University of Virginia Library

SONNETS

SWORDY WELL

Ive loved thee Swordy well & love thee still
Long was I with thee tenting sheep & cow
In boyhood ramping up each steepy hill
To play at ‘roly poly’ down—& now
A man I trifle oer thee cares to kill
Haunting thy mossy steeps to botanize
& hunt the orchis tribes where natures skill
Doth like my thoughts run into phantasys
Spider & Bee all mimicking at will
Displaying powers that fools the proudly wise
Showing the wonders of great natures plan
In trifles insignificant & small
Puzzling the power of that great trifle man
Who finds no reason to be proud at all

SUMMER MOODS

I love at eventide to walk alone
Down narrow lanes oerhung with dewy thorn
Where from the long grass underneath—the snail
Jet black creeps out & sprouts his timid horn
I love to muse oer meadows newly mown
Where withering grass perfumes the sultry air
Where bees search round with sad & weary drone
In vain for flowers that bloomed but newly there
While in the juicey corn the hidden quail
Cries ‘wet my foot’ & hid as thoughts unborn
The fairylike & seldom-seen land rail
Utters ‘craik craik’ like voices underground
Right glad to meet the evenings dewy veil
& see the light fade into glooms around

SUMMER EVENING

The frog half fearful jumps accross the path
& little mouse that leaves its hole at eve
Nimbles with timid dread beneath the swath
My rustling steps awhile their joys decieve
Till past—& then the cricket sings more strong
& grasshoppers in merry moods still wear
The short night weary with its fretting song
Up from behind the molehill jumps the hare
Cheat of its chosen bed—& from the bank
The yellowhammer flutters in short fears
From off its nest hid in the grasses rank
& drops again when no more noise it hears
Thus natures human link & endless thrall
Proud man still seems the enemy of all

THE VILLAGE BOY

Free from the cottage corner see how wild
The village boy along the pasture hies
With every smell & sound & sight beguiled
That round the prospect meets his wondering eyes
Now stooping eager for the cowslip peeps
As though he'd get them all—now tired of these
Accross the flaggy brook he eager leaps
For some new flower his happy rapture sees
Now tearing mid the bushes on his knees
Or woodland banks for bluebell flowers he creeps
& now while looking up among the trees
He spies a nest & down he throws his flowers
& up he climbs with new fed extacies
The happiest object in the summer hours

EVENING SCHOOLBOYS

Harken that happy shout—the schoolhouse door
Is open thrown & out the younkers teem
Some run to leapfrog on the rushy moor
& others dabble in the shallow stream
Catching young fish & turning pebbles oer
For muscle clams—Look in that mellow gleam
Where the retiring sun that rests the while
Streams through the broken hedge—How happy seem
Those schoolboy friendships leaning oer the stile
Both reading in one book—anon a dream
Rich with new joys doth their young hearts beguile
& the books pocketed most hastily
Ah happy boys well may ye turn & smile
When joys are yours that never cost a sigh

THE DEITY

Omnipotent & mighty known unknown
The world whose footstool is the heaven whose throne
Whose is it spreads this glory all around
Star studded skies & flower bewildered ground
Who is it speaks these wonders & they be
Who is it all omnipotent but thee
Thou breathed upon the sun thy powers desire
& instant kindled his eternal fire
Thou badest the unpillared skies their arch expand
Thy breath is underneath them & they stand
Thou badest the seas in tides to rise & fall
& earth to swell triumphant over all
Thy mercey coeternal with thy skill
Saw all was good & bids it flourish still

SUNDAY EVENING

Religion never more calm beauty wears
Than when each cottage joins in sunday prayers
The poor man in his ignorance of ill
His Bible reads with unpretending skill
Unused to argue strange conflicting creeds
He puts plain comments to the page he reads
Though venturing not in warm enthusiasts ways
To offer his own ignorance for praise
He in his Prayer books beautious homilies
His simple reverence to his God reveals
& while his listening childern clasp his knees
A parents blessing from his bosom steals
Prayers are the wings on which the soul doth fly
To gather blessings from a bounteous sky

ON A SKULL

Lifes monitor & fear inspiring friend
Picture of our frail origin & end
Is thine deaths quiet sleep—tis horrible
With worms & dust & coffined bones to dwell
Dost lie in fear of waking wrapt around
In deaths dark sealed impenetrable cloud
Dost ever dream & speak without a sound
Twould make deaths self to shudder in his shroud
Thy shadows hangeth like a gloomy pall
With more or less of terror over all
Life looking on this glass of time doth freeze
With fear at its own image which its sees
To think the living head with thoughts so full
Is but the flattered portrait of a skull

SEDGE BIRDS NEST

Fixed in a white thorn bush its summer guest
So low een grass oertopt its tallest twig
A sedge bird built its little benty nest
Close by the meadow pool & wooden brig
Where schoolboys every morn & eve did pass
In robbing birds & cunning deeply skilled
Searching each bush & taller clump of grass
Where ere was liklihood of bird to build
Yet did she hide her habitation long
& keep her little brood from dangers eye
Hidden as secret as a crickets song
Till they well fledged oer widest pools could flye
Proving that providence is often bye
To guard the simplest of her charge from wrong

THE SHEPHERDS TREE

Hugh Elm thy rifted trunk all notched & scarred
Like to a warriors destiny I love
To stretch me often on such shadowd sward
& hear the laugh of summer leaves above
Or on thy buttressed roots to sit & lean
In carless attitude—& there reflect
On times & deeds & darings that have been
Old cast aways now swallowed in neglect
While thou art towering in thy strength of heart
Stirring the soul to vain imaginings
In which lifes sordid being hath no part
The wind of that eternal ditty sings
Humming of future things that burns the mind
To leave some fragment of itself behind

AN IDLE HOUR

Sauntering at ease I often love to lean
Oer old bridge walls & mark the flood below
Whose ripples through the weeds of oily green
Like happy travellers mutter as they go
& mark the sunshine dancing on the arch
Time keeping to the merry waves beneath
& on the banks see drooping blossoms parch
Thirsting for water in the days hot breath
Right glad of mud drops plashed upon their leaves
By cattle plunging from the steepy brink
While water flowers more than their share recieve
& revel to their very cups in drink
Just like the world some strive & fare but ill
While others riot & have plenty still

THE SHEPHERD BOY

Pleased in his lonliness he often lies
Telling glad stories to his dog—& een
His very shadow that the loss supplies
Of living company. Full oft he'll lean
By pebbled brooks & dream with happy eyes
Upon the fairey pictures spread below
Thinking the shadowed prospect real skies
& happy heavens where his kindred go
Oft we may track his haunts where he hath been
To spend the leisure which his toils bestow
By ‘nine peg morris’ nicked upon the green
Or flower stuck gardens never meant to grow
Or figures cut on trees his skill to show
Where he a prisoner from a shower hath been

LORD BYRON

A splendid sun hath set when shall our eyes
Behold a morn so beautiful arise
As that which gave his mighty genius birth
& all eclipsed the lesser lights on earth
His first young burst of twilight did declare
Beyond that haze a sun was rising there
As when the morn to usher in the day
Speeds from the east in sober garb of grey
At first till warming into wild delight
She casts her mantle off & shines in light
The labours of small minds an age may dream
& be but shadows on times running stream
While genius in an hour makes what shall be
The next a portion of eternity

ON SEEING THE BUST OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA BY BEHNES

Sweet opening vision of a royal line
How many hopes & anxious thoughts arise
That time must in her mysterys define
How many pleasing fancies fill our eyes
While musing thus & gazing upon thine
That open look the artist sweetly caught
Turned upward as to view the beaming sky
In all that rich young vacancy of thought
That makes man envy early infancy
Sweetly concieved & exquisitly wrought
The statue even childhoods joy imparts
& sculptures genius makes a proud display
Life almost from the chilly marble starts
& beauty breaths reality in clay

EVENING PASTIME

Musing beside the crackling fire at night
While singing kettle merrily prepares
Womans solacing beverage I delight
To read a pleasant volume where the cares
Of life are sweetened by the muses voice—
Thompson or Cowper or the Bard that bears
Lifes humblest name though natures favoured choice
Her pastoral Bloomfield—& as evening wears
Weary with reading list the little tales
Of laughing childern who edge up their chairs
To tell the past days sport which never fails
To cheer the spirits—while my fancy shares
Their artless talk mans sturdy reason fails
& memorys joy grows young again with theirs

NATURE

How many pages of sweet natures book
Hath poesy doubled down as favoured things
Such as the wood leaves in disorder shook
By startled stockdoves hasty clapping wings
Or green woodpecker that soft tapping clings
To grey oak trunks till scared by passing clowns
It bounces forth in airy ups & downs
To seek fresh solitudes the circling rings
The idle puddock makes around the towns
Watching young chickens by each cottage pen
& such are each days party coloured skies
& such the landscapes charms oer field & fen
That meet the poets never weary eyes
& are too many to be told agen

THE WREN

Why is the cuckoos melody preferred
& nightingales rich song so fondly praised
In poets ryhmes Is there no other bird
Of natures minstrelsy that oft hath raised
Ones heart to extacy & mirth as well
I judge not how anothers taste is caught
With mine theres other birds that bear the bell
Whose song hath crowds of happy memories brought
Such the wood Robin singing in the dell
& little Wren that many a time hath sought
Shelter from showers in huts where I did dwell
In early spring the tennant of the plain
Tenting my sheep & still they come to tell
The happy stories of the past again

A SPRING MORNING

Spring cometh in with all her hues & smells
In freshness breathing over hills & dells
Oer woods where May her gorgeous drapery flings
& meads washed fragrant with their laughing springs
Fresh as new opened flowers untouched & free
From the bold rifling of the amorous bee
The happy time of singing birds is come
& loves lone pilgrimage now finds a home
Among the mossy oaks now coos the dove
& the hoarse crow finds softer notes for love
The foxes play around their dens & bark
In joys excess mid woodland shadows dark
& flowers join lips below & leaves above
& every sound that meets the ear is love

