The Poems of John Clare :: :: University of Virginia Library

These tiny loiterers on the barley's beard,
And happy units of a numerous herd
Of playfellows, the laughing summer brings,
Mocking the sunshine in their glittering wings,
How merrily they creep, and run, and fly!
No kin they bear to labour's drudgery,
Smoothing the velvet of the pale hedge-rose;
And where they fly for dinner no one knows—
The dew-drops feed them not—they love the shine
Of noon, whose sun may bring them golden wine.
All day they're playing in their Sunday dress—
Till night goes sleep, and they can do no less;
Then, to the heath-bell's silken hood they fly,
And like to princes in their slumbers lie,
Secure from night, and dropping dews, and all,
In silken beds and roomy painted hall.
So merrily they spend their summer day,
Now in the cornfields, now the new-mown hay,
One almost fancies that such happy things,
With coloured hoods and richly burnished wings,
Are fairy folk, in splendid masquerade
Disguised, as if of mortal folk afraid,
Keeping their merry pranks a mystery still,
Lest glaring day should do their secrets ill.

CHILDHOOD

When we look back on what we were
And feel what we are now,
A fading leaf is not so drear
Upon a broken bough;
A winter seat without a fire,
A cold world without friends,
Doth not such chilly glooms impart
As that one word portends.

Like withered wreaths in banquet halls
When all the rout is past,
Like sunshine that on ruins falls,
Our pleasures are at last;
The joy is fled, the love is cold,
And beauty's splendour too,
Our first believings all are old,
And faith itself untrue.

How oft we clomb the porch to cut
Our names upon the leads,
Though fame or anything akin
Was never in our heads;
Where hands and feet were rudely drawn
And names we could not spell,
We thought no artist in the world
Could ever do as well.

We twirled our tops that spun so well
They scarce could tumble down,
And thought they twirled as well again
When riddled on the crown;

And bee-spell marbles, bound to win
As by a potent charm,
Were often wetted in the mouth
To show the dotted swarm.

We pelted at the weathercock,
And he who pelted o'er
Was reckoned as a mighty man
And even something more.
We leapt across ‘cat-gallows sticks,’
And mighty proud was he
Who overshot the famous nicks
That reached above his knee.

And hopscotch too, a spur to joy—
We thought the task divine
To hop and kick the stone right out
And never touch a line.
And then we walked on mighty stilts,
Scarce seven inches high,
Yet on we stalked and thought ourselves
Already at the sky.

Our pride to reason would not shrink
In these exalted hours;
A giant's was a pigmy link
To statures such as ours.
We even fancied we could fly
—And fancy then was true:
So with the clouds upon the sky
In dreams at night we flew.

We shot our arrows from our bows,
Like any archers proud,
And thought when lost they went so high
To lodge upon a cloud;
And these seemed feats that none before
Ourselves could e'er attain,
And Wellington with all his feats
Felt never half so vain.

And oft we urged the barking dog,
For mischief was our glee,
To chase the cat up weed-green walls
And mossy apple-tree;
When her tail stood like a bottle brush
With fear—we laughed again.
Like tyrants, we could purchase mirth
And ne'er allow for pain.

Our fancies made us great and rich,
No bounds our wealth could fix,
A stool drawn round the room was soon
A splendid coach and six.
The magic of our minds was great,
And even pebbles, they,
Soon as we chose to call them gold,
Grew guineas in our play.

And carriages of oyster shells,
Though filled with naught but stones,
Grew instant ministers of state,
While clay kings filled their thrones.
Like Cinderella's fairy queen,
Joy would our wants bewitch;
If wealth was sought, the dust and stones
Turned wealth and made us rich.

The mallow seed became a cheese,
The henbanes loaves of bread,
A burdock leaf our table-cloth
On a table-stone was spread.
The bindweed flower that climbs the hedge
Made us a drinking-glass,
And there we spread our merry feast
Upon the summer grass.

A henbane root could scarcely grow,
A mallow shake its seeds;
The insects that might feed thereon
Found famine in the weeds.

But, like the pomp of princely taste
That humbler life annoys,
We thought not of our neighbours' wants
While we were wasting joys.

