
Its ways I cannot bear to see,
Its crowds are solitudes to me.
Oh, how I long to be agen
That poor and independent man,
With labour's lot from morn to night
And books to read at candle-light;
That followed labour in the field
From light to dark when toil could yield
Real happiness with little gain,
Rich thoughtless health unknown to pain:
Though leaning on my spade to rest,
I've thought how richer folks were blest
And knew not quiet was the best.

AUTUMN MORNING

THE SECRET

IDLE FAME

SONG'S ETERNITY

‘STILL UNCHANGEABLE’

WITH GARMENTS FLOWING

BEAUTY

AFTER-FAME

DISTANT HILLS

THE STRANGER

THE OLD COTTAGERS

COUNTRY LETTER

Dear brother Robin, this comes from us all
With our kind love, and could Gip write and all
Though but a dog he'd have his love to spare,
For still he knows, and by your corner chair
The moment he comes in he lies him down
And seems to fancy you are in the town.
This leaves us well in health, thank God for that!
For old acquaintance Sue has kept your hat
Which mother brushes ere she lays it by
And every Sunday goes upstairs to cry.
Jane still is yours till you come back agen
And ne'er so much as dances with the men;
And Ned the woodman every week comes in
And asks about you kindly as our kin;
And he with this and goody Thompson sends
Remembrances with those of all our friends.
Father with us sends love until he hears
And mother she has nothing but her tears,
Yet wishes you like us in health the same
And longs to see a letter with your name,
So, loving brother, don't forget to write.
Old Gip lies on the hearth stone every night;
Mother can't bear to turn him out of doors
And never noises now of dirty floors;
Father will laugh but lets her have her way,
And Gip for kindness get a double pay.
So Robin write and let us quickly see
You don't forget old friends no more than we,
Nor let my mother have so much to blame
To go three journeys ere your letter came.

THE FENS

SPEAR-THISTLE

THE DESTROYER

In suns and showers luxuriant May came forth
And spread her riches as of nothing worth,
Cowslips and daisies, buttercups and crowds
Without a name as if they dropt from clouds,
On green and close and meadow everywhere,
So thick, the green did almost disappear
To gold and silver hues, and blooms did vie
With the rich grass' luxuriant mastery.
The simple shepherd in his early hour
With almost every footstep crushed a flower.
The winds did all they could, though oft in vain,
To raise and form them on their stalks again,
Yet some were crushed so much they could not rise,
Finding in poet's heart a room for sighs.
And those his dog beat down did hardly mind
But formed again as happy as the wind,
Leaving a lesson sad with every day
That harm falls most in man's destroying way:
And who could think in such a lovely time
And such a spot, where quiet seemed in prime,
As ne'er to be disturbed, that strife and fear
Like crouching tigers had howled havoc here?

THE EARLY DAISY

VIOLET AND DAISY

A FIRESIDE SKETCH

HARVEST RHYME

ON A JOURNEY: FRAGMENT

THE GREENWOOD SIDE

ROUND OAK AND EASTWELL

In my own native field two fountains run
All desolate and naked to the sun;
The fell destroyer's hand hath reft their side
Of every tree that hid and beautified
Their shallow waters in delightful clumps,
That sunburnt now o'er pebbles skips and jumps.
One where stone quarries in its hills are broke
Still keeps its ancient pastoral name, Round Oak,
Although one little solitary tree
Is all that's left of its old pedigree;
The other, more deformed, creeps down the dell,
Scarcely the shade of what was once Eastwell,
While the elm-groves that groaned beneath no tax
Have paid their tribute to the lawless axe,
And the old rooks that waited other springs
Have fled to stranger scenes on startled wings.
The place all lonely and all naked lies,
And Eastwell spring in change's symphonies
Boils up its sand unnoticed and alone,
To all its former happiness unknown,
Its glory gone, its Sunday pastimes o'er,
The haunts of shepherds and of maids no more.
The passer-by unheeding tramples on
Nor heeds the spring, nor trees nor bushes gone,
While the stray poet's memory haunts the spot
Like a friend's features time hath nigh forgot.

WINTER IN THE FENS

So moping flat and low our valleys lie,
So dull and muggy is our winter sky,
Drizzling from day to day with threats of rain,
And when that falls still threatening on again;
From one wet week so great an ocean flows
That every village to an island grows,
And every road for even weeks to come
Is stopt, and none but horsemen go from home;
And one wet night leaves travel's best in doubt,
And horseback travellers ask if floods are out
Of every passer-by, and with their horse
The meadow's ocean try in vain to cross;
The horse's footings with a sucking sound
Fill up with water on the firmest ground,
And ruts that dribble into brooks elsewhere
Can find no fall or flat to dribble here;
But filled with wet they brim and overflow
Till hollows in the road to rivers grow;
Then wind with sudden rage, abrupt and blea,
Twirls every lingering leaf from off each tree.
Such is our lowland scene that winter gives,
And strangers wonder where our comfort lives;
Yet in a little close, however keen
The winter comes, I find a patch of green,
Where robins, by the miser winter made
Domestic, flirt and perch upon the spade;
And in a little garden-close at home
I watch for spring—and there's the crocus come!

MORNING SHOWERS

CLOUD SHAPES

THE MEADOW LAKE

I've often gazed with pleasure by the edge
Of the old meadow lake, floodwashed and crook'd,
The water-rat slow rustling in the sedge,
The fish-ring wavering in the clear; I've looked
In rapture on the mellow summer shine
Of the still water gleaming in the sun,
Just wrinkled by the plash of quiet kine
Who knee-deep in the flags would drink—and done,
Back to their feed on the shorn sward again;
The flags, the bulrush, and the barbèd leaf
Of water-weed, bethread with lighter vein,
And water-lily giving flies relief,
Who float half drowsy to its sheltering bay—
These lie close on the water and still dry:
If dropples plash upon them from the spring
Of playful fish, they scarce a moment lie
But roll like water from the moor-hen's wing,
Its oily green still sunny as before.
Thus musing on the brink, a startled fright
Comes with a sudden plunge from t'other side,
And flags and rush in quick disorder start
When, instant, musing shepherd is descried,
Whose dog ran forward with a gladsome heart
To hunt the water-rat and scared moor-hen
Who dives and flounders and then dives agen;
Till weary quite, once more he seeks the side,
And shakes the water from his dripping hide,
And rolls upon the grass and dances round
The shepherd as he soodles round the ground.

FRAGMENTS

MYSTERY

There is a vague oblivion, dark and vast
As is the future, fruitless as the past
To fathom and unravel to the end,
Of great adventure's darings. Books are penned
Mere guesses into truth, and at the last
Mere guesses only, going where they came
To that exhaustless blank that swallows all
With shadows and with darkness overcast.
There mystery lives indefinite and grand,
Wed to a million fames: Perouse and all
His gallant navigators left the land
For earth's remotest depths, and where they fell
Discovery's courage ne'er can understand,
Nor rumour's thousand trumpets ever tell.

PLEASURES OF POESY

To me hath poesy been a recompense
And pleasure not to be described but by
The inward thought; words cannot tell from whence
The feelings that the still heart profits by
In brooding moods where fancy loves to lie
Afar from all ambitions but her own,
Picturing strange landscapes of delight and joy,
Beauty's delightful places, where the eye
Sees things more fair than earth hath ever known,
Where the great masters of the past inherit
Green memories and glad visions that atone
For all the troubles and disquietude
That spurning fortune leaveth with their merit,
Marring their lives with tempests ever rude.

SUNSET VISIONS

The sunset even of a winter's day
Leaves beauties every time it goes away,
And in the west most gloriously weaves
A world of visions, every time it leaves.
Oh, when life's voyage in these storms is done,
For such a city clothed in such a sun!
For I have gazed, when day and toil were by,
And saw such splendid places in the sky,
Such cities, palaces, and golden hills,
And seas that calmest happiness instils,
And felt that surely fancy could not so
Impose upon the mind with every glow
That truth or fiction could invent or see,
Seeming as rich, and yet as nothing be.
No, something cometh to the gazing mind,
And when the colours fade, bright hope remains behind.