TO A FRIEND—IN ILLNESS

In friendships gentle name that claims akin
With poesys warmth its feelings to explain
Lady my feeble pen would fainly win
The welcome praises from thy lips again
Although the Muse shrinks from my hand the while
That with weak hold would yet her stay detain
Mingling sad tears with every withering smile
Dreaming of pleasures past & present pain—
Telling my sick heart that its hopes are vain
Wishing for health it neer may know again
Well I can better bear my sinking lot
Knowing that when my life shall cease to be
My very faults though known shall be forgot
& my poor memory find a friend in thee

SPRING

Now that the spring the quickening earth espouses
& natures feathered folk keep holiday
Each with sweet song in bush & tree carouses
Who would not from dull citys flee away
From smoke enveloped streets & gloomy houses
To fields where forth healths merry maidens fare
To milk their red cows & when that be done
To spend in sport the time they have to spare
Pressing the gold locks of the enarmoured sun
On pleasant banks with young love toying there
& whoso wisheth for a blest estate
That in the golden mean would fear no fall
Need neither wish to be or rich or great
While a poor milk maid lives enjoying all

AUTUMN

Me it delights in mellow autumn tide
To mark the pleasaunce that mine eye surrounds
The forest trees like coloured posies pied
The uplands mealy grey & russet grounds
Seeking for joy where joyance most abounds
Not found I ween in courts & halls of pride
Where folly feeds on flatterys sights & sounds
& with sick heart but seemeth to be merry
True pleasaunce is with humble food supplied
Like shepherd swain who plucks the bramble berry
With savoury appetite from hedgerow briars
Then drops content by molehills sunny side
Proving therebye low joys & small desires
Are easiest fed & soonest satisfied

TO A YOUNG LADY

Maiden the blooms of happiness surround thee
The worlds bright side like thy young visions fair
Gay & unclouded smile in raptures round thee
With joys unconscious of encroaching care
The poesy of life hath sweetly found thee
Ah would thy sunshine had no clouds to share
& the young flowers with which her joys have crowned thee
Would they were dreams as lasting as theyre fair
But nature maiden hath its winter—care
Or more or less in ambush waits to wound thee
Then cheat thy gentle heart with no frail token
From witching hope—far better joys pursue
I know her closest bonds are easy broken
& feel the picture I have drawn too true

CROWLAND ABBEY

In sooth it seems right awful & sublime
To gaze by moonlight on the shattered pile
Of this old abbey struggling still with time
The grey owl hooting from its rents the while
& tottering stones as wakened by the sound
Crumbling from arch & battlement around—
Urging dread echoes from the gloomy aisle
To sink more silent still—The very ground
In desolations garment doth appear—
The lapse of age & mystery profound—
We gaze on wrecks of ornamented stones
On tombs whose sculptures half erased appear
& rank weeds battening over human bones
Till even ones very shadow seems to feel a fear

A PLEASANT PLACE

Now summer cometh I with staff in hand
Will hie me to the sabbath of her joys—
To heathy spots & the unbroken land
Of woodland heritage unknown to noise
& toil—save many a playful band
Of dancing insects that well understand
The sweets of life & with attuned voice
Sing in sweet concert to the pleasant may
There by a little bush I'll listening rest
To hear the nightingale a lovers lay
Chaunt by his mate who builds her carless nest
Of oaken leaves on thorn stumps mossed & grey
Feeling with them I too am truly blest
By making sabbaths of each common day

VANITY OF FAME

What boots the toil to follow common fame
With youths wild visions of anxiety
& waste a life to win a feeble claim
Upon her page which she so soon turns bye
To make new votaries room who share the same
Rewards—& with her faded memories lie
Neighbours to shadows—tis a sorry game
To play in earnest with—to think ones name
Buoyant with visions of eternity
& as familiar now in the worlds ear
As flowers & sunshine to the summers eye
Shall be forgot with other things that were
& like old words grown out of use thrown by
In the confused lap of still obscurity

MEMORY

I would not that my being all should die
& pass away with every common lot
I would not that my humble dust should lie
In quite a strange & unfrequented spot
By all unheeded & by all forgot
With nothing save the heedless winds to sigh
& nothing but the dewy morn to weep
About my grave far hid from the worlds eye
I feign would have some friend to wander nigh
& find a path to where my ashes sleep
Not the cold heart that merely passes bye
To read who lieth there but such that keep
Past memories warm with deeds of other years
& pay to friendship some few friendly tears

DEATH OF BEAUTY

Now thou art gone the fairey rose is fled
That erst gay fancys garden did adorn
Thou wert the dew on which their folly fed
The sun by which they glittered in the morn
Now thou art gone their pride is withered
The dress of common weeds their youth bewray
Now vanity neglects them in her play
Thou wert the very index of their praise
Their borrowed bloom all kindled from thy rays
Like dancing insects that the sun alures
They little heeded it was gained from thee
Vain joys what are they now their suns away
What but poor shadows that blank night obscures
As the grave hideth & dishonours thee

FAME

Whats future fame a melody loud playing
In crowds where one is wanting whose esteeming
Would love to hear it best—a sun displaying
A solitary glory whose bright beaming
Smiles upon withered flowers & lone delaying
Lingers behind its world—a crown vain gleaming
Around a shade whose substance death hath banished
A living dream oer which hope once was dreaming
A busy echoe on each lip delaying
When he that woke it into life is vanished
A picture that from all eyes praise is stealing
A statue towering over glorys game
That cannot feel while he that was all feeling
Is past & gone & nothing but a name

TO THE MEMORY OF BLOOMFIELD

BEAUTY

Daughters of england where has nature given
Creatures like you so delicately formed
Ye earthly types of beauty in its heaven
With tender thoughts & blushes ever warmed
Where is the heart with apathy so blessed
That womans beauty failed to lead astray
Where is the eye can for a moment rest
On beautys face & calmly turn away
O lovely woman muse of many themes
The sweet reality of fancys dreams
Where is the soul that never lost its rest
Nor felt the thrilling aching & the strife
From stolen glances on a heaving breast
As white as marble statues warmed with life

THE MARCH NIGHTINGALE

Now sallow catkins once all downy white
Turn like the sunshine into golden light
The rocking clown leans oer the spinny rail
In admiration at the sunny sight
The while the Blackcap doth his ears assail
With such a rich & such an early song
He stops his own & thinks the nightingale
Hath of her monthly reckoning counted wrong
“Sweet jug jug jug” comes loud upon his ear
Those sounds that unto may by right belong
Yet on the awthorn scarce a leaf appears
How can it be—spell struck the wondering boy
Listens again—again the sound he hears
& mocks it in his song for very joy

THE THRUSHES NEST

Within a thick & spreading awthorn bush
That overhung a molehill large & round
I heard from morn to morn a merry thrush
Sing hymns to sunrise while I drank the sound
With joy & often an intruding guest
I watched her secret toils from day to day
How true she warped the moss to form her nest
& modelled it within with wood & clay
& bye & bye like heathbells gilt with dew
There lay her shining eggs as bright as flowers
Ink spotted over shells of greeny blue
& there I witnessed in the sunny hours
A brood of natures minstrels chirp & flye
Glad as that sunshine & the laughing sky

THE SYCAMORE

In massy foliage & a sunny green
The splendid sycamore adorns the spring
Adding rich beauty to the varied scene
That natures breathing arts alone can bring
Hark how the insects hum around & sing
Like happy ariels hid from heedless view
& merry bees that feed with eager wing
On the broad leaves glazed oer with honey dew
The fairey sunshine gently flickers through
Upon the grass & buttercups below
& in its foliage winds their sport renew
Waving romantic shadows too & fro
That oer the mind in sweet disorder flings
A flitting dream of beauties fading things

THE CRABTREE

Spring comes anew & brings each little pledge
That still as wont my childish heart decieves
I stoop again for violets in the hedge
Among the Ivy & old withered leaves
& often mark amid the clumps of sedge
The pooty shells I gathered when a boy
But cares have claimed me many an evil day
& chilled the relish which I had for joy
Yet when crab blossoms blush among the may
As wont in years gone bye I scramble now
Up mid the brambles for my old esteems
Filling my hands with many a blooming bough
Till the heart stirring past as present seems
Save the bright sunshine of those fairey dreams

WINTER

Old January clad in crispy rime
Comes trampling on & often makes a stand
The hasty snowstorm neer disturbs his time
He mends no pace but beats his dithering hand
& Febuery like a timid maid
Smiling & sorrowing follows in his train
Huddled in cloak of mirey roads affraid
She hastens on to greet her home again
Then march the prophetess by storms inspired
Gazes in rapture on the troubled sky
& then in headlong fury madly fired
She bids the hail storm boil & hurry bye
Yet neath the blackest cloud a sunbeam flings
Its cheering promise of returning springs

THE BEANS IN BLOSSOM

The southwest wind how pleasant in the face
It breaths while sauntering in a musing pace
I roam these new ploughd fields & by the side
Of this old wood where happy birds abide
& the rich blackbird through his golden bill
Utters wild music when the rest are still
Now luscious comes the scent of blossomed beans
That oer the path in rich disorder leans
Mid which the bees in busy songs & toils
Load home luxuriantly their yellow spoils
The herd cows toss the mole hills in their play
& often stand the strangers steps at bay
Mid clover blossoms red & tawney white
Strong scented with the summers warm delight

BOYS AT PLAY

The shepherd boys play by the shaded stile
While sunshine gleams with warm & idle smile
Or hide neath hedges where the linnets sing
& leaves spread curtains round the bubbling spring
While winds with idle dalliance wave the woods
& toy with nature in her youthful moods
Fanning the feathers on the linnets breast
& happy maid in lightsome garments drest
Sweeping her gown in many an armorous shade
As if enarmoured of the form displayed
Upon the southwest wind the boiling showers
Bring sweet arivance of all sorts of flowers
Enjoying like the laughing boys at play
Sabbaths of sunshines outdoor holiday