We often tried to force the snail
To leave his harvest horn
By singing that the beggar-man
Was coming for his corn.
We thought we forced the lady-cow
To tell the time of day,
'Twas one o'clock and two o'clock.
And then she flew away.

We bawled to beetles as they ran
That their children were all gone,
Their houses down and door-key hid
Beneath the golden stone.
They seemed to haste as fast again
While we shouted as they past
With mirth half mad to think our tale
Had urged their speed so fast.

The stonecrop that on ruins comes
And hangs like golden balls—
How oft to reach its shining blooms
We scaled the mossy walls!
And weeds—we gathered weeds as well,
Of all that bore a flower,
And tied our little posies up
Beneath the eldern bower.

Our little gardens there we made
Of blossoms all arow,
And though they had no roots at all
We hoped to see them grow;
And in the cart-rut after showers
Of sudden summer rain
We filled our tiny waterpots
And cherished them in vain.

We pulled the moss from apple-trees
And gathered bits of straws,
When weary twirling of our tops
And shooting of our taws.
We made birds' nests and thought that birds
Would like them ready made,
And went full twenty times a day
To see if eggs were laid.

The long and swaly willow row
Where we for whips would climb—
How sweet their shadows used to grow
In merry harvest time!
We pulled boughs down and made a swee,
Snug hid from toil and sun,
And up we tossed right merrily
Till weary with the fun.

On summer eves with wild delight
We bawled the bat to spy,
Who in the ‘I spy’ dusky light
Shrieked loud and flickered by.
And up we knocked our shuttlecocks
And tried to hit the moon,
And wondered bats should fly so long
And they come down so soon.

We sought for nuts in secret nook
We thought none else could find,
And listened to the laughing brook
And mocked the singing wind.
We gathered acorns ripe and brown
That hung too high to pull,
Which friendly winds would shake adown
Till all had pockets full.

Then, loading home at day's decline,
Each sought his corner stool;
Then went to bed till morning came
And crept again to school.

Yet there by pleasure unforsook
In nature's happy moods
The cuts in Fenning's spelling-book
Made up for fields and woods.

Each noise that breathed around us then
Was magic all and song;
Wherever pastime found us then
Joy never led us wrong.
The wild bees, in the blossom hung,
The coy bird's startled call
To find its home in danger—there
Was music in them all.

And o'er the first bumbarrel's nest
We wondered at the spell
That birds who served no prenticeship
Could build their nests so well;
And, finding linnets moss was green,
And finches choosing grey,
And every finchs nest alike,
Our wits were all away.

Then blackbirds lining theirs with grass
And thrushes theirs with dung—
So for our lives we could not tell
From whence the wisdom sprung.
We marvelled much how little birds
Should ever be so wise;
And so we guessed some angel came
To teach them from the skies.

In winter too we traced the fields
And still felt summer joys.
We sought our hips and felt no cold;
Cold never came to boys.
The sloes appeared as choice as plums
When bitten by the frost,
And crabs grew honey in the mouth
When apple time was past.

We rolled in sunshine lumps of snow
And called them mighty men,
And, tired of pelting Buonaparte,
We ran to slide agen;
And ponds for glibbest ice we sought
With shouting and delight,
And tasks of spelling all were left
To get by heart at night.

And when it came, and round the fire
We sat, what joy was there!
The kitten dancing round the cork
That dangled from a chair;
While we our scraps of paper burnt
To watch the flitting sparks,
And Collect books were often torn
For parsons and for clerks.

Naught seemed too hard for us to do
But the sums upon our slate,
Naught seemed too hard for us to win
But the master's chair of state.
The ‘Town of Troy’ we tried and made
When our sums we could not try,
While we envied e'en the sparrows wings
From our prison house to fly.

When twelve o'clock was counted out,
The joy and strife began,
The shut of books, the hearty shout,
As out of doors we ran.
Sunshine and showers who could withstand?
Our food and rapture they;
We took our dinners in our hands
To lose no time in play.

The morn when first we went to school—
Who can forget the morn
When the birch whip lay upon the clock
And our horn-book it was torn?

We tore the little pictures out,
Less fond of books than play,
And only took one letter home
And that the