PASTORAL LIBERTY

Oh, for the unshackled mood as free as air,
And pleasure wild as birds upon the wing,
The unwronged impulse won from seasons fair
Like birds' perennial travels with the spring!
Come, peace and joy, the unworn path to trace,
Crossing ling-heaths and hazel-crowded glen,
Where health salutes me with its ruddy face
And joy breathes freely from the strife of men.
Oh, lead me anywhere but in the crowd!
On some lone island rather would I be
Than in the world, worn knowledge noising loud,
Wealth gathering up and losing; leave with me
Calm joy and humble hope from quiet won,
To live in peace unhurt and hurting none.

THE CLUMP OF FERN

Here underneath the stile's moss-covered post
A little bunch of fern doth thrive and spring,
Hid from the noisy wind and coming frost
Like late-reared young 'neath the wood-pigeon's wing.
I've seen beneath the furze-bush clumps of ling,
So beautiful in pinky knots of bloom,
That made the inmost heart's emotions breathe
A favourite love for the unsocial heath,
That gives man no inviting hopes to come
To fix his dwelling and disturb the scene.
So, in my loneliness of mood, this green
Large clump of crimpled fern-leaves doth bequeath
Like feelings; and wherever wanderers roam
Some little scrap of happiness is seen.

HEREAFTER

The past we know; but hope can find no rest
In what is gone; time's flood is rolling there;
And childhood's play, green memories once so blest,
And youth's love-bowers so ignorant of care
Are overwhelmed in waters of despair.
Hope's dreary visits there can find no rest,
But turn again to this sad heart to sigh.
The past is o'er, the present is distress;
Hope sickens in the storms that pass not by,
While deep as darkness fate's hid mysteries lie,
Whose very shadows seem to startle fear,
And shrinks from knowledge that approaches nigh,
The knowledge where futurity sojourns,
Where every traveller goes and none returns.

LABOUR'S LEISURE

Oh, for the feelings and the careless health
That found me toiling in the fields, the joy
I felt at eve with not a wish for wealth,
When, labour done and in the hedge put by
My delving spade, I homeward used to hie
With thoughts of books I often read by stealth
Beneath the blackthorn clumps at dinner-hour;
It urged my weary feet with eager speed
To hasten home where winter fire did shower
Scant light, now felt as beautiful indeed
Where bending o'er my knees I used to read
With earnest heed all books that had the power
To give me joy in most delicious ways
And rest my spirits after weary days.

THE MUSIC OF NATURE

Children-like insects dancing in the sun;
Bees like the busy crowds in labour's power;
Rainfalls shed music in the drops that run
Out from the brimful spring and wet each flower,
Bending its features downward, like a nun
Musing upon her shadow, by the light
That makes the surface glass-like and conveys
Reflection; dimpling streams give music bright
To hushing showers, as echoes of sweet praise
And instances of thought in wisdom's ways;
The great Orion and the Pleiades
Pervade the spheres and thrones celestial crowned,
And all ascensive nature, by degrees,
Is omnipresent with melodious sound.

YOUNG LAMBS

The spring is coming by a many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two—till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead—and lets me go
Close by and never stirs, but beaking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.

EARLY NIGHTINGALE

When first we hear the shy-come nightingales,
They seem to mutter o'er their songs in fear,
And, climb we e'er so soft the spinney rails,
All stops as if no bird was anywhere.
The kindled bushes with the young leaves thin
Let curious eyes to search a long way in,
Until impatience cannot see or hear
The hidden music; gets but little way
Upon the path—when up the songs begin,
Full loud a moment and then low again.
But when a day or two confirms her stay
Boldly she sings and loud for half the day;
And soon the village brings the woodman's tale
Of having heard the new-come nightingale.

WINTER WALK

The holly bush, a sober lump of green,
Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey,
And smiles at winter, be it e'er so keen,
With all the leafy luxury of May.
And oh, it is delicious, when the day
In winter's loaded garment keenly blows
And turns her back on sudden falling snows,
To go where gravel pathways creep between
Arches of evergreen that scarce let through
A single feather of the driving storm;
And in the bitterest day that ever blew
The walk will find some places still and warm
Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm
To little birds that flirt and start away.

THE SOLDIER

Home furthest off grows dearer from the way;
And when the army in the Indias lay
Friends' letters coming from his native place
Were like old neighbours with their country face.
And every opportunity that came
Opened the sheet to gaze upon the name
Of that loved village where he left his sheep
For more contented peaceful folk to keep;
And friendly faces absent many a year
Would from such letters in his mind appear.
And when his pockets, chafing through the case,
Wore it quite out ere others took the place,
Right loath to be of company bereft
He kept the fragments while a bit was left.

PLOUGHMAN SINGING

Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,
And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her by.
Woke early, I arose and thought that first
In winter-time of all the world was I.
The old owls might have hallooed if they durst,
But joy just then was up and whistled by
A merry tune which I had known full long,
But could not to my memory wake it back,
Until the ploughman changed it to the song.
O happiness, how simple is thy track!
—Tinged like the willow shoots, the east's young brow
Glows red and finds thee singing at the plough.

SPRING'S MESSENGERS

Where slanting banks are always with the sun
The daisy is in blossom even now;
And where warm patches by the hedges run
The cottager when coming home from plough
Brings home a cowslip root in flower to set.
Thus ere the Christmas goes the spring is met
Setting up little tents about the fields
In sheltered spots.—Primroses, when they get
Behind the wood's old roots, where ivy shields
Their crimpled, curdled leaves, will shine and hide.
—Cart-ruts and horses' footings scarcely yield
A slur for boys, just crizzled and that's all.
Frost shoots his needles by the small dyke side,
And snow in scarce a feather's seen to fall.

LETTER IN VERSE

Like boys that run behind the loaded wain
For the mere joy of riding back again,
When summer from the meadow carts the hay
And school hours leave them half a day to play;
So I with leisure on three sides a sheet
Of foolscap dance with poesy's measured feet,
Just to ride post upon the wings of time
And kill a care, to friendship turned in rhyme.
The muse's gallop hurries me in sport
With much to read and little to divert,
And I, amused, with less of wit than will,
Run till I tire.—And so to cheat her still,
Like children running races who shall be
First in to touch the orchard wall or tree,
The last half-way behind, by distance vext,
Turns short, determined to be first the next;
So now the muse has run me hard and long—
I'll leave at once her races and her song;
And turning round, laugh at the letter's close
And beat her out by ending it in prose.

SNOWSTORM (I)

What a night! The wind howls, hisses, and but stops
To howl more loud, while the snow volley keeps
Incessant batter at the window-pane,
Making our comforts feel as sweet again;
And in the morning, when the tempest drops,
At every cottage door mountainous heaps
Of snow lie drifted, that all entrance stops
Until the besom and the shovel gain
The path, and leave a wall on either side.
The shepherd, rambling valleys white and wide,
With new sensations his old memory fills,
When hedges left at night, no more descried,
Are turned to one white sweep of curving hills,
And trees turned bushes half their bodies hide.

SNOWSTORM (II)

The boy that goes to fodder with surprise
Walks o'er the gate he opened yesternight.
The hedges all have vanished from his eyes;
E'en some tree-tops the sheep could reach to bite.
The novel scene engenders new delight,
And, though with cautious steps his sports begin,
He bolder shuffles the huge hills of snow,
Till down he drops and plunges to the chin,
And struggles much and oft escape to win—
Then turns and laughs but dare not further go;
For deep the grass and bushes lie below,
Where little birds that soon at eve went in
With heads tucked in their wings now pine for day
And little feel boys o'er their heads can stray.

SIGNS OF WINTER

The cat runs races with her tail. The dog
Leaps o'er the orchard hedge and knarls the grass.
The swine run round and grunt and play with straw,
Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack.
Sudden upon the elm-tree tops the crow
Unceremonious visit pays and croaks,
Then swops away. From mossy barn the owl
Bobs hasty out—wheels round and, scared as soon,
As hastily retires. The ducks grow wild
And from the muddy pond fly up and wheel
A circle round the village and soon, tired,
Plunge in the pond again. The maids in haste
Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizzled clothes
And laughing hurry in to keep them dry.