THE SHEPHERDS FIRE

On the rude heath yclad in furze & ling
& oddling thorn that thick & prickly grows
Shielding the shepherd when the rude wind blows
& boys that sit right merry in a ring
Round fires upon a molehill toasting sloes
& crabs that froth & frizzle on the coals
Loud is the gabble & the laughter loud
The rabbits scarce dare peep from out their holes
Unwont to mix with such a noisey crowd
Some run to eke the fire—while many a cloud
Of smoke curls up some on their haunches squat
With mouth for bellows puffing till it flares
Or if that fail one fans his napless hat
& when the feast is done they squabble for their shares

NOVEMBER

Sybil of months & worshipper of winds
I love thee rude & boisterous as thou art
& scraps of joy my wandering ever finds
Mid thy uproarious madness—when the start
Of sudden tempests stir the forrest leaves
Into hoarse fury till the shower set free
Still the hugh swells & ebb the mighty heaves
That swing the forrest like a troubled sea
I love the wizard noise & rave in turn
Half vacant thoughts & self imagined rhymes
Then hide me from the shower a short sojourn
Neath ivied oak & mutter to the winds
Wishing their melody belonged to me
That I might breath a living song to thee

OLD POESY

TO DEWINT

Dewint I would not flatter nor would I
Pretend to critic skill in this thine art
Yet in thy landscapes I can well descry
Thy breathing hues as natures counterpart
No painted freaks—no wild romantic sky
No rocks nor mountains as the rich sublime
Hath made thee famous but the sunny truth
Of nature that doth mark thee for all time
Found on our level pastures spots forsooth
Where common skill sees nothing deemed divine
Yet here a worshipper was found in thee
Where thy young pencil worked such rich surprise
That rushy flats befringed with willow tree
Rival'd the beauties of italian skies

A LIVING PICTURE

Her hair was swarthy brown & soft of hue
As the sweet gloom that falls with evens dew
That on her fine white forhead did divide
In the triumphant negligence of pride
Her eyes were dark but they wore lights to shine
That love adores & poets call divine
& her cheeks summer blooms wore hues the while
Of loves soft innosence without its guile
& on the pouting of her amorous lip
Where love delicious nectar longed to sip
Beauty sat throned in that bewitching spell
That love adores & language cannot tell
Where charms triumphant made each gazer pay
Heartaches for looking—ere he turned away

POESY A MAYING

TO CHARLES LAMB

Friend Lamb thou chusest well to love the lore
Of our old bygone bards whose racey page
Rich mellowing Time made sweeter then before
The blossom left for the long garnered store
Of fruitage now right luscious in its age
Although to fashions taste—what more
Can be expected from the popular rage
For tinsels gauds that are to gold preferred
Me much it grieved as I did erst presage
Vain fashions foils had every heart deterred
From the warm homely phrase of other days
Untill thy muses auncient voice I heard
& now right fain yet fearing honest bard
I pause to greet thee with so poor a praise

BOSTON CHURCH

ISAAC WALTON

Some blame thee honest Isaac—aye & deem
Thy pastime cruel by the silent stream
Of the unwooded Lea—but he that warms
In eloquence of grief oer suffering worms
Throws by his mourning quill & hunts the hare
Whole hours to death yet feels no sorrow there
Yet this mock sentimental man of moods
On every pastime but his own intrudes
Not so with thee thou man of angel mind
That like thy master gentle was & kind
Fit emblem of the prime apostles days
& worthy even of the scripture praise
& men of Gods own heart must surely be
Such honest soul that most resemble thee

NUTTING

The sun had stooped his westward clouds to win
Like weary traveller seeking for an Inn
When from the hazelly wood we glad descried
The ivied gateway by the pasture side
Long had we sought for nutts amid the shade
Where silence fled the rustle that we made
When torn by briars & brushed by sedges rank
We left the wood & on the velvet bank
Of short sward pasture ground we sat us down
To shell our nutts before we reached the town
The near hand stubble field with mellow glower
Showed the dimmed blaze of poppys still in flower
& sweet the molehills smelt we sat upon
& now the thymes in bloom but where is pleasure gone

THE WOODMAN

Now evening comes & from the new laid hedge
The woodman rustles in his leathern guise
Hiding in dyke ylined with brustling sedge
His bill & mittins from thefts meddling eyes
& in his wallets storeing many a pledge
Of flowers & boughs from early sprouting trees
& painted pootys from the ivied hedge
About its mossy roots—his boys to please
Who wait with merry joy his coming home
Anticipating presents such as these
Gained far afield where they nor night nor morn
Find no school leisure long enough to go
Where flowers but rarely from their stalks are torn
& birds scarce loose a nest the season through

SHADOWS

The fairest summer hath its sudden showers
The clearest sky is never without clouds
& in the painted meadows host of flowers
Some lurking weed in poisonous death enshrouds
Sweet days that upon golden sunshine springs
A gloomy night in mourning waits to stain
The honey bees are girt with sharpest stings
& sweetest joys oft breed severest pains
While like to autumns storms sudden & brief
Mirths parted lips oft close in silent grief
Amid this checkered lifes dissasterous state
Where hope lives green amid the desolate
As nature in her happy livery waves
Oer ancient ruins pallaces & graves

MORNING PLEASURES

The dewy virtues of the early morn
Breaths rich of health & leads the mind to joy
While like a thrilling pleasure newly born
Each little hamlet wakes its shouting boy
Right earlily to wander out afield
& brush the dewdrops from the bending corn
To see what nests the hedgerow thorns may shield
Or gather cuckoos from the neighbouring lawn
Where mid the dark Dog mercury that abounds
Round each mossed stump the woodlark hides her nest
& delicate bluebell that her home surrounds
Bows its soft fragrance oer her spotted breast
Till from the boys rude steps she startled flies
Who turns the weeds away & vainly seeks the prize

HONESTY

HAYMAKING

Tis haytime & the red complexioned sun
Was scarcely up ere blackbirds had begun
Along the meadow hedges here & there
To sing loud songs to the sweet smelling air
Where breath of flowers & grass & happy cow
Fling oer ones senses streams of fragrance now
While in some pleasant nook the swain & maid
Lean oer their rakes & loiter in the shade
Or bend a minute oer the bridge & throw
Crumbs in their leisure to the fish below
—Hark at that happy shout—& song between
Tis pleasures birthday in her meadow scene
What joy seems half so rich from pleasure won
As the loud laugh of maidens in the sun

SLANDER

STEPPING STONES

The stepping stones that stride the meadow streams
Look picturesque amid springs golden gleams
Where steps the traveller with a warey pace
& boy with laughing leisure in his face
Sits on the midmost stone in very whim
To catch the struttles that beneath him swim
While those accross the hollow lakes are bare
& winter floods no more rave dangers there
But mid the scum left where it roared & fell
The schoolboy hunts to find the pooty shell
Yet there the boisterous geese with golden broods
Hiss fierce & daring in their summer moods
The boys pull off their hats while passing bye
In vain to fright—themselves being forced to fly

THE GARDEN BENCH

I sit to see the landscape fade away
In musing shadows with departing day
Leaving the shepherds storys half untold
While weary flocks go bleating to the fold
& midges dancing in the evening sun
Bids labour welcome that its toil is done
A wonted quiet oer the bosom steals
Which calm seclusive quiet ever feels
Glad as the hope that meets a lovers smile
Or sweet as labour resting from its toil
& sweet it is some pleasant tale to weave
Neath the swart twilight of a summers eve
Of some sweet being that in thought doth move
An angels beauty with a womans love

PLEASANT PLACES

Old stone pits with veined ivy overhung
Wild crooked brooks oer which was rudely flung
A rail & plank that bends beneath the tread
Old narrow lanes where trees meet overhead
Path stiles on which a steeple we espy
Peeping & stretching in the distant sky
& heaths oerspread with furze blooms sunny shine
Where wonder pauses to exclaim “divine”
Old ponds dim shadowed with a broken tree
These are the picturesque of taste to me
While painting winds to make compleat the scene
In rich confusion mingles every green
Waving the sketchy pencil in their hands
Shading the living scenes to fairey lands

THE HAIL STORM IN JUNE 1831

Darkness came oer like chaos—& the sun
As startled with the terror seemed to run
With quickened dread behind the beetling cloud
The old wood sung like nature in her shroud
& each old rifted oak trees mossy arm
Seemed shrinking from the presence of the storm
& as it nearer came they shook beyond
Their former fears—as if to burst the bond
Of earth that bound them to that ancient place
Where danger seemed to threaten all their race
Who had withstood all tempests since their birth
Yet now seemed bowing to the very earth
Like reeds they bent like drunken men they reeled
Till man from shelter ran & sought the open field

ETERNITY OF TIME

Eternal grand eternity of time
Where things of greatest standing grow sublime
Less from long fames & universal praise
Then wearing as the “ancients of old days”
The word once speaking seems but half the way
To reach that night leap of eternal day
The Milton centurys each a mighty boast
The shakspear eras—worlds without their host
Engraved up[on] the adamant of fame
By pens of steal in characters of flame
To whom the forrest oaks eternal stay
Are but as points & commas in their way
These less then nothings are to ruins doom
When suns grow dark & earth a vast & lonely tomb

THE POESY OF FLOWERS

What would the rosey be but as the rose
A merely sweet undignifying flower
But cloathed by womans dignifying grace
It looks upon us with a living power
Then quickly every blush from beauty glows
As mirrors—there reflecting beautys face
Her lips & luscious cheeks shine in its leaves
& in the lily—there her bosom heaves
Flowers thus personify the hearts delight
& beauty gives us rapture in their sight
Flowers merely flowers—would seem but cold esteems
With heart-associations & love-dreams
But mixed like life with mind—where ere we roam
They link like houshold feelings with our home

THE FAIREY RINGS

THE MORNING WIND

Theres more then music in this early wind
Awaking like a bird refreshed from sleep
& joy what Adam might in eden find
When he with angels did communion keep
It breaths all balm & insence from the sky
Blessing the husbandman with freshening powers
Joys manna from its wings doth fall & lie
Harvests for early wakers with the flowers
The very grass with joys devotion moves
Cowslaps in adoration & delight
This way & that bow to the breath they love
Of the young winds that with their dewpearls play
Till smoaking chimneys sicken the young light
& feelings fairey visions fade away

