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Poems

By William Bell Scott. Ballads, Studies from Nature, Sonnets, etc. Illustrated by Seventeen Etchings by the Author and L. Alma Tadema

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IN THE VALLEY.
  
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171

IN THE VALLEY.

Trusting lambs about the door,
Entering sometimes on the floor;
Timid ewes with simple eyes,
Looking for them in surprise.
With sunny days and busy feet,
Milkmaids' ditties sound so sweet,—
Ditties of contented life,
And love and hopes to be a wife.
Through our valley goest the road
To some prince's grand abode;
A slope of cattle-pasturing green
Rises round, well hedged between.
With fallow fields in spring-time gray,
Past which winds the long highway;
Travellers' heads a mile or more
Are seen descending to our door.
Sometimes the goddess Poverty
Greets us as she wanders by,
And calls the little birds to come
To pick from her thin hand the crumb.

172

Sometimes Hope, the youngest Grace
Our lord set up in his high place,
Going to seek for work somewhere,
Or get apprenticed to old Care.
Sometimes Faith, with smile secure,
Makes us feel we are not poor,
To entertain such guests as these
Upon our bench beneath the trees.
Sometimes 'tis Charity herself,
Little children all her pelf,
And our loved little ones run out
To welcome hers with play and shout.
Jesus then the white bread bears,
And naked John the water shares
In a white cup to every one
Resting from the mid-day sun.