SUNRISE IN SUMMER

The summer's morning sun creeps up the blue
O'er the flat meadows' most remotest view:
A bit at first peeps from the splendid ball,
Then more, and more, until we see it all.
And then so ruddy and so cool it lies,
The gazer views it with unwatering eyes,
And cattle opposite its kindly shine
Seem something feeding in a land divine:
Ruddy at first, yet ere a minute's told
Its burning red keeps glowing into gold,
And o'er the fenny level richly flows,
Till seeded dock in shade a giant grows;
Then blazing bright with undefinèd day
He turns the morning's earnest gaze away.

THE HERONRY

Within a pleasant lawn where pleasure strays
And I with friendship found her many days,
Where summer comes in haste and leaves but slow
And seems from such a place as loath to go,
Where gravel walks creep under evergreens
And lawns embosomed open lovely scenes,
There on the fish-pond one small island lies
Where a tall clump of firdales meet the eyes;
And when the spring with joy the earth invests
Each tree-top seems as bending down with nests;
For there a troop of heronshaws repair
And yearly pile a stack of dwellings there,
Crank on the trees and on their branches stand,
And the whole scene seems changed to foreign land.

OLD DYKES

I often wander by the ancient dykes,
Flood-washed into unnumbered crooks and turns,
Where many an antique tree my fancy strikes
That as an ancient privilege sojourns
Upon its banks: some wasted to a shell
Where oft from sudden showers path-passers hide;
Some twisted various ways as like to drop,
And some half tumbled down—yet ere they fell
Grew steadfast—where the shepherd climbs at top
To shorten steps and jump on t'other side;
Some with their trunks into the water lean,
Then crooking like a bow turn up and throw
A spreading bower of rich luxurious green
Over the angler's head who sits below.

SHOWERS

The fitful weather changes every hour,
And many a footstep hurries from the shower;
The men at plough, the shepherd on the lea,
Look up and scamper to the nearest tree;
The ditcher, ere the last shower's hardly gone,
Runs to the bush and puts his jacket on,
And in escaping haste is often seen
To where the ash hangs o'er the thistly green,
An hollow dotterel wasted to a shell,
Large as a little hut and known as well
To all the outdoor tenants in the fields,
That from the heaviest tempest shelter yields;
Here two or three were met to shun the rain
That slowly cleared and faster fell again.

WINTER FIELDS

Oh, for a pleasant book to cheat the sway
Of winter—where rich mirth with hearty laugh
Listens and rubs his legs on corner seat;
For fields are mire and sludge—and badly off
Are those who on their pudgy paths delay;
There striding shepherd, seeking driest way,
Fearing night's wetshod feet and hacking cough
That keeps him waken till the peep of day,
Goes shouldering onward and with ready hook
Progs oft to ford the sloughs that nearly meet
Across the lands; croodling and thin to view,
His loath dog follows—stops and quakes and looks
For better roads, till whistled to pursue;
Then on with frequent jump he hurkles through.

RIVER SCENE

Now came the river sweeping round the nooks,
By thirsty summer's pilgrimage subdued;
Dark and yet clear the glassy water looks,
As slow and easy in majestic mood
It sweeps along by osier-crowded glen
Until it seems an almost naked flood
Along the flats of the unwooded fen;
Yet even there prolific summer dwells
And garnishes its sides in vivid green
Of flags and reeds, the otter's pathless den.
Now lane without a guidepost plainly tells
The homeward path, while from a stile is seen
The open church tower and its little bells
And chimneys low where peaceful quiet dwells.

FOOTPATHS (II)

Now tracking fields where passenger appears
As wading to his waist in crowding grain,
Wherever as we pass the bending ears
Pat at our sides and gain their place again;
Then crooked stile, with little steps that aid
The climbing, meets us; and the pleasant grass
And hedgerows old with arbours ready made
For weariness to rest in pleasant shade
Surround us; and with ecstasy we pass
Wild flower and insect tribes that ever mate
With joy and dance from every step we take
In numberless confusion; all employ
Their little aims for peace and pleasure's sake,
And every summer's footpath leads to joy.

FOOTPATHS (III)

Now sudden as a pleasure unawares
A wooden plank strides o'er a little brook,
That unto thirst the sweetest boon prepares,
Paved o'er with pebbles to the very brink;
And so invitingly its waters look,
Though not athirst, it urges us to drink;
Then comes a sloping hill, and what's beyond?
We stray to look and find a little pond,
Where dotterel trees bend as if falling in,
And sallow bushes, of their station fond,
Stretch from each side and welcome meeting win,
Where snug the hermit moor-hen loves to lie,
Who from the passing footstep plunges in
And from his old haunt seldom dares to fly.

FOOTPATHS (IV)

Now, almost hid in trees, a little gate
Cheats us into the darkness of the wood;
We almost think the day is wearing late,
So dreamy is the light that dwells around;
And so refreshing is its sombre mood,
We feel at once, shut out from sun and sky,
All the deliciousness of solitude,
While sauntering noiseless o'er the leafy ground;
The air we breathe seems void of every trace
Of earth and all its trouble, and the mind
Yearns for a dwelling in so sweet a place,
From trouble's noise, such stillness seemeth by;
But soon the ride brings some unwelcome spire
To bid the charm of solitude retire.

FOOTPATHS (V)

Yet still the little path winds on and on
Down hedgerow sides and many a pastoral charm;
We soon forget the charm of poesy gone
In the still woodland with its silent balm,
And find some other joy to dream upon:
A distant notice of some nestling farm,
Crowded with russet stacks that peep between
Huge homestead elms or orchard's squatting trees,
Where apples shine sun-tanned and mellow green,
Home comforts for dull winter reveries,
When the long evening claimeth news and friends;
Calm pleasures thus home-nearing fancy sees,
That maketh banished fancies full amends
As the crook'd footpath at the village ends.

EARLY IMAGES (II)

And mark the nimble swallow jerk and fling
Its flight o'er new-mown meadows happily,
And cuckoo, quivering upon narrow wing,
Take sudden flitting from the neighbouring tree,
And heron, stalking solitary thing,
Mount up into high travel far away,
And that mild indecision hanging round
Skies holding bland communion with the ground
In gentlest pictures of the infant day,
Now picturing rain—while many a pleasing sound
Grows mellower, distant in the mealy grey
Of dewy pastures, and full many a sight
Looms sweeter in its indistinct array
Than when it glows in morning's stronger light.

PEACEFUL SCENES

Ay, there's a wholesome feeling out of doors
That nourishes the heart with happy themes;
The very cattle on the flaggy moors
To the mind's eye a pleasant picture seems,
And occupations of home husbandry,
Some with the plough, some singing by the side
Of the slow wagon; and when these I see,
They give such blameless pictures void of strife,
Such sweet employments 'neath a smiling sky,
I even feel that better lot of life,
That in such spots calm providence is by,
And sweet domestic peace, whose quiet eye
Feels most delight in its own humble home
And checks the restless mood that often longs to roam.

FIR-WOOD

The fir-trees taper into twigs and wear
The rich blue-green of summer all the year,
Softening the roughest tempest almost calm
And offering shelter ever still and warm
To the small path that travels underneath,
Where loudest winds—almost as summer's breath—
Scarce fan the weed that lingers green below
When others out of doors are lost in snow.
And sweet the music trembles on the ear
As the wind suthers through each tiny spear,
Makeshifts for leaves; and yet, so rich they show,
Winter is almost summer where they grow.

FIELD PATH

The beans in blossom with their spots of jet
Smelt sweet as gardens wheresoever met;
The level meadow grass was in the swath;
The hedge-brier rose hung right across the path,
White over with its flowers; the grass that lay
Bleaching beneath the twittering heat to hay
Smelt so deliciously, the puzzled bee
Went wondering where the honey sweets could be;
And passer-by along the level rows
Stoopt down and whipt a bit beneath his nose.

THE OLD MAN

The stranger, striding down the paths of spring,
Will turn half round a stooping man to see,
And wonder why a man so old should sing
Humming along as bums the bumble-bee;
For though so old, a merry man is he,
And where he goes right merry is the way;
You hear him ere you see him down the grain,
As sings the skylark at the peep of day,
Or trudging on the narrow crooked lane.