HARES AT PLAY

The birds are gone to bed the cows are still
& sheep lie panting on each old molehill
& underneath the willows grey-green bough
Like toil a resting—lies the fallow plough
The timid hares throw daylight fears away
On the lane road to dust & dance & play
Then dabble in the grain by nought deterred
To lick the dew fall from the barleys beard
Then out they sturt again & round the hill
Like happy thoughts—dance—squat—& loiter still
Till milking maidens in the early morn
Gingle their yokes & sturt them in the corn
Through well known beaten paths each nimbling hare
Sturts quick as fear—& seeks its hidden lair

THE FLOOD

HEDGE SPARROW

The tame hedge sparrow in its russet dress
Is half a robin for its gentle ways
& the bird loving dame can do no less
Then throw it out a crumble on cold days
In early march it into gardens strays
& in the snug clipt box tree green & round
It makes a nest of moss & hair & lays
When een the snow is lurking on the ground
Its eggs in number five of greenish blue
Bright beautiful & glossy shining shells
Much like the firetails but of brighter hue
Yet in her garden home much danger dwells
Where skulking cat with mischief in its breast
Catches their young before they leave the nest

SHEPHERDS HUT

WOOD PICTURES IN WINTER

The woodland swamps with mosses varified
& bullrush forrests bowing by the side
Of shagroot sallows that snug shelter make
For the coy more hen in her bushy lake
Into whose tide a little runnel weaves
Such charms for silence through the choaking leaves
& whimpling melodies that but intrude
As lullabys to ancient solitude
—The wood-grass plats which last year left behind
Weaving their feathery lightness to the wind
Look now as picturesque amid the scene
As when the summer glossed their stems in green
While tasty hare brunts through the creepy gap
Seeks their soft beds & squats in safetys lap

WOOD PICTURES IN SUMMER

The one delicious green that now prevades
The woods & fields in endless lights & shades
& that deep softness of delicious hues
That over head—blends—softens & subdues
The eye to extacy & fills the mind
With views & visions of enchanting kind
While on the velvet down beneath the swail
I sit on mossy stump & broken rail
Or lean oer crippled gate by hugh old tree
Broken by boys disporting there at swee
While sunshine spread from an exaustless sky
Gives all things extacy as well as I
& all wood-swaily places even they
Are joys own tennants keeping holiday

WOOD PICTURES IN SPRING

The rich brown-umber hue the oaks unfold
When springs young sunshine bathes their trunks in gold
So rich so beautiful so past the power
Of words to paint—my heart aches for the dower
The pencil gives to soften & infuse
This brown luxuriance of unfolding hues
This living luscious tinting woodlands give
Into a landscape that might breath & live
& this old gate that claps against the tree
The entrance of springs paradise should be
Yet paint itself with living nature fails
—The sunshine threading through these broken rails
In mellow shades—no pencil eer conveys
& mind alone feels fancies & pourtrays

A WOODLAND SEAT

TO MYSTERY

Mystery thou subtle essence—ages gain
New light from darkness—still thy blanks remain
& reason trys [to] chase old night from thee
When chaos fled thy parent took the key
Blank darkness—& the things age left behind
Are lockt for aye in thy unspeaking mind
Towers temples ruins on & under ground
So old—so dark—so mystic—so profound
Old time himself so old is like a child
& cant remember when their blocks were piled
Or caverns scooped & with a wondering eye
He seems to pause like other standers bye
Half thinking that the wonders left unknown
Was born in ages older than his own

THE DINNER IN THE FIELDS

How pleasant when athirst in burning days
To kneel adown where clear the fountain strays
Over its bed of pebbles—oer the brink
& just where bubbles blubber up to drink
How cooling by the parched lips it runs
While some thick willow shadows out the sun
& how delicious is the taste—een wine
Can[t] relish better where the wealthy dine
Then sweet spring water to the thirsty swain
Who sits & eats his dinner on the plain
& visits with a relish dear to toil
The shaded spring where clear the waters boil
An ancient luxury where the humble dwell
Which Jacob craved from rachel at the well

THE MILKING SHED

Good God & can it be that such a nook
As this can raise such sudden rapture up
—Two dotterel trees an oak & ash that stoop
Their aged bodys oer a little brook
& raise their sheltering heads above & oer
A little hovel raised on four old props
Old as themselves to look on & what more
Nought but an awthorn hedge & yet one stops
In admiration & in joy to gaze
Upon these objects feeling as I stand
That nought in all this wide worlds thorny ways
Can match this bit of feelings fairy land
How can it be—time owns the potent spell
Ive known it from a boy & love it well

THE SALLOW

Pendant oer rude old ponds or leaning oer
The woodlands mossy rails—the sallows now
Put on their golden liveries & restore
The spring to splendid memories ere a bough
Of white thorn shows a leaf to say tis come
& through the leafless underwood rich stains
Of sunny gold show where the sallows bloom
Like sunshine in dark places & gold veins
Mapping the russet landscape into smiles
At springs approach nor hath the sallow palms
A peer for richness—ploughmen in their toils
Will crop a branch—smit with its golden charms
While at its root the primrose' brunny eye
Smiles in his face & blooms deliciously

THE HAPPY BIRD

The happy whitethroat on the sweeing bough
Swayed by the impulse of the gadding wind
That ushers in the showers of april—now
Singeth right joyously & now reclined
Croucheth & clingeth to her moving seat
To keep her hold—& till the wind for rest
Pauses—she mutters inward melodies
That seem her hearts rich thinkings to repeat
& when the branch is still—her little breast
Swells out in raptures gushing symphonies
& then against her brown wing softly prest
The wind comes playing an enraptured guest
This way & that she swees—till gusts arise
More boisterous in their play—& off she flies

THE BREATH OF MORNING

How beautiful & fresh the pastoral smell
Of tedded hay breaths in this early morn
Health in these meadows must in summer dwell
& take her walks among these fields of corn
I cannot see her—yet her voice is born
On every breeze that fans my hair about
& though the sun is scarcely out of bed
Leaning on ground like half awakened sleep
The boy hath left his mossy thatched shed
& bawling lustily to cows & sheep
& taken at the woodbines overhead
Climbs up to pluck them from the thorny bower
Half drowned by dropples pattering on his head
From leaves bemoistened by nights secret shower

DECAY

Amidst the happiest joy a shade of grief
Will come—to mark in summers prime a leaf
Tinged with the autumns visible decay
As pining to forgetfulness away
Aye blank forgetfulness that coldest lot
To be—& to have been—& then be not
Een beautys self loves essence heavens prime
Mate for eternity in joys sublime
Earths most divinest is a mortal thing
& nurses times sick autumn from its spring
& fades & fades till wonder knows it not
& admiration hath all praise forgot
Coldly forsaking an unheeding past
To fade & fall & die like common things at last

GLINTON SPIRE

Glinton thy taper spire predominates
Over the level landscape—& the mind
Musing—the pleasing picture contemplates
Like elegance of beauty much refined
By taste—that almost deifys & elevates
Ones admiration making common things
Around it glow with beautys not their own
Thus all around the earth superior springs
Those straggling trees though lonely seem not lone
But in thy presence wear superior power
& een each mossed & melancholly stone
Gleaning cold memories round oblivions bower
Seem types of fair eternity—& hire
A lease from fame by thy enchanting spire

THE MEADOW HAY

I often roam a minute from the path
Just to luxuriate on the new mown swath
& stretch me at my idle length along
Hum louder oer some melody or song
While passing stranger slackens in his pace
& turns to wonder what can haunt the place
Unthinking that an idle ryhmster lies
Buried in the sweet grass & feeding phantasys
This happy spirit of the joyous day
Stirs every pulse of life into the play
Of buoyant joy & extacy—I walk
& hear the very weeds to sing & talk
Of their delights as the delighted wind
Toys with them like playfellows ever kind

BURTHORP OAK

Old noted oak I saw thee in a mood
Of vague indifference—& yet with me
Thy memory like thy fate hath lingering stood
Like an old hermit in the lonely sea
Of grass that waves around thee—Solitude
Paints not a lonlier picture to the view
Burthorp then thy one solitary tree
Age rent & shattered to a stump—Yet new
Leaves come upon each rift & broken limb
With every spring—& poesys visions swim
Around it of old days & chivalry
& desolate fancys bid the eyes grow dim
With feelings that earths grandeur should decay
& all its olden memories pass away

MIDSUMMER

Midsummers breath gives ripeness to the year
Of beautiful & picturesque & grand
Tinting the mountain with the hues of fear
Bare climbing dizziness—where bushes stand
Their breakneck emminence with danger near
Like lives in peril—though they wear a smile
Tis sickly green as in a homeless dream
Of terror at their fate—while under land
Smiles with home hues as rich as health to toil
In mellow greens & darker lights that cheer
The ploughman turning up the healthy soil
& health & pleasure glistens every where
—So high ambitions dwell as dangers guests
& quiet minds as small birds in their nests

OBSCURITY

Old tree oblivion doth thy life condemn
Blank & recordless as that summer wind
That fanned the first few leaves on thy young stem
When thou wert one years shoot—& who can find
Their homes of rest or paths of wandering now
So seems thy history to a thinking mind
As now I gaze upon thy sheltering bough
Thou grew unnoticed up to flourish now
& leave thy past as nothing all behind
Where many years & doubtless centurys lie
That ewe beneath thy shadow—nay that flie
Just settled on a leaf—can know with time
Almost as much of thy blank past as I
Thus blank oblivion reigns as earths sublime

PLEASURES OF FANCY

A Path old tree goes bye thee crooking on
& through this little gate that claps & bangs
Against thy rifted trunk what steps hath gone
Though but a lonely way—yet mystery hangs
Oer crowds of pastoral scenes recordless here
The boy might climb the nest in thy young boughs
Thats slept half an eternity—in fear
The herdsman may have left his startled cows
For shelter when heavens thunder voice was near
Here too the woodman on his wallet laid
For pillow may have slept an hour away
& poet pastoral lover of the shade
Here sat & mused half some long summers day
While some old shepherd listened to the lay

