Poems of Rural Life in Common English :: :: University of Virginia Library

In sunny time, when people pass
By leafy trees and flow'ry grass,
And swallows' wings, with sweeping tips,
O'ershoot the streams in swinging dips,
And pale-green scales of elm-trees strew
The road below the dusty shoe,
When bloom of May,
In scales of white,
May whirl their flight
By lambs at play,
Then we awhile,
By path and stile,
May stroll a mile
Where Stour may stray.

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In fall, when ash-tree keys fly free,
To whirl below their mother tree,
Or wingèd pods, from time to time,
Fly spinning off the spreading lime;
Or thistledown is rolling light,
To pitch and rise in fitful flight;
When leaves offshed
From yellow boughs,
Pitch down by cows
Of yellow red,
Where Stour may wind;
We still shall find
A joy of mind
Above its bed.

And there's a tide, when rain will fall
From dripping eaves of rick or stall,
Or snow-flakes, whirling down, may roll
From windy bank to windless hole,

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And tip the post with ice, and fill,
With icy dust the road up hill;
When storms fly dark,
Or patt'ring hail
May beat the rail,
Or trees' wet bark;
And then, through all
That there may fall,
I'll come and call
By Woodcombe Park.