GRASSHOPPERS

Grasshoppers go in many a thrumming spring
And now to stalks of tasselled sour-grass cling,
That shakes and swees awhile, but still keeps straight;
While arching oxeye doubles with his weight.
Next on the cat-tail grass with farther bound
He springs, that bends until they touch the ground.

BADGER

THE FOX

THE VIXEN

Among the taller wood with ivy hung,
The old fox plays and dances round her young.
She snuffs and barks if any passes by
And swings her tail and turns prepared to fly.
The horseman hurries by, she bolts to see,
And turns agen, from danger never free.
If any stands she runs among the poles
And barks and snaps and drives them in the holes.
The shepherd sees them and the boy goes by
And gets a stick and progs the hole to try.
They get all still and lie in safety sure,
And out again when everything's secure,
And start and snap at blackbirds bouncing by
To fight and catch the great white butterfly.

TURKEYS

The turkeys wade the close to catch the bees
In the old border full of maple trees,
And often lay away and breed and come
And bring a brood of chelping chickens home.
The turkey gobbles loud and drops his rag
And struts and sprunts his tail and then lets drag
His wing on ground and makes a huzzing noise,
Nauntles at passer-by and drives the boys
And bounces up and flies at passer-by.
The old dog snaps and grins, nor ventures nigh.
He gobbles loud and drives the boys from play;
They throw their sticks and kick and run away.

MARTEN

THE SQUIRREL'S NEST

One day, when all the woods were bare and blea,
I wandered out to take a pleasant walk
And saw a strange-formed nest on stoven tree
Where startled pigeon buzzed from bouncing hawk.
I wondered strangely what the nest could be
And thought besure it was some foreign bird,
So up I scrambled in the highest glee,
And my heart jumped at every thing that stirred.
'Twas oval shaped; strange wonder filled my breast;
I hoped to catch the old one on her nest
When something bolted out—I turned to see—
And a brown squirrel pattered up the tree.
'Twas lined with moss and leaves, compact and strong;
I sluthered down and wondering went along.

THE HEDGEHOG

The hedgehog hides beneath the rotten hedge
And makes a great round nest of grass and sedge,
Or in a bush or in a hollow tree;
And many often stoop and say they see
Him roll and fill his prickles full of crabs
And creep away; and where the magpie dabs
His wing at muddy dyke, in aged root
He makes a nest and fills it full of fruit,
On the hedge bottom hunts for crabs and sloes
And whistles like a cricket as he goes.
It rolls up like a ball or shapeless hog
When gipsies hunt it with their noisy dog;
I've seen it in their camps—they call it sweet,
Though black and bitter and unsavoury meat.

YOUNG RABBITS

The idle boys the Sunday never heed
And go to places where the rabbits breed;
Where'er the moulds are fresh they try and stay
And clap the dog to scrat the moulds away;
He scrats and looks and barks and snuffs to find
The sleepy young ones lapt in down and blind.
They put them in again and look for more
And lap them up as quiet as before.
When any comes they skulk behind the tree.
The gipsy joins them in his rags and glee
And digs the holes out with a rotten stake
And thrusts his hand and never cares for snake.
The dog, that follows all that passes by,
He ties him to his hand and makes him lie.

BIRDS IN ALARM

DYKE SIDE

The frog croaks loud, and maidens dare not pass
But fear the noisome toad and shun the grass;
And on the sunny banks they dare not go
Where hissing snakes run to the flood below.
The nuthatch noises loud in wood and wild,
Like women turning skreeking to a child.
The schoolboy hears and brushes through the trees
And runs about till drabbled to the knees.
The old hawk winnows round the old crow's nest;
The schoolboy hears and wonder fills his breast.
He throws his basket down to climb the tree
And wonders what the red-blotched eggs can be:
The green woodpecker bounces from the view
And hollos, as he buzzes by, ‘kew kew.’

QUAIL'S NEST

AUTUMN BIRDS

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,
And heron slow as if it might be caught;
The flopping crows on weary wing go by,
And greybeard jackdaws, noising as they fly;
The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by
And darken like a cloud the evening sky;
The larks like thunder rise and suther round,
Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground;
The wild swan hurries high and noises loud,
With white necks peering to the evening cloud.
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone;
With length of tail the magpie winnows on
To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow,
While small birds nestle in the hedge below.

BLACKBIRD'S NEST

The cloudy morning brought a pleasant day,
And soon the busy mist was all away,
When first I wandered out and chanced to see
A woodbine twining round a stoven tree,
That ventured up and formed a bush at top
And bended leaning till it met a prop,
And overhung with leaves so thick a shade
You couldn't see the nest the blackbird made,
Who fluttered o'er my head as if from boys;
And soon her partner answered to the noise.
The path went closely by, but seldom prest
By passer-by, who never saw the nest;
The old birds sat and sung in safety sure,
And the young brood, pin-feathered, lay secure.

THE PARTRIDGE

One day across the fields I chanced to pass.
Where chickens chelped and scuttled in the grass;
And as I looked about to find the seat,
A wounded partridge dropped agen my feet.
She fluttered round and calling as she lay;
The chickens chelped and fluttered all away.
I stooped to pick her up, when up she drew
Her wounded wing and cackled as she flew.
I wondered much to hear the chickens lie
As still as nothing as I wandered by;
And soon she came agen with much ado
And swept the grass and called them as she flew;
But still they kept their seat and left no trace
And old cows snorted when they passed the place.

CROWS IN SPRING

THE NUTHATCH

In summer showers a skreeking noise is heard,
Deep in the woods, of some uncommon bird;
It makes a loud and long-continued noise
And often stops the speed of men and boys.
They think somebody mocks and goes along,
And never think the nuthatch makes the song,
Who always comes along, the summer's guest;
But bird-nest hunters never found the nest.
The schoolboy hears the noise from day to day,
And stoops among the thorns to find a way,
And starts the jay-bird from the bushes green;
He looks, and sees a nest he's never seen,
And bears the spotted eggs with many joys,
And thinks he's found the bird that made the noise.

THE GROUNDLARK

WILD DUCK'S NEST

As boys were playing in their school's dislike
And floating paper boats along the dyke,
They laid their baskets down a nest to see
And found a small hole in a hollow tree;
When one looked in, and wonder filled his breast,
And hallooed out, ‘A wild duck on her nest.’
They doubted, and the boldest went before,
And the duck bolted when they waded o'er
And suthered up and flew against the wind
And left the boys and wondering thoughts behind.
The eggs lay hid in down and lightly prest,
They counted more than thirty in the nest.
They filled their hats with eggs and waded o'er
And left the nest as quiet as before.

THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER

I cannot know what country owns thee now,
With France's fairest lilies on thy brow.
When England knew thee thou wert passing fair:
I never knew a foreign face so rare.
The world of waters rolls and rushes by,
Nor lets me wander where thy valleys lie.
But surely France must be a pleasant place
That greets the stranger with so fair a face;
The English maiden blushes down the dance,
But few can equal the fair maid of France.
I saw thee lovely and I wished thee mine,
And the last song I ever wrote is thine.
Thy country's honour on thy face attends;
Men may be foes, but beauty makes us friends.

THE TRAMP

He eats (a moment's stoppage to his song)
The stolen turnip as he goes along;
And hops along and heeds with careless eye
The passing crowded stage-coach reeling by.
He talks to none, but wends his silent way,
And finds a hovel at the close of day,
Or under any hedge his house is made.
He has no calling and he owns no trade.
An old smoked blanket arches o'er his head,
A wisp of straw or stubble makes his bed.
He knows a lawless law that claims no kin
But meet and plunder on and feel no sin—
No matter where they go or where they dwell,
They dally with the winds and laugh at hell.