THE TRUTH OF TIME

Go vile hypocrisy with subtle tongue
& smooth spruce visage that can hide a lie
In fairest speech & meditate a wrong
Under prayers masking—put that covering bye
That hid thy speckled snakes thy whole life long
Here truth reigns absolute—nay pass not bye
That mask must off—& thy deformity
In nakedness of deeds must stand & show
The hypocrite that seemed a saint below
That like a gamester shuffled so the cards
To win by cheating honestys awards
Poor honesty that like a carrion crow
Was made by thee—aye quake from foot to brow
Eternitys thy judge & deaths thy partner now

THE FOUNTAIN OF HOPE

Truth old as heaven is & God is truth
& hope is never old but still a youth
& when I ope the volume which began
Its essence & its mystery with man
I see that divine shadow mystery
& all the attributes of majesty
The high consception—power unspeakable
Where deity as three-almighty dwell
& rise above myself oer reasons shrine
& feel my origin as love divine
Older then earth 'bove worlds however high
An essence to be crushed but never die
That like a light hereafter shall arise
A star or comet in those mighty skies
Where God the sun smiles on it like a flower
& bids it live in light neath his almighty power

EVENING PRIMROSE

When once the sun sinks in the west
& dewdrops pearl the evenings breast
All most as pale as moonbeams are
Or its companionable star
The evening primrose opes anew
Its delicate blossoms to the dew
& shunning-hermit of the light
Wastes its fair bloom upon the night
Who blindfold to its fond caresses
Knows not the beauty it posseses
Thus it blooms on till night is bye
& day looks out with open eye
Bashed at the gaze it cannot shun
It faints & withers & is done

HOME PICTURES IN MAY

The sunshine bathes in clouds of many hues
& mornings feet are gemed with early dews
Warm daffodils about the garden beds
Peep through their pale slim leaves their golden heads
Sweet earthly suns of spring—the gossling broods
In coats of sunny green about the road
Waddle in extacy—& in rich moods
The old hen leads her flickering chicks abroad
Oft scuttling neath her wings to see the kite
Hang wavering oer them in the springs blue light
The sparrows round their new nests chirp with glee
& sweet the robin springs young luxury shares
Tutting its song in feathery gooseberry tree
While watching worms the gardeners spade unbears

SUDDEN SHOWER

Black grows the southern sky betokening rain
& humming hive bees homeward hurry bye
They feel the change—so let us shun the grain
& take the broad road while our feet are dry
Aye there some dropples moistened in my face
& pattered on my hat—tis coming nigh
Lets about & find a sheltering place
The little things around like you & I
Are hurrying through the grass to shun the shower
Here stoops an ash tree—hark the wind gets high
But never mind this Ivy for an hour
Rain as it may will keep us dryly here
That little wren knows well his sheltering bower
Nor leaves his dry house though we come so near

CARLESS RAMBLES

I love to wander at my idle will
In summers luscious prime about the fields
& kneel when thirsty at the little rill
To sip the draught its pebbly bottom yields
& where the maple bush its fountain shields
To lie & rest a swaily hour away
& crop the swelling peascod from the land
Or mid the upland woodland walks to stray
Where oaks for aye oer their old shadows stand
Neath whose dark foliage with a welcome hand
I pluck the luscious strawberry ripe & red
As beautys lips—& in my fancys dreams
As mid the velvet moss I musing tread
Feel life as lovely as her picture seems

LOVE IN YOUTH

THE OLD WILLOW

The juicey wheat now spindles into ear
& trailing pea blooms ope their velvet eyes
& weeds & flowers by crowds far off & near
In all their sunny liveries appear
For summers lustre boasts unnumbered dyes
How pleasant neath this willow by the brook
Thats kept its ancient place for many a year
To sit & oer these crowded fields to look
& the soft dropping of the shower to hear
Ourselves so sheltered een a pleasant book
Might lie uninjured from the fragrant rain
For not a drop gets through the bowering leaves
But dry as housed in my old hut again
I sit & troubleous care of half its claim decieve

AMBITION

Ambition what a pomp creating word
Tis libelous of comfort though tis heard
As comforts aid & counsellor—O fie
That hearts should smile at what should make them sigh
The swelling thought that gives the heart relief
The ever craving wish that will not sleep
Till comes the sudden gush of care & grief
& anxious hope that gives it small relief
Soothing the rude extremeties of fate
Till every hope hath left it desolate
Like grandeur that with fading pride doth dwell
Oer ancient walls till every stone hath fell
It falls & leaves—the song of every wind
A broken shadow of its hopes behind

THE WRYNECKS NEST

That summer bird its oft repeated note
Chirps from the dotterel ash & in the hole
The green woodpecker made in years remote
It makes its nest—where peeping idlers strole
In anxious plundering moods—& bye & bye
The wrynecks curious eggs as white as snow
While squinting in the hollow tree they spy
The sitting bird looks up with jetty eye
& waves her head in terror too & fro
Speckled & veined in various shades of brown
& then a hissing noise assails the clown
& quick with hasty terror in his breast
From the trees knotty trunk he sluthers down
& thinks the strange bird guards a serpents nest

PROVIDENCE

THE WHEAT RIPENING

What time the wheat field tinges rusty brown
& barley bleaches in its mellow grey
Tis sweet some smooth mown baulk to wander down
Or cross the fields on footpaths narrow way
Just in the mealy light of waking day
As glittering dewdrops moise the maidens gown
& sparkling bounces from her nimble feet
Journeying to milking from the neighbouring town
Making life light with song—& it is sweet
To mark the grazing herds & list the clown
Urge on his ploughing team with cheering calls
& merry shepherds whistling toils begun
& hoarse tongued birdboy whose unceasing calls
Join the larks ditty to the rising sun

THE HAPPINESS OF IGNORANCE

Ere I had known the world & understood
How many follies wisdom names its own
Distinguishing things evil from things good
The dread of sin & death—ere I had known
Knowledge the root of evil—had I been
Left in some lone place where the world is wild
& trace of troubling man was never seen
Brought up by nature as her favourite child
As born for nought but joy where all rejoice
Emparadised in ignorance of sin
Where nature tries with never chiding voice
Like tender nurse nought but our smiles to win
The future dreamless beautiful would be
The present—foretaste of eternity

TO CHARLES LAMB ON HIS ESSAYS

Elia thy reveries & visioned themes
To cares lorn heart a luscious pleasure proves
Wild as the mystery of delightful dreams
Soft as the anguish of remembered love
Like records of past days their memory dances
Mid the cool feelings manhoods reason brings
As the unearthly visions of romances
Peopled with sweet & uncreated things
& yet thy themes thy gentle worth enhances
Then wake again thy wild harps tenderest strings
Sing on sweet bard let fairy loves again
Smile in thy dreams with angel extacies
Bright oer our soul will break the heavenly strain
Through the dull gloom of earths realities

FORREST FLOWERS

Ye simple weeds that make the desert gay
Disdained of all een by the youngsters eye
Who lifts his stick a weapon in his play
& lops your blossoms as he saunters bye
In mockery of merriment—yet I
Hail you as favourites of my early days
& every year as mid your haunts I lie
Some added pleasure claims my lonely gaze
Starpointed thistle with its ruddy flowers
Wind waving rush left to bewildered ways
Shunning the scene which cultures toil devours
Ye thrive in silence where I glad recline
Sharing with finer blooms springs gentle showers
That shows ye're prized by better taste then mine

THE ASS

Poor patient creature how I grieve to see
Thy wants so ill supplied—to see thee strain
& stretch thy tether for the grass in vain
Which heavens rain waters for all else but thee
The fair green field the fullnes of the plain
Add to thy hunger colt & heifer pass
& roll as though they mocked thee on the grass
Which would be luxury to the bare brown lane
Where thourt imprisoned humble patient ass
Cropping foul weeds & scorning to complain
Mercey at first “sent out the wild ass free”
A ranger “of the mountains” & what crimes
Did thy progenitors that thou shouldst be
The slave & mockery of latter times

SUNRISE

Morning awakes sublime—glad earth & sky
Smile in the splendour of the day begun
Oer the broad easts illumined canopy
Shade of its makers majesty the sun
Gleams in its living light—from cloud to cloud
Streaks of all colours beautifully run
As if before heavens gate there hung a shroud
To hide its grand magnificence—O heaven
Where entrance een to thought is disallowed
To view the glory that this scene is giving
What may blind reason not expect to see
When in immortal worlds the soul is living
Eternal as its maker & as free
To taste the unknowns of eternity

SUNSET

Welcome sweet eve thy gently sloping sky
& softly whispering wind that breaths of rest
& clouds unlike what daylight galloped bye
Now stopt as weary huddling in the west
Each by the farewell of days closing eye
Left with the smiles of heaven on its breast
Meek nurse of weariness how sweet to meet
Thy soothing tenderness to none denied
To hear thy whispering voice—ah heavenly sweet
Musing & listening by thy gentle side
Lost to lifes cares thy coloured skies to view
Picturing of pleasant worlds unknown to care
& when our bark the rough sea flounders through
Warming in hopes its end shall harbour there

NOTHINGNESS OF LIFE

I never pass a venerable tree
Pining away to nothingness & dust
Ruins vain shades of power I never see
Once dedicated to times cheating trust
But warm reflection wakes her saddest thought
& views lifes vanity in cheerless light
& sees earths bubbles youth so eager sought
Burst into emptiness of lost delight
& all the pictures of lifes early day
Like evenings striding shadows haste away
Yet theres a glimmering of pleasure springs
From such reflections of earths vanity
That pines & sickens oer lifes mortal things
& leaves a relish for eternity

THE INSTINCT OF HOPE

Is there another world for this frail dust
To warm with life & be itself again
Somthing about me daily speaks there must
& why should instinct nourish hopes in vain
Tis natures prophecy that such will be
& every thing seems struggling to explain
The close sealed volume of its mystery
Time wandering onward keeps its usual pace
As seeming anxious of eternity
To meet that calm & find a resting place
Een the small violet feels a future power
& waits each year renewing blooms to bring
& surely man is no inferior flower
To die unworthy of a second spring

