 | Poems of Rural Life in Common English |  |
91
THE REEDS ABOUT THE POOL
We children, hot at work, here built
Our hut for childhood play, of beds
Of reeds, all wound with sticks, to screen
From wind our little glossy heads;
And there we set, to shoot the wet,
Our roof of reeds, about the pool.
Our hut for childhood play, of beds
Of reeds, all wound with sticks, to screen
From wind our little glossy heads;
And there we set, to shoot the wet,
Our roof of reeds, about the pool.
As deep and shoal might sleep below
A shell of ice, in winter tide,
We there, with tott'ring heads, would drive
Our toes along the grated slide,
With many a sprawl, in many a fall,
Within the reeds about the pool.
A shell of ice, in winter tide,
We there, with tott'ring heads, would drive
Our toes along the grated slide,
With many a sprawl, in many a fall,
Within the reeds about the pool.
92
There men would draw the water out,
As dry as all their pails could dip,
And then would dip their hands about,
Well daub'd with mud, from toe to hip,
As they might feel the slipp'ry eel,
Within the reeds about the pool.
As dry as all their pails could dip,
And then would dip their hands about,
Well daub'd with mud, from toe to hip,
As they might feel the slipp'ry eel,
Within the reeds about the pool.
And there the nightingale would sound
Her note, while other birds were still,
As water show'd the light the moon
Might shed on stream, and mead, and hill,
On boughs aloft, while rustled soft
The reeds that sway'd about the pool.
Her note, while other birds were still,
As water show'd the light the moon
Might shed on stream, and mead, and hill,
On boughs aloft, while rustled soft
The reeds that sway'd about the pool.
And still below the shady mound
That leans by timber-trees in ranks,
There runs the brook that up the dell
Outbreaks, to come by winding banks
Down here to us, to open wide
A pool, with reeds about its side.
That leans by timber-trees in ranks,
There runs the brook that up the dell
Outbreaks, to come by winding banks
Down here to us, to open wide
A pool, with reeds about its side.
| Poems of Rural Life in Common English | |