FARMER'S BOY

He waits all day beside his little flock
And asks the passing stranger what's o'clock,
But those who often pass his daily tasks
Look at their watch and tell before he asks.
He mutters stories to himself and lies
Where the thick hedge the warmest house supplies,
And when he hears the hunters far and wide
He climbs the highest tree to see them ride—
He climbs till all the fields are blea and bare
And makes the old crow's nest an easy-chair.
And soon his sheep are got in other grounds—
He hastens down and fears his master come,
He stops the gap and keeps them all in bounds
And tends them closely till it's time for home.

BRAGGART

With careful step to keep his balance up
He reels on warily along the street,
Slabbering at mouth and with a staggering stoop
Mutters an angry look at all he meets.
Bumptious and vain and proud, he shoulders up,
And would be something if he knew but how;
To any man on earth he will not stoop
But cracks of work, of horses, and of plough.
Proud of the foolish talk, the ale he quaffs,
He never heeds the insult loud that laughs:
With rosy maid he tries to joke and play—
Who shrugs and nettles deep his pomp and pride,
And calls him drunken beast and runs away—
King to himself and fool to all beside.

MERRY MAID

Bonny and stout and brown, without a hat,
She frowns offended when they call her fat—
Yet fat she is, the merriest in the place,
And all can know she wears a pretty face.
But still she never heeds what praise can say,
But does the work, and oft runs out to play.
To run about the yard and ramp and noise
And spring the mop upon the servant-boys.
When old hens noise and cackle everywhere
She hurries eager if the eggs are dear,
And runs to seek them when they lay away
To get them ready for the market day.
She gambols with the men and laughs aloud,
And only quarrels when they call her proud.

SCANDAL

She hastens out and scarcely pins her clothes
To hear the news and tell the news she knows;
She talks of sluts, marks each unmended gown,
Herself the dirtiest slut in all the town.
She stands with eager haste at slander's tale,
And drinks the news as drunkards drink their ale.
Excuse is ready at the biggest lie—
She only heard it and it passes by.
The very cat looks up and knows her face
And hastens to the chair to get the place;
When once set down she never goes away,
Till tales are done and talk has naught to say.
She goes from house to house the village o'er,
Her slander bothers everybody's door.

MARKET DAY

With arms and legs at work and gentle stroke
That urges switching tail nor mends his pace,
On an old ribbed and weather-beaten horse,
The farmer goes jogtrotting to the fair,
Both keep their pace that nothing can provoke,
Followed by brindled dog that snuffs the ground
With urging bark and hurries at his heels.
His hat slouched down, and greatcoat buttoned close
Bellied like hoopèd keg, and chuffy face
Red as the morning sun, he takes his round
And talks of stock: and when his jobs are done
And Dobbin's hay is eaten from the rack,
He drinks success to corn in language hoarse,
And claps old Dobbin's hide, and potters back.

‘THE LASS WITH THE DELICATE AIR’

Timid and smiling, beautiful and shy,
She drops her head at every passer-by.
Afraid of praise, she hurries down the streets
And turns away from every smile she meets.
The forward clown has many things to say
And holds her by the gown to make her stay.
The picture of good health she goes along,
Hale as the morn and happy as her song.
Yet there is one who never feels a fear
To whisper pleasing fancies in her ear;
Yet e'en from him she shuns a rude embrace,
And stooping holds her hands before her face—
She even shuns and fears the bolder wind,
And holds her shawl, and often looks behind.

THE LOUT (I)

No sort of learning ever hurts his head;
He buys a song and never hears it read;
He gets the tune and never heeds the words;
His pocket, too, a penny oft affords
To buy a book, no matter what about,
And there he keeps it till he wears it out.
In every job he's sure to have a share,
And shouts to haste his speed he cannot bear.
He seldom seeks the house in leisure hour,
But finds the haystack in a sudden shower,
And hid from all he there contrives to lie,
Rain how it will, to keep his garments dry.
He owns one suit and wears it all the week,
A dirty slop as dingy as his cheek.

THE LOUT (II)

For Sunday's play he never makes excuse,
But plays at taw, and buys his Spanish juice.
Hard as his toil, and ever slow to speak,
Yet he gives maidens many a burning cheek;
For none can pass him but his witless grace
Of bawdry brings the blushes in her face.
As vulgar as the dirt he treads upon,
He calls his cows or drives his horses on;
He knows the tamest cow and strokes her side
And often tries to mount her back and ride,
And takes her tail at night in idle play,
And makes her drag him homeward all the way.
He knows of nothing but the football match,
And where hens lay, and when the duck will hatch.

THE LOUT (III)

He plays with other boys when work is done,
But feels too clumsy and too stiff to run,
Yet where there's mischief he can find a way
The first to join and last [to run] away.
What's said or done he never heeds or minds
But gets his pence for all the eggs he finds.
He thinks his master's horses far the best,
And always labours longer than the rest.
In frost and cold though lame he's forced to go—
The call's more urgent when he journeys slow.
In surly speed he helps the maids by force
And feeds the cows and hallos till he's hoarse;
And when he's lame they only jest and play
And bid him throw his kiby heels away.

GIPSIES

The gipsies seek wide sheltering woods again,
With droves of horses flock to mark their lane,
And trample on dead leaves, and hear the sound,
And look and see the black clouds gather round,
And set their camps, and free from muck and mire,
And gather stolen sticks to make the fire.
The roasted hedgehog, bitter though as gall,
Is eaten up and relished by them all.
They know the woods and every fox's den
And get their living far away from men;
The shooters ask them where to find the game,
The rabbits know them and are almost tame.
The aged women, tawny with the smoke,
Go with the winds and crack the rotted oak.

THE CLOWN

With hands in pocket hid and buttoned up,
The clown goes jogging merrily along;
The wind blows in his face and makes him stoop,
And rain beats hard and stops his merry song;
His shaggy coat is buttoned with a loop,
With whip held up for stroke robust and strong,
And hat half stuffed with straw to keep it up;
He gruffly hollos ‘whop’ and lobs along;
He never turns, but with a careless switch
Whoos up his team that answers with a jerk;
When friends are met he gives his coat a hitch
And cocks his beaver up and talks of work;
To lose no time he trails his whip along
And bends it 'neath his arm to tie the thong.

THE THRESHER

With hand in waistcoat thrust, the thresher goes
Early at morn to follow his employ;
He nothing wants to know and nothing knows,
And wearies life along with little joy;
He lives without the world among the poor,
And nothing sees but stock agen the door,
And hears the felfare droves before the storm
Stripping the hawthorn hedges round the farm.
The shepherd seeks his door, but cannot stay,
And tells his only news—the time of day;
The milk[maid] stops awhile her hands to blow
And shake her cloak and bonnet from the snow;
Hard labour is the all his life enjoyed,
His idlest leisure is to be employed.

THE STUDENT

He always tells a story plain and plump,
And talks so loud he almost makes you jump;
He asks a question and his learning shows,
And takes his pocket-book to show he knows;
The village all his learning will allow,
And every boy he passes makes his bow;
To such a man all will their manners show
And if he is not proud he might be so;
He meets with many but has naught to say
And never talks with any by the way;
Some say that study makes the man so pale,
He shuns the toper and refuses ale,
And takes a quiet journey every day
And seems to gather knowledge by the way.

THE MOLE-CATCHER

Tattered and ragg'd, with greatcoat tied in strings,
And collared up to keep his chin from cold,
The old mole-catcher on his journey sings,
Followed by shaggy dog infirm and old,
Who potters on and keeps his steady pace;
He is so lame he scarce can get abroad
But hopples on and growls at anything;
Yet silly sheep will scarcely leave the road.
With stick and spud he tried the new-made hills
And bears his cheating traps from place to place;
Full many are the miners that he kills.
His trotting dog oft looks him in the face;
And when his toils are done he tries to play
And finds a quicker pace and barks him on his way.

THE FOWLER

With boots of monstrous leg and massy strength,
The fowler journeys on his weary way;
With furry cap and gun of monstrous length,
He hunts the reedy forest for his prey.
The timid wild duck vainly hurries by,
And when the wild-goose droves their place proclaim
He stands behind his horse and gathers nigh,
Who scorn to fear and fly from beast so lame.
They plop and hurry from the noises loud;
The wounded whirl and whirl and fall agen;
They make vast slaughter in the varied crowds
That haunt the watery fen;
The others rise and hurry to the clouds
And fly far distant from the haunts of men.