ROUND OAK SPRING

Sweet brook Ive met thee many a summers day
& ventured fearless in thy shallow flood
& rambled oft thy sweet unwearied way
Neath willows cool that on thy margin stood
With crowds of partners in my artless play
Grasshopper beetle bee & butterflye
That frisked about as though in merry mood
To see their old companion sporting bye
Sweet brook lifes glories once were thine & mine
Shades cloathed thy spring that now doth naked lie
On thy white boiling sand the sweet woodbine
Darkened & dipt its flowers—I mark & sigh
& muse oer troubles since we met the last
Like two fond friends whose happiness is past

THE MAJIC OF BEAUTY

An imperfection as perfections guest
Is greatest beauty—charms immaculate
& tawny moles upon a womans breast
Grow very jewels in their fair estate
So is it where the hearts consceptions wait
On beauty as her lacquey—up we climb
& from the very sun oer heavens own gate
Snatch a rich jewel—gracing common time
Making earth heaven—in our fancys dreams
& woman as an idol in esteem
Fairest companion of fair thoughts—& kin
To graces perfectness in heavens own grace
To worship such therefore can be no sin
If heavens own copy lives in beautys face

THE HEDGE ROSE

The wild rose swells its prickly buds anew
& soon shall wear the summers witching hue
Those hues which nature as its dowery heirs
& beauty like a blossom wins & wears
On her soft cheeks when shepherds in the grove
Reach down the blushing flowers & talk of love
The very bees that such intrusions scare
Frit from the blossom that he culls her there
Flye round mistaken as they leave the bower
& take the maids sweet blushes for a flower
Thus wild dog roseys hung in every hedge
Wakens at joys hearts core its sweetest pledge
Shedding to summer lanes their rich perfume
& whispering memorys raptures while they bloom

THE FEAR OF FLOWERS

The nodding oxeye bends before the wind
The woodbine quakes lest boys their flowers should find
& prickly dog rose spite of its array
Can't dare the blossom seeking hand away
While thistles wear their heavy knobs of bloom
Proud as the war horse wears its haughty plume
& by the road side dangers self defies
On commons where pined sheep & oxen lie
In ruddy pomp & ever thronging mood
It stands & spreads like danger in a wood
& in the village street where meanest weeds
Can't stand untouched to fill their husks with seed
The haughty thistle oer all danger towers
In every place the very whasp of flowers

THE HEAT OF NOON

There lies a sultry lusciousness around
The far stretched pomp of summer which the eye
Views with a dazzled gaze—& gladly bounds
Its prospects to some pastoral spots that lie
Nestling among the hedge confining grounds
Where in some nook the haystacks newly made
Scents the smooth level meadow land around
While underneath the woodlands hazley hedge
The crowding oxen make their swaily beds
& in the dry dyke thronged with rush & sedge
The restless sheep rush in to hide their heads
From the unlost & ever haunting flie
& under every trees projecting shade
Places as battered as the road is made

EMMONSAILS HEATH IN WINTER

I love to see the old heaths withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze & ling
While the old Heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow & flaps his melancholly wing
& oddling crow in idle motions swing
On the half rotten ash trees topmost twig
Beside whose trunk the gipsey makes his bed
Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig
Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread
The fieldfare chatters in the whistling thorn
& for the awe round fields & closen rove
& coy bumbarrels twenty in a drove
Flit down the hedgrows in the frozen plain
& hang on little twigs & start again

THE FIRETAILS NEST

Tweet pipes the Robin as the cat creeps bye
Her nestling young that in the elderns lie
& then the Bluecap tootles in its glee
Picking the flies from orchard apple tree
& Pink the Chaffinch cries its well known strain
Urging its kind to utter pink again
While in a quiet mood hedge sparrows trie
An inward stir of shadowed melody
—Around the rotten tree the firetail mourns
As the old hedger to his toil returns
Chopping the grain to stop the gap close bye
The hole where her blue eggs in safety lie
Of every thing that stirs she dreameth wrong
& pipes her “tweet tut” fears the whole day long

MONARCHY OF NATURE

Ive often thought me that a king should be
The head of every empire when Ive seen
The little toilings of the honey bee
Who forms a colony & owns a queen
& hurds his stores for winter in his hive
While wild & straggling tribes in bank & wall
Bore little holes—nor further store contrive
Then what themselves may want—& may be all
May be consumed ere winters storms are past
& then with famines tribes they pine & die
While tempest proof against the rudest blast
The hive bees monarchy doth live & thrive
Like populous citys & when winters bye
Crowds upon crowds again their busy labours ply

BLAKE

Blake though insulted by a kings decree
Thy fame stirs onward like the mighty sea
That throws its painted gems upon the shore
To deck crowns heirs with glitter little more
While all thats truly noble & sublime
Is rolling onward to the throne of time
Time the insulted arbiter of fame
Merits reward & tyrants lasting shame
That rusts crowns into baubles—kings to dust
Then Blake thy glory kindled in its trust
& like the sea thy hearts own element
Shining in light & earths amaze it went
Pursuing on a worth ennobled way
Heroe-inspiring theme of glorys dauntless day

THE WRYNECKS NEST

Yon summer bird its oft repeated note
Chirps from that dotterel ash & in the hole
The green woodpecker made in years remote
It makes its nest where idle birdboys stroll
In anxious robbing moods—& bye & bye
The wrynecks curious eggs all white as snow
While peeping in the hollow tree they spy
The sitting bird looks up with jetty eye
& waves her head in terror too & fro
Snake-speckled in the varied shades of brown
& then a hissing noise the startled clown
Heereth & bursting terror throbs his breast
Quick from the knotty trunk he sluthers down
Thinking the strange bird guards a serpents nest

MERIT

Hard words to vague pretention seres like death
& kills its feeble efforts with a breath
But insults thrown on merits struggling way
Are help-mates to her journey—not decay
As fires lies smouldering till the wind sweeps past
Then bursts to flame & kindles with the blast
So from the throws of envy hate & strife
Genius bursts forth & breaths eternal life
In vain the taunt would blight the scoff would sere
Like cobweb network falls the gibe & sneer
& genius like a sunburst from the cloud
Throws forth her light her mind is heard aloud
The nights of malice into lights decay
& aids her exaltations into day

ASHTON LAWN

GREENSWARD

Rich healthiness bedyes the summer grass
Of each old close—& everywhere instills
Gladness to travellers while they pause & pass
The narrow pathway through the old molehills
Of glad neglected pastures—& Ive thought
While sitting down upon their quiet laps
That no delights that rich men ever bought
Could equal mine—where quiet came unsought
While the cow mused beside the broken gaps
At the rich hay close sweeping to the wind
& as to pleasure natures gifts not few
Comes to the heart as unto grass the dew
For e'en her meanest gifts where e'er we find
Are worth a praise as music to the mind

THE MOLE

Rude architect rich instincts natural taste
Is thine by heritage—thy little mounds
Bedecking furze clad heath & rushy waste
Betraced with sheeptracks shine like pleasure grounds
No rude inellegance thy work confounds
But scenes of picturesque & beautiful
Lye mid thy little hills of cushioned thyme
On which the cowboy when his hands are full
Of wild flowers leans upon his arm at rest
As though his seat were feathers—when I climb
Thy little fragrant mounds I feel thy guest
& hail neglect thy patron who contrives
Waste spots for the[e] on natures quiet breast
& taste loves best where thy still labour thrives

FIRST SIGHT OF SPRING

The hazel blooms in threads of crimson hue
Peep through the swelling buds & look for spring
Ere yet a white thorn leaf appears in view
Or march finds throstles pleased enough to sing
On the old touchwood tree woodpeckers cling
A moment & their harsh toned notes renew
In happier mood the stockdove claps his wing
The squirrel sputters up the powdered oak
With tail cocked oer his head & ears errect
Startled to hear the woodmans understroke
& with the courage that his fears collect
He hisses fierce half malice & half glee
Leaping from branch to branch about the tree
In winters foliage moss & lickens drest

COTTAGE FEARS

The evening gathers from the gloomy woods
& darkling creeps oer silent vale & hill
While the snug village in nights happy moods
Is resting calm & beautifully still
The windows gleam with light the yelping curs
That guards the henroost from the thieving fox
Barks now & then as somthing passing stirs
& distant dogs the noises often mocks
While foxes from the woods send dismal cries
Like somthing in distress the cottager
Hears the dread noise & thinks of danger nigh
& locks up door in haste—nor cares to stir
From the snug safety of his humble shed
Then tells strange tales till time to go to bed

COLOURS OF AUTUMN

Now that the year is drawing to a close
Such mellow tints on trees & bushes lie
So like to sunshine that it brighter glows
As one looks more intently—on the sky
I turn astonished that no sun is there
The ribboned strips of orange blue & red
Streaks through the western sky a georgeous bed
Painting days end most beautifully fair
So mild so quiet breaths the balmy air
Scenting the perfume of decaying leaves
Such fragrance & such lovliness they wear
Trees hedgrows bushes that the heart recieves
Joys for which language owneth words too few
To paint that glowing richness which I view

THE HOLLOW TREE

How oft a summer shower hath started me
To seek for shelter in an hollow tree
Old hugh ash dotterel wasted to a shell
Whose vigorous head still grew & flourished well
Where ten might sit upon the battered floor
& still look round discovering room for more
& he who chose a hermit life to share
Might have a door & make a cabin there
They seemed so like a house that our desires
Would call them so & make our gipsey fires
& eat field dinners of the juicey peas
Till we were wet & drabbled to the knees
But in our old tree house rain as it might
Not one drop fell although it rained till night

PLEASANT SPOTS

There is a wild & beautiful neglect
About the fields that so delights & cheers
Where nature her own feelings to effect
I[s] left at her own silent work for years
The simplest thing thrown in our way delights
From the wild careless feature that it wears
The very road that wanders out of sight
Crooked & free is pleasant to behold
& such the very weeds left free to flower
Corn poppys red & carlock gleaming gold
That make the cornfield shine in summers hour
Like painted skys—& fancys distant eye
May well imagine armys marching bye
In all the grand array of pomp & power

