The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti :: :: University of Virginia Library

“We come from where the forest skirts the hill;
A very little cottage is our home,
Where with our father and our mother still
We live, and love our life, nor wish to roam.
Back every evening from the field we come
And bring with us our sheep from pasturing there.”

“Where, tell me, is the hamlet of your birth,
Whose fruitage is the sweetest by so much?
Ye seem to me as creatures worship-worth,
The shining of your countenance is such.
No gold about your clothes, coarse to the touch,
Nor silver; yet with such an angel's air!

“I think your beauties might make great complaint
Of being thus shown over mount and dell;
Because no city is so excellent
But that your stay therein were honourable.
In very truth, now, does it like ye well
To live so poorly on the hill-side here?”

“Better it liketh one of us, pardie,
Behind her flock to seek the pasture-stance,
Far better than it liketh one of ye
To ride unto your curtained rooms and dance.
We seek no riches neither golden chance
Save wealth of flowers to weave into our hair.”

Ballad, if I were now as once I was,
I'd make myself a shepherd on some hill,
And, without telling any one, would pass
Where these girls went, and follow at their will;
And “Mary” and “Martin” we would murmur still,
And I would be for ever where they were.

II
Catch

On a Fine Day

“Be stirring, girls! we ought to have a run:
Look, did you ever see so fine a day?
Fling spindles right away,
And rocks and reels and wools:
Now don't be fools,—
To-day your spinning's done.

495

Up with you, up with you!” So, one by one
They caught hands, catch who can,
Then singing, singing, to the river they ran,
They ran, they ran
To the river, the river;
And the merry-go-round
Carries them at a bound
To the mill o'er the river.
“Miller, miller, miller,
Weigh me this lady
And this other. Now, steady!”
“You weigh a hundred, you,
And this one weighs two.”
“Why, dear, you do get stout!”
“You think so, dear, no doubt:
Are you in a decline?”
“Keep your temper, and I'll keep mine.
Come, girls,” (“O thank you, miller!”)
“We'll go home when you will.”
So, as we crossed the hill,
A clown came in great grief
Crying, “Stop thief! stop thief!
O what a wretch I am!”
“Well, fellow, here's a clatter!
Well, what's the matter?”
“O Lord, O Lord, the wolf has got my lamb!”
Now at that word of woe,
The beauties came and clung about me so
That if wolf had but shown himself, maybe
I too had caught a lamb that fled to me.

III
Catch

On a Wet Day

As I walked thinking through a little grove,
Some girls that gathered flowers came passing me,
Saying, “Look here! look there!” delightedly.
“O here it is!” “What's that?” “A lily, love.”
“And there are violets!”
“Further for roses! Oh the lovely pets—
The darling beauties! Oh the nasty thorn!
Look here, my hand's all torn!”
“What's that that jumps?” “Oh don't! it's a grasshopper!”
“Come run, come run,
Here's bluebells!” “Oh what fun!”
“Not that way! Stop her!”
“Yes, this way!” “Pluck them, then!”
“Oh, I've found mushrooms! Oh look here!” “Oh, I'm
Quite sure that further on we'll get wild thyme.”

“Oh we shall stay too long, it's going to rain!
There's lightning, oh there's thunder!”

496

“Oh shan't we hear the vesper-bell, I wonder?”
“Why, it's not nones, you silly little thing;
And don't you hear the nightingales that sing
Fly away O die away?”
“O I hear something! Hush!”
“Why, where? what is it then?” “Ah! in that bush!”
So every girl here knocks it, shakes and shocks it,
Till with the stir they make
Out skurries a great snake.
“O Lord! O me! Alack! Ah me! alack!”
They scream, and then all run and scream again,
And then in heavy drops down comes the rain.

Each running at the other in a fright,
Each trying to get before the other, and crying,
And flying, stumbling, tumbling, wrong or right;
One sets her knee
There where her foot should be;
One has her hands and dress
All smothered up with mud in a fine mess;
And one gets trampled on by two or three.
What's gathered is let fall
About the wood and not picked up at all.
The wreaths of flowers are scattered on the ground;
And still as screaming hustling without rest
They run this way and that and round and round,
She thinks herself in luck who runs the best.

I stood quite still to have a perfect view,
And never noticed till I got wet through.