THE PACKMEN

Close by the road the traveller set his cart
And clogged his horse's feet in journey slow,
The ploughman's horses made a sudden start
And snorted loud to see the fire below;
And there they sat and hid them from the shower,
From many a weary mile through thick and thin,
And ate their meals and rested many an hour
And found a pleasant bed at night within;
And in the morning by the break of day
Left the broke hedge and drove their house away.
And panniered asses with an hungry eye
Snatched the tall thistle as they wandered by.
They travel over England far and wide
And rarely in the balanced panniers ride.

THE RETURNED SOLDIER

The soldier, full of battles and renown,
The gaping wonder of each quiet lown,
And strange to every face he knew so well,
Comes once again in this old town to dwell.
But man alone is changed; the very tree
He sees again where once he used to swee;
And the old fields where once he tented sheep,
And the old mole-hills where he used to leap,
And the old bush where once he found a nest
Are just the same, and pleasure fills his breast.
He sees the old path where he used to play
At chock and marbles many a summer day,
And loves to wander where he went a boy,
And fills his heart with pleasure and with joy.

THE OUTCAST

THE SLY MAID

The ballad in the ploughman's pocket wears
A greater fame than poets ever knew;
The maiden claims his present from the fairs
And gets it all by heart as lover's due.
Timid and shy and full of maiden fears,
She blushes deep at every praise she hears;
Yet when she meets a sweetheart in the way,
She's filled with thoughts and flurried all the day.
She cannot do her work nor make her paste,
But puts the miller's eye out in her haste.
The roads are clean as pennies all the way
And show the shoe-nails where the water lay;
So without pattens forth the maiden goes
To show her last new gown and Sunday clothes.

THE GIDDY MAID

She runs away and gathers up her gown
And does her jobs and gallops down the town;
She runs about so giddy all the day
She loses half her errands by the way,
And Goody tells her, when from work she steals,
Her random head will never save her heels.
Yet beauty's ever with her in the race,
And health and laughter ever in her face.
The stranger oft another book bestows
And thinks her prettier than the maids he knows.
Her cheeks so full of health are never white,
Save once upon the harvest-supper night
When she to fright the lad who loved her most
Burnt brandy on a plate to act the ghost.

THE SCHOOLBOY

With slate and bag at back and full of books,
The merry schoolboy saunters on and looks
Fresh as the morn that meets him in the face;
And often stops to play in many a place,
To bawl at taw and hallo ‘knuckle down’
And hunt birds' nestes when he leaves the town.
He hates the cuckoos singing all the day
That suck birds' eggs and cheat him all the way,
And often sets his basket down and runs
To pelt the birds that nestle in the sun,
And often keeps from school with vain excuse
And then gets pence to buy him Spanish juice;
And when his sum is hard he lounges on
And pines for freedom till the day is gone.

SUNDAY DIP

The morning road is thronged with merry boys
Who seek the water for their Sunday joys;
They run to seek the shallow pit, and wade
And dance about the water in the shade.
The boldest ventures first and dashes in,
And others go and follow to the chin,
And duck about, and try to lose their fears,
And laugh to hear the thunder in their ears.
They bundle up the rushes for a boat
And try across the deepest place to float:
Beneath the willow trees they ride and stoop—
The awkward load will scarcely bear them up.
Without their aid the others float away,
And play about the water half the day.

STONE-PIT

The passing traveller with wonder sees
A deep and ancient stone-pit full of trees;
So deep and very deep the place has been,
The church might stand within and not be seen.
The passing stranger oft with wonder stops
And thinks he e'en could walk upon their tops,
And often stoops to see the busy crow,
And stands above and sees the eggs below;
And while the wild horse gives its head a toss,
The squirrel dances up and runs across.
The boy that stands and kills the black-nosed bee
Dares down as soon as magpies' nest are found,
And wonders when he climbs the highest tree
To find it reaches scarce above the ground.

FARM BREAKFAST

Maids shout to breakfast in a merry strife,
And the cat runs to hear the whetted knife,
And dogs are ever in the way to watch
The mouldy crust and falling bone to catch.
The wooden dishes round in haste are set,
And round the table all the boys are met;
All know their own save Hodge who would be first,
But every one his master leaves the worst.
On every wooden dish, a humble claim,
Two rude-cut letters mark the owner's name;
From every nook the smile of plenty calls,
And reasty flitches decorate the walls,
Moore's Almanack where wonders never cease—
All smeared with candle-snuff and bacon-grease.

WINTER

WOODCROFT CASTLE (I)

Woodcroft, thy castle many a story yields—
How drunken rebels, scorning flood and fen,
Turned up their horses in thy blooming fields
And killed bold Hutchinson and all his men;
They show the dangerous height from which he fell—
The narrow moat the naked wall surrounds;
The staring towers in naked quiet dwell,
And sheep and oxen fill the lonely grounds.
The sailing puddock makes a lonesome cry,
And strangers tell the tale while passing by:
How rebels entered, and the master fell,
And morts of riches buried in the well!
The labourer wonders where the riches lay,
Digs on, and thinks of money all the day.

WOODCROFT CASTLE (II)

Absorbing time, that all things overwhelms,
Will round the castle ancient thoughts recall;
The fragment of a moat, the triple elms,
The cannon holes that pierce the mossy wall,
The ancient arching gateway striding high,
Where Cromwell's stubborn army entered through,
The castle barn the stranger passes by,
And the old house which many a pencil drew.
Some dim-seen paintings triumph on the walls,
And travellers still the antique rooms admire,
Where my lord's parlour still the past recalls;
Where Cromwell doubtless would from strife retire,
The locked-up room where superstition sleeps
And Cromwell's memory in dread mystery creeps.

THE STONE

The traveller journeying on the road alone
Sees by the highway side an ancient stone
And finds it pleasant in the weary day
To sit him down and wear an hour away.
The strongest hand of mischief needed more,
And failed to move, or break, or turn it o'er.
The man of ninety knew it when a boy,
The only thing that nothing could destroy,
And just the same as then it now appears,
The fragment maybe of some hundred years.
Beside the stone the wild flower gathers high,
No grazing horse can bite or trample nigh,
And smaller birds contented and alone
Can sit and shelter by the ancient stone.

A HILL-SIDE HOUSE

There is a house stands in a lonely way,
The hill seems falling on it all the day;
It seems half-hidden, like a robber's den,
And seems more safe for robbers than for men.
The trees look bushes scarcely half as big,
Seem taking root and growing on the rig.
The cows that travel up with little heed
Seem looking down upon the roof to feed,
And if they take a step or stumble more
They seem in danger then of tumbling o'er.
The cocks and hens that fill a little space
Are all that look like home about the place.
The woods seem ready on the house to drop,
And rabbits breed above the chimney-top.

NOVEMBER

The shepherds almost wonder where they dwell,
And the old dog for his right journey stares:
The path leads somewhere, but they cannot tell,
And neighbour meets with neighbour unawares.
The maiden passes close beside her cow,
And wanders on, and thinks her far away;
The ploughman goes unseen behind his plough
And seems to lose his horses half the day.
The lazy mist creeps on in journey slow;
The maidens shout and wonder where they go;
So dull and dark are the November days.
The lazy mist high up the evening curled,
And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;
The place we occupy seems all the world.

SPRING

The cow-boy hears the spring and sees the crows,
And cocks his hat, and whistles as he goes;
The maidens hurry to the hedge and play
To catch the clothes the shower has blown away.
The horse leaps up, the cow's no longer dull,
The maids bring home the buckets brimming full,
The old cow tosses up the gate away
And seeks the pasture where the summer lay.
The ploughman often stops and wipes his brow,
And sits and eats his luncheon on the plough.
The traveller birds in all directions fly,
And winds no longer moan a desert sky;
The ploughman, blundering on robust and strong,
Makes faces at the wind and lobs along.