THE FERN OWLS NEST

The weary woodman rocking home beneath
His tightly banded faggot wonders oft
While crossing over the furze crowded heath
To hear the fern owls cry that whews aloft
In circling whirls & often by his head
Wizzes as quick as thought & ill at rest
As through the rustling ling with heavy tread
He goes nor heeds he tramples near its nest
That underneath the furze or squatting thorn
Lies hidden on the ground & teazing round
That lonely spot she wakes her jarring noise
To the unheeding waste till mottled morn
Fills the red east with daylights coming sounds
& the heaths echoes mocks the herding boys

HAPPY THOUGHTS

MEADOW PATHS

The meadow with its sweep of level green
Goes winding onward from admiring eyes
Strangers can't say there winter floods have been
So vivid & so beautiful it lies
Its rich grass fanning to the young soft winds
While clumps of early daisys ope their eyes
& please the passenger that often winds
The little paths that cross it here & there
Winding to market village feast or fair
& more then happy doth the schoolboy go
With little basket swinging at his side
Tracing their verdant carpets too & fro
Morning & night with leisure gratified
While earth with Gods rich blessings overflow

STRAY WALKS

PASTORAL LIBERTY

O for the unshackled mood as free as air
& pleasure wild as birds upon the wing
The unwronged impulse won from seasons fair
Like birds perrenial travels with the spring
Come peace & joy the unworn path to trace
Crossing ling-heaths & hazel crowded glen
Where health salutes me with its ruddy face
& joy breaths freely from the strife of men
O lead me any where but in the crowd
On some lone island rather would I be
Than in the world worn knowledge noising loud
Wealth gathering up & loosing—leave with me
Calm joy & humble hope from quiet won
To live in peace unhurt & hurting none

EARLY IMAGES

THE MILKMAIDS SONG

Hark to that beautiful melody it is
The milkmaid singing love songs to her cow
With a voice like nightingales—list who would miss
Such music for a little lack of sleep
By rising an hour or two before
The common day gets marred by vulgar sounds
The air is pleasant too & giveth store
Of health that early risers purchase cheap
This singing milkmaid seeks this happy place
Early & late her morn & evening rounds
The passer bye neer meets a sweeter face
With ready smiles to greet the pleasant day
How doth such greetings happy thoughts surround
Cheating a pleasant walk of half the way

THE CLUMP OF FERN

A AUTUMN MORNING

The autumn morning waked by many a gun
Throws oer the fields her many coloured light
Wood wildly touched close tanned & stubbles dun
A motley paradise for earths delight
Clouds ripple as the darkness breaks to light
& clover fields are hid with silver mist
One shower of cobwebs oer the surface spread
& threads of silk in strange disorder twist
Round every leaf & blossoms bottly head
Hares in the drowning herbage scarcely steal
But on the battered pathway squats a bed
& by the cart rut nips her morning meal
Look where we may the scene is strange & new
& every object wears a changing hue

FORREST TREES

The woods how lovely with their crowds of trees
Each towering over each like hills oer hills
The oaks excess for darkest covert made
The mind with a sublime of pleasure fills
Then winged ash more sparingly displayed
A lightness oer the pensive eye distills
& elms in hanging branches mass oer mass
Determined still the woods to overlook
& willows feigning fondness for the grass
That leans oer pastoral pond & little brook
Like gipseys smoak beside the wood displays
Its lonely patch of green inclining greys
While the white poplar in the hedge so tall
Like leafy steeples overtops them all

A AWTHORN NOOK

The smooth & velvet sward my fancy suits
In pleasant places where the awthorns look
As left for arbours & the old tree roots
Lie crampt & netted oer the guggling brook
& shepherd on his elbow lolls to read
His slips of ballads bought at neighbouring fair
Seeming unconsious of the beautys there
The stilly quiet of the grassy screed
Skirting the busy brook—the happy fare
Of little birds that in the bushes breed
Are all unnoticed save that carless way
That sees & feels not—there I love to pass
The green hours leisure of a summers day
Stretching at length upon the couching grass

SAND MARTIN

Thou hermit haunter of the lonely glen
& common wild & heath—the desolate face
Of rude waste landscapes far away from men
Where frequent quarrys give thee dwelling place
With strangest taste & labour undeterred
Drilling small holes along the quarrys side
More like the haunts of vermin than a bird
& seldom by the nesting boy descried
Ive seen thee far away from all thy tribe
Flirting about the unfrequented sky
& felt a feeling that I can't describe
Of lone seclusion & a hermit joy
To see thee circle round nor go beyond
That lone heath & its melancholly pond

TWILIGHT IN SUMMER

Such splendid pomp the summers richness brings
That sunset far beyond her journey flings
Illuminating streaks of golden stain
& where the dial looks for smiles in vain
Oer the cold bosom of the gloomy north
Streaks of her smiling bounty issue forth
So bright as if the sun made longer stay
& sought for heaven by that lonely way
As if to leave no part of earth or sky
Without his smile to glad the gazing eye
So providence in every place appears
To chace the gloom that struggles into fears
& leaves a smile from summer every where
The lone to cherish & the sad to cheer

FIELD THOUGHTS

Field thoughts to me are happiness & joy
Where I can lye upon the pleasant grass
Or track some little path & so employ
My mind in trifles pausing as I pass
The little wild flower clumps by nothing nurst
But dews & sunshine & impartial rain
& welcomly to quench my summer thirst
I bend me by the flaggy dyke to gain
Dewberrys so delicious to the taste
& then I wind the flag fringed meadow lake
& mark the pike plunge with unusual haste
Through water weeds & many a circle make
While bursts of happiness from heaven fall
There all have hopes here fields are free for all

A WALK

SUMMER HAPPINESS

THE WELLAND

Theres somthing quite refreshing to behold
A broad & winding river wirl away
Here waterlilys studding nooks with gold
There yielding rushes bowing gentle sway
& trailing weeds whose easy curves delay
The waters for a moment—till they pass
& in a stiller motion sweep & bend
A broad & liquid mirror smooth as glass
In whose clear bosom are distinctly penned
Trees flowers & weeds in a delightful mass
Like happy thoughts in quiets easy mood
Oer which the fisher prows his boat along
& welland on thy reedy banks I find
Calm musings too I'm fain to cherish long

MOWERS DINNER HOUR

Upon the shady sward in meadow nook
Where spreads a tree to keep the waters cool
As sweet as pictures in a pleasant book
The mowers sit at dinner by the pool
Healthy & stubborn as their hard employ
Oercanopied in boughs & pleasant shade
Theirs is the envied seat of real joy
& luxury never sweeter dinner made
Than they of humbler means on the rich grass
With home brewed ale held up to merry lass
Who laughing comes to turn the bleaching hay
Ah did they know how happily they pass
Their time in toil they'd never wish for wealth
But keep their low estate & so ensure their health

COTTAGE COMFORT

The moon looks through the window late at eve
& throws the patterns of the diamond panes
Upon the cottage floor—while fancys leave
Illustrious calmness round—such as were vain
To look or search for in a higher state
Where calm contentment seldom wait on gain
Who far too throng to sit & contemplate
Her quiet lonliness—drives after wealth
With all the worlds anxiety & bent
Not taking heed for happiness or health
For they by humbler paths their journey went
Well be the hermits wish my nourishment
Some quiet nook that leaves the crowd by stealth
Peace from the world a cottage & content

FOOTPATHS

MEADOW BUTTERFLYES

Brown butterflyes in happy quiet rest
Upon the blooming ragworts golden breast
Giving unto the mind a sweet employ
That everything in nature meets with joy
Ah sweet indeed for trifles such as these
Full often give my aching bosom ease
When I in little walks my mind employ
Aright—& feel those happy reveries
That nature in her varied lessons tend
To bring our thinkings to a happy end
& in her varied moods for ever tries
To make us that great blessing comprehend
That spreads around us in a fond caress
Emblems & moods of future happiness

THE REED BIRD

A little slender bird of reddish brown
With frequent haste pops in & out the reeds
& on the river frequent flutters down
As if for food & so securely feeds
Her little young that in their ambush needs
Her frequent journeys hid in thickest shade
Where danger never finds a path to show
A fear on comforts nest securely made
In woods of reeds round which the waters flow
Save by a jelted stone that boys will throw
Or passing rustle of the fishers boat
It is the reed bird prized for pleasant note
Ah happy songster man can seldom share
A spot so hidden from the haunts of care

THE WOODLARKS NEST

FIELD CRICKET

THE YARROW

Dweller in pastoral spots life gladly learns
That nature never mars her aim to please
Thy dark leaves like to clumps of little ferns
Imbues my walks with feelings such as these
Oertopt with swarms of flowers that charms the sight
Some blushing into pink & others white
On meadow banks roadsides & on the leas
Of rough neglected pastures—I delight
More even then in gardens thus to stray
Amid such scenes & mark thy hardy blooms
Peering unto the autumns mellowing day
The mowers scythe swept summer blooms away
Where thou defying dreariness wilt come
Bidding the lonliest russet paths be gay

THE RAGWORT

Ragwort thou humble flower with tattered leaves
I love to see thee come & litter gold
What time the summer binds her russet sheaves
Decking rude spots in beautys manifold
That without thee were dreary to behold
Sunburnt & bare—the meadow bank the baulk
That leads a waggonway through mellow fields
Rich with the tints that harvests plenty yields
Browns of all hues—& everywhere I walk
Thy waste of shining blossoms richly shields
The sun tanned sward in splendid hues that burn
So bright & glaring that the very light
Of the rich sunshine doth to paleness turn
& seems but very shadows in thy sight

A SEAT IN THE MEADOWS

I love to stroll the meadow when its mown
& all the crowd of luscious scented hay
Is cleared away & left the sward alone
Beneath the quiet of a lovely day
& there I love green leisure to delay
Beside some lake to find a pleasant seat
To sit luxuriantly in dangers way
& almost let the water touch my feet
A somthing so refreshing bland & cool
From the calm surface of the water steals
What time the noontide spangles oer the pool
Bringing back bits of joy past time consceals
& youths past visions flit accross the brain
What books nor pictures never meet again

UNIVERSAL GOODNESS

I look on nature less with critics eyes
Than with that feeling every scene supplies
Feelings of reverence that warms & clings
Around the heart while viewing pleasing things
& heath & pastures hedgrow stunted tree
Are more than alps with all its hills to me
The bramble for a bower the old molehill
For seat delights me wander where I will
I feel a presence of delight—& fear
Of love & majesty far off & near
Go where I will its absence cannot be
& solitude & God are one to me
A presence that ones gloomiest cares caress
& fills up every place to guard & bless

THE LANE

The cartway leading over every green
A russet strip then winding half unseen
Up narrow lanes & smothered oer in shade
By oak & ash in meeting branches made
That touch & twine & shut out all the sky
& teams will snatch to crop them driving bye
Then over fields deep printed freely strays
Yet crooked & rambling half uncertain ways
While far away fields stretch on either side
& skys above head spread a circle wide
Letting low hedges trees snug close & fields of grain
An unknown world to shepherds when descried
& then the timid road retreats again
A leaf hid luxury in a narrow lane

PARTRIDGE COVEYS

Among the stubbles when the fields grow grey
& mellow harvest gathers to a close
The painful gleaner twenty times a day
Start up the partridge broods that glad repose
Upon the grassy slip or sunny land
Yet ever it would seem in dangers way
Where snufting dogs their rustling haunts betray
& tracking gunners ever seem at hand
Oft frighted up they startle to the shade
Of neighbouring wood & through the yellow leaves
Drop wearied where the brakes & ferns hath made
A solitary covert—that decieves
For there the fox prowls its unnoticed round
& danger dares them upon every ground

ON SEEING TWO SWALLOWS LATE IN OCTOBER

THE BRAMBLE

Spontaneous flourisher in thickets lone
Curving a most impenetrable way
To all save nutters when a tree has shown
Ripe clusters to the autumns mellow day
& long the brustle of the rude affray
Clings to thy branches—scraps of garments torn
Of many hues red purple green & grey
From scrambling maid who tugs the branches down
& inly smiles at the strange garb she wears
While rough in hasty speech the brushing clown
Leg hoppled as in tethers turns & swears
& cuts the bramble strings with oath & frown
Yet scorn wronged bush taste marks thee worthy praise
Green mid the underwood of winter days

THE SURRY TREE

Tree of the tawny berry rich though wild
When mellowed to a pulp yet little known
Though shepherds by its dainty taste beguiled
Swarm with clasped leg the smooth trunk timber grown
& pulls the very topmost branches down
Tis beautiful when all the woods tan brown
To see thee thronged with berrys ripe & fine
For daintier palates fitting then the clown
Where hermits of a day may rove & dine
Luxuriantly amid thy crimson leaves
When different shades in different garbs appear
& furze spread heath a deeper green recieves
& fancy every sort of feeling weaves
& autumn comes & mellows all the year

THE SPINDLE TREE

Tis pleasant in our walks to meet with things
Simple yet new—paths frequent traced diserns
Such the spurge laurel that obscurely springs
Among the underwood & different ferns
That hid themselves in leaves the summer through
Now shining rich & resolutely green
When leaves save weeds are else but scant & few
Yet one gay bush is beautifully seen
As full of berries as its twigs can be
Glittering & pink as blossoms washed in dew
Gleams the gay burthen of the spindle tree
The old mans beard the saplings grains pursues
Like feathers hung with rime—but autumns showers
Makes their rich berries shine like summer flowers

LABOURS LEISURE

HEAVY DEW

The night hath hung the morning smiles in showers
The kingcups burnished all so rich within
Hang down their slender branches on the grass
The bumble bees on the hugh thistle flowers
Clings as half sleeping yet & motion lacks
Not even stirring as I closely pass
Save that they lift their legs above their backs
In trembling dread when touched—yet still they lie
Fearful of danger without power to flye
The shepherd makes a mort of crooked tracks
His dog half drowned & dripping to the skin
Stops oft & shakes his shaggy hide in vain
Wading through grass like rivers to the chin
Then snorts & barks & brushes on again

APRIL SHOWERS

Delightful weather for all sorts of moods
& most for him—grey morn & swarthy eve
Found rambling up the little narrow lane
Where primrose banks amid the hazly woods
Peep most delightfully on passers bye
While aprils little clouds about the sky
Mottle & freak & unto fancy lie
Idling & ending travel for the day
Till darker clouds sail up with cumberous heave
South oer the woods & scares them all away
Then comes the rain pelting with pearly drops
The primrose crowds untill they stoop & lie
All fragrance to his mind that musing stops
Beneath the awthorn till the shower is bye

NUTTERS

MIST IN THE MEADOWS

The evening oer the meadow seems to stoop
More distant lessens the diminished spire
Mist in the hollows reeks & curdles up
Like fallen clouds that spread—& things retire
Less seen & less—the shepherd passes near
& little distant most grotesquely shades
As walking without legs—lost to his knees
As through the rawky creeping smoke he wades
Now half way up the arches dissappear
& small the bits of sky that glimmer through
Then trees loose all but tops—I meet the fields
& now the indistinctness passes bye
The shepherd all his length is seen again
& further on the village meets the eye

SIGNS OF WINTER

ANGLING

WINTER FIELDS

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

BIRDS & SPRING

The happy birds in their delight bring home
To our own doors the news that spring is come
Eave haunting sparrow that no song employs
Pull off the apple blooms for very joys
& that delightful neighbour ever merry
The Robin with a bosom like a cherry
Comes to the threshold welcome pert & bold
Where crumbs lay littered when the day was cold
& whistles out so loud the folks within
Jump with supprise & wonder at the din
& when they run to see supprise will smile
Scarcely believing Robins sung so loud
But spring is come & he is overproud
To see young leaves that nothing comes to spoil

WINTER EVENING

The crib stocks fothered—horses suppered up
& cows in sheds all littered down in straw
The threshers gone the owls are left to whoop
The ducks go waddling with distended craw
Through little hole made in the henroost door
& geese with idle gabble never oer
Bate careless hog untill he tumbles down
Insult provoking spite to noise the more
While fowl high perched blink with contemptous frown
On all the noise & bother heard below
Over the stable ridge in crowds the crow
With jackdaws intermixed known by their noise
To the warm woods behind the village go
& whistling home for bed go weary boys

SNOW STORM

A THAW

The snows are gone or nearly chance may show
Beside the dripping hedge some little hills
Fast drop the eves till pudges plash below
& every rut & hollow quickly fills
In huzzing crowds cote-piegons too & fro
Traverse the villages & at the stack
Hang flapping—in an instant up they go
From slaughtering gun its momentary crack
While barn & dove cote sound the echo back
They circle round & round & settle soon—
The homstead cows their old accustomed track
Keep to the foddering place throughout the day
Untill the boys hoarse brawl at hazy noon
Comes with his fork & litters heaps of hay

THE BLACKCAP

Under the twigs the blackcap hangs in vain
With snowwhite patch streaked over either eye
This way & that he turns & peeps again
As wont where silk-cased insects used to lie
But summer leaves are gone the day is bye
For happy holidays & now he fares
But cloudy like the weather yet to view
He flirsts a happy wing & inly wears
Content in gleaning what the orchard spares
& like his little couzin capped in blue
Domesticates the lonely winter through
In homestead plots & gardens where he wears
Familiar pertness—yet but seldom comes
With the tame robin to the door for crumbs

NIGHT WIND

Darkness like midnight from the sobbing woods
Clamours with dismal tidings of the rain
Roaring as rivers breaking loose in floods
To spread & foam & deluge all the plain
The cotter listens at his door again
Half doubting wether it be floods or wind
& through the thickening darkness looks affraid
Thinking of roads that travel has to find
Through nights black depths in dangers garb arrayed
& the loud glabber round the flaze soon stops
When hushed to silence by the lifted hand
Of fearing dame who hears the noise in dread
& thinks a deluge comes to drown the land
Nor dares she go to bed untill the tempest drops

BIRDS NESTS

How fresh the air the birds how busy now
In every walk if I but peep I find
Nests newly made or finished all & lined
With hair & thistle down & in the bough
Of little awthorn huddled up in green
The leaves still thickening as the spring gets age
The Pinks quite round & snug & closely laid
& linnets of materials loose & rough
& still hedge sparrow moping in the shade
Near the hedge bottom weaves of homely stuff
Dead grass & mosses green an hermitage
For secresy & shelter rightly made
& beautiful it is to walk beside
The lanes & hedges where their homes abide

WOOD RIDES

Who hath not felt the influence that so calms
The weary mind in summers sultry hours
When wandering thickest woods beneath the arms
Of ancient oaks & brushing nameless flowers
That verge the little ride who hath not made
A minutes waste of time & sat him down
Upon a pleasant swell to gaze awhile
On crowding ferns bluebells & hazel leaves
& showers of ladysmocks so called by toil
When boys sprote gathering sit on stulps & weave
Garlands while barkmen pill the fallen tree
—Then mid the green variety to start
Who hath [not] met that mood from turmoil free
& felt a placid joy refreshed at heart

THE HEDGE WOODBINE

The common woodbine in the hedgerow showers
A multitude of blossoms & from thence
The tinctured air all fragrance on the sense
Flings richest sweets that almost overpowers
& faintness pauls the taste which goes away
When some old ballad beautifully sung
Comes through the hedge with crowded fragrance hung
From merry maidens tossing up the hay
To list the sunny mirth we inly feel
That none but beautys self could sing so well
& pastoral visions on our fancys dwell
Our joys excess joys inmost thoughts consceal
The woodbine hedge—the maids half toil half play
—Words like to clouds obscure & wear away

EARLY MORNING

Morn with her sober shadows tall & thin
Stalks forth a field with slow & solemn stride
Like thinking poet some new joy to win
& in its little clump of trees espied
The mossy cottage hidden like a nest
Smokes from its plastered chimney while the lark
Sings oer her nestlings in the neighbouring corn
There toil made stirring by the restless cock
His early breakfast hastily prepares
& stooping hies afield its earliest guest
& happiest—for he sings from light to dark
Tracking the grassy pathways night & morn
He ask[s] of passing stranger whats o'clock
& heeds but little save his own affairs

HAPPINESS OF EVENING