WILD BEES' NEST

The mower tramples on the wild bees' nest,
And hears the busy noise, and stops the rest;
Who careless proggle out the mossy ball
And gather up the honey, comb and all.
The boy that seeks dewberries from the sedge,
And lays the poison berries on the hedge,
Will often find them in the meadow hay,
And take his bough and drive the bees away.
But when the maiden goes to turn the hay
She whips her apron up and runs away;
The schoolboy eats the honey, comb and all,
And often knocks his hat agen the wall,
And progs the stick in every hole he sees
To steal the honey-bag of black-nosed bees.

THE FEN

The dreary fen a waste of water goes,
With nothing to be seen but Royston crows;
The traveller journeying on the road for hours
Sees nothing but the dykes and water-flowers.
The lonely lodges scattered miles away
Lock up from fear and robbers all the day;
The merry maiden that no place dislikes
Runs out and fills her kettle from the dykes.
She hurries wildly from the face of men
And knows no company but cock and hen.
Here highland maiden sees in Sunday's hour
The glorious sight of sainfoin grounds in flower,
And meets the savoury smells that wake the morn,
The woodbine hedges and the poppied corn.

GOING TO THE FAIR

A stranger meets a many folks and knows
A fair is somewhere by their Sunday clothes;
The maiden goes with morning in her face,
Healthy and happy at the wind's embrace.
She hastens by the clown, who bids her stay,
And begs to take her basket all the way.
Though she refuses she oft looks behind
As if to token she was half inclined.
She has a look and smile for every one,
And many a heart aches deeply when she's gone.
Her face is beautiful, and every hind
Feels loath to pass her without speaking kind.
Another in such hurry to the fair
Forgets her money till she's half-way there.

AUTUMN MORNING

The mist lies on the weeds, but clears away,
And half the fields lie open to the day.
The ditcher hollos out, and cleans his spade,
To see the dogs go where his dinner's laid.
They snuff about, and stare, and hurry by
The silly sheep, that need not start and fly.
They snuff the morning gale and hurry on,
And only follow where the game is gone;
And bite the weeds in wantonness and play,
And leap along the stubbles all the day;
Then sit on end with pointed foot, and eye
The partridge brood that round the bushes fly;
And soon the shooters' thunder loudly calls,
And half the covey in the stubble falls.

AUTUMN EVENING

I love to hear the evening crows go by
And see the starnels darken down the sky;
The bleaching stack the bustling sparrow leaves,
And plops with merry note beneath the eaves.
The odd and lated pigeon bounces by,
As if a wary watching hawk was nigh,
While far and fearing nothing, high and slow,
The stranger birds to distant places go;
While short of flight the evening robin comes
To watch the maiden sweeping out the crumbs,
Nor fears the idle shout of passing boy,
But pecks about the door, and sings for joy;
Then in the hovel where the cows are fed
Finds till the morning comes a pleasant bed.

FARM SCENE (I)

The noisy blathering calves are fed, and all
The cows are fothered up and in their stall;
Weary with toils and plodding through the mire,
The ploughmen all are round the kitchen fire;
One pats the shaggy dog between his legs,
Another throws a crust to one that begs;
One sings a song and strokes in highest glee
The tabby cat that sits upon his knee;
One cracks about his horses and his plough,
One kisses Dolly 'cause he milked her cow;
Another has a smutty word to say
And makes the maiden blush and turn away;
Till every song is sung and tale is said,
Then maids lap up the fire and all to bed.

FARM SCENE (II)

The cow-boy shuns the shower and seeks the mat
To clean his shoes, and swings his napless hat
And drags his faggot in, a glad supply,
While laughing maidens help his clothes to dry.
The butter is made up, the bever set,
And all the ploughmen in the kitchen met;
One runs about the new-laid eggs to find,
One gets the garden beans with flannel lined
And pelts the laughing maidens with the shells;
And in the brier bush where the robin dwells
The tender maiden runs and carries crumbs;
Close to the door the fighting sparrow comes;
A maiden runs and shakes the damsons down
And hides them in her apron for the clown;
One takes a handful first and runs away,
And so they keep half work, half holiday.

MERRILY TO TOIL

Lapt up in sacks to shun the rain and wind,
And shoes thick-clouted with the sticking soil,
And sideling on his horse, the careless hind
Rides litherly and singing to his toil.
The boy rides foremost where the sack is gone
And holds it with his hands to keep it on;
Then splashing down the road in journey slow
Through mire and sludge with cracking whips they go.
He lays his jacket with his luncheon by
And drinks from horses' footings when adry;
They pass the maiden singing at her cow
And start the lark that roosted by the plough,
That sings above them all the livelong day
And on they drive and hollo care away.

COW-BOY'S HUT

The cow-boy's hut of straw neglected lies,
Where the old tattered sheepskin hangs and dries,
Two trays on end, half down, with stubble lined,
And snugly thacked atop to block the wind,
And all below with stubble thickly spread
That served for chair, for table, and for bed,
Where he, when cows were still, would lie at ease
And eat his barley crust and shell his peas;
And when the rain forbid his steps to roam
Would lie and sleep till time to ramble home;
The ballad from his pocket lost forlorn
Lies bleaching to the weather, wet and torn,
Till the rude bird-boy in the fields alone
Repairs the hulk and claims the goods his own.

THE FARMYARD

Confusion's plenty lies in every way,
And hogs and calves are noising all the day;
The maiden serves them all with merry looks
And often leaves the pattens in the mucks;
Though Hodge is sent to keep the causeys clean,
His idle toil scarce shows her where he's been;
With surly speed he sings an idle song,
And like a walking may-tree lobs along.
The rattling bucket calls the hogs away;
Calves toze the maidens' garments in their play;
The hogs lie rooting underneath the straw,
And ducks go waddling with a loaded craw;
The ploughman loads the straw with chubby face,
And carts and wagons stand in every place.

THE POOL

Where the clear water rises to the brink,
Battered by cattle coming there to drink,
Boys bring the mower's bottle to the fore
And hold and fill it till it bubbles o'er;
And eager ploughmen with a ruddy face
Throw in a stone to reach the clearest place,
And take a hearty soak and haste away,
And cow-boys seek it twenty times a day;
And when the idle boy has had his fill
He sucks the bubbles with an oaten quill;
While ever shy the timid maiden stands
And stooping sips the water from her hands;
Content to be adry she goes agen,
Because she will not kneel before the men.

DELUGE

The maiden ran away to fetch the clothes
And threw her apron o'er her cap and bows;
But the shower catched her ere she hurried in
And beat and almost dowsed her to the skin.
The ruts ran brooks as they would ne'er be dry,
And the boy waded as he hurried by;
The half-drowned ploughman waded to the knees,
And birds were almost drowned upon the trees.
The streets ran rivers till they floated o'er,
And women screamed to meet it at the door.
Labour fled home and rivers hurried by,
And still it fell as it would never stop;
E'en the old stone-pit, deep as house is high,
Was brimming o'er and floated o'er the top.

HEN'S NEST

Among the orchard weeds, from every search,
Snugly and sure, the old hen's nest is made,
Who cackles every morning from her perch
To tell the servant girl new eggs are laid;
Who lays her washing by, and far and near
Goes seeking all about from day to day,
And stung with nettles tramples everywhere;
But still the cackling pullet lays away.
The boy on Sundays goes the stack to pull
In hopes to find her there, but naught is seen,
And takes his hat and thinks to find it full,
She's laid so long so many might have been.
But naught is found and all is given o'er
Till the young brood come chirping to the door.

WINTER WEATHER

The crows drive onward through the storm of snow
And play about, naught caring where they go.
The young colt breaks the fences in his play
And spreads his tail and gallops all the way.
The hunkèd ploughman goes without a song
And knocks his hands and scarce can get along.
Behind the thickest hedge the labourer stands
And puts his gloves away to knock his hands.
The traveller's stooping haste to get away
Keeps both hands in his pockets all the day.
The schoolboy often stops his hands to blow
And loves to make rude letters on the snow.
While tottering shepherd, though infirm and old,
Faces the cutting wind and feels no cold.

MORRIS DANCERS

Deckt out in ribbons gay and papers cut
Fine as a maiden's fancies, off they strut
And act the morris dance from door to door;
Their highest gain's a penny, nothing more.
The children leave their toys to see them play,
And laughing maidens lay their work away.
The stolen apple in her apron lies
To give her lover in his gay disguise.
E'en the old woman leaves her knitting off
And lays the bellows in her lap to laugh.
Upon the floor the stool-made wagons lie,
And playing scholars lay the lesson by.
The cat and dog in wonder run away
And hide beneath the table from the play.

FARM TASKS

All are employed: one's gone to seek the tup,
And one is gone to fetch the horses up;
One hastens off to seek the cackling hen,
And one to let the sheep out from the pen;
One runs and feeds the hens with barley bigg,
Another goes and mends the wooden brig
That maids may safely pass the meadow brook,
So deep that fear dare scarcely stop to look.
One with old Dobbin to the mill is gone
And rides upon the sack to keep it on;
One reaches down the gears to go to plough,
Another cuts the stack to feed the cow.
The hogs are fed and noising round for more,
And dogs are sent to drive them from the door.

TIT FOR TAT

The old hens cackle and begin the day,
And maidens run and drive the dogs away.
The laughing maiden hurries in the house
And twirls the mop the passing clown to souse,
Who runs in turn and kicks the bucket down
And splashes muddy water on her gown.
Another maid with laughter in her eye
Splashes him from the wash-tub passing by:
She laughs at threats and pays him no regard;
Her face protects her from an angry word;
But holds her apron up to stop the blow
When angry Hodge the turnip dares to throw.
The other only claims a kiss for pay;
She knows the claim and seldom runs away.

BLACKBERRYING

He fills his pockets, and his hat provides
A plenteous space for what he gets besides;
He climbs the hedge, and where the dyke is wide
He sticks his fork and leaps on t'other side.
The schoolboy often stands for half the day
And tries to make excuses for his stay,
And tempted stands the loaded bush to pull,
And often tries to get his basket full,
And eager marks of his intrusion bears,
And tears his coat and hands and never cares.
The maiden often pulls the berries off
And stains her face and wonders why they laugh.
The children, muffled from the cold for play,
Go round and pick the hedges all the day.

THE FORD

The ploughman stops his wagon at the fore
And sees the brook a river running o'er;
He tries the depth and progs his whip about;
The timid maiden sees the waters out
And asks the ploughman's aid to ride across;
The boy rides fearless on the foremost horse;
The maiden trembles while she keeps her seat
And screams to see the water at her feet;
Fear brings the deepest blushes on her face,
The wagon-boat swims in the deepest place,
The boy holds fast to see the floating tray
And thinks the horses will be swam away;
But soon they gain the side, a merry throng,
And lose their fears and talk and drive along.

MOUSE'S NEST

I found a ball of grass among the hay
And progged it as I passed and went away;
And when I looked I fancied something stirred,
And turned agen and hoped to catch the bird—
When out an old mouse bolted in the wheats
With all her young ones hanging at her teats;
She looked so odd and so grotesque to me,
I ran and wondered what the thing could be,
And pushed the knapweed bunches where I stood;
Then the mouse hurried from the craking brood.
The young ones squeaked, and as I went away
She found her nest again among the hay.
The water o'er the pebbles scarce could run
And broad old cesspools glittered in the sun.

SHEEP IN WINTER

The sheep get up and make their many tracks
And bear a load of snow upon their backs,
And gnaw the frozen turnip to the ground
With sharp quick bite, and then go noising round
The boy that pecks the turnips all the day
And knocks his hands to keep the cold away
And laps his legs in straw to keep them warm
And hides behind the hedges from the storm.
The sheep, as tame as dogs, go where he goes
And try to shake their fleeces from the snows,
Then leave their frozen meal and wander round
The stubble stack that stands beside the ground,
And lie all night and face the drizzling storm
And shun the hovel where they might be warm.

HIGH SUMMER

The ground is hard, and o'er the fallows now
The boys are forced to lean upon the plough;
The ground is full of cracks and gapes for wet,
And cobwebs hang on all the bushes met.
The snakes lie beaking where the waters play
And make the maiden almost faint away.
The idle boy sits on the brigs at play
And keeps a bough to knock the flies away;
And ever followed by a lazy dog,
He wades the flaggy dyke and pelts the frog
And gets the great brier balls and likes them well
And crops the coddled apples for the smell
And fills his hands among the poppied corn
With pleasant weeds that scent the gales of morn.

BREAK OF DAY

MARRIED TO A SOLDIER

TRESPASS

I dreaded walking where there was no path
And prest with cautious tread the meadow swath,
And always turned to look with wary eye,
And always feared the farmer coming by;
Yet everything about where I had gone
Appeared so beautiful, I ventured on;
And when I gained the road where all are free
I fancied every stranger frowned at me,
And every kinder look appeared to say,
‘You've been on trespass in your walk to-day.’
I've often thought, the day appeared so fine,
How beautiful if such a place were mine;
But having naught I never feel alone
And cannot use another's as my own.

THE SHY LOVER

I often longed, when wandering up and down,
To hear the rustle of thy Sunday gown;
And when we met, I passed, and let thee go,
And felt I loved, but dare not tell thee so:
Snares are so thickly spread on woman's way,
The common ballad teaches, men betray.
I thought and felt it rudeness if I tried,
And well-meant kindness might be misapplied.
I longed to walk with thee, where waters play
And lined with water-cresses all the way;
And read the poets as I went along
And thought they knew thy name in every song.
The mind on thee and beauty's music dwells,
And listens to the sound of Glinton bells.

THE POET'S SONG

THE POET'S DEATH

LOVE AND SOLITUDE

I hate the very noise of troublous man
Who did and does me all the harm he can.
Free from the world I would a prisoner be
And my own shadow all my company;
And lonely see the shooting stars appear,
Worlds rushing into judgment all the year.
Oh, lead me onward to the loneliest shade,
The dearest place that quiet ever made,
Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold
And shut up green and open into gold.
Farewell to poesy—and leave the will;
Take all the world away—and leave me still
The mirth and music of a woman's voice,
That bids the heart be happy and rejoice.

SIGHING FOR RETIREMENT

FIRST LOVE

WHAT IS LOVE?

Say, what is love? To live in vain,
To live, and die, and live again?
Say, what is love? Is it to be
In prison still and still be free—
Or seem as free? Alone, and prove
The hopeless hopes of real love?
Does real love on earth exist?
'Tis like a sunbeam in the mist,
That fades and nowhere will remain,
And nowhere is o'ertook again.
Say, what is love? A blooming name,
A rose-leaf on the page of fame,
That blooms, then fades, to cheat no more,
And is what nothing was before?
Say, what is love? Whate'er it be,
It centres, Mary, still with thee.

THE EXILE

WRITTEN IN A THUNDERSTORM, 15 JULY 1841

HOMELESS

THE RETURN: NORTHBOROUGH, 1841

SEPTEMBER MORNINGS

MARY

DEWDROPS

The dewdrops on every blade of grass are so much like silver drops that I am obliged to stoop down as I walk to see if they are pearls, and those sprinkled on the ivy-woven beds of primroses underneath the hazels, whitethorns, and maples are so like gold beads that I stooped down to feel if they were hard, but they melted from my finger. And where the dew lies on the primrose, the violet and whitethorn leaves, they are emerald and beryl, yet nothing more than the dews of the morning on the budding leaves; nay, the road grasses are covered with gold and silver beads, and the further we go the brighter they seem to shine, like solid gold and silver. It is nothing more than the sun's light and shade upon them in the dewy morning; every

thorn-point and every bramble-spear has its trembling ornament: till the wind gets a little brisker, and then all is shaken off, and all the shining jewelry passes away into a common spring morning full of budding leaves, primroses, violets, vernal speedwell, bluebell and orchis, and commonplace objects.

SPRING'S NOSEGAY

OH, WERT THOU IN THE STORM

LOVE CANNOT DIE

CHILDHOOD

TO MY WIFE—A VALENTINE

BONNY LASSIE O!

MARY

STANZAS

[Oh, the world keeps running round]

SONG

[Oh, haud yer tongues, ye sylvan elves]

INVITATION TO ETERNITY

THE SLEEP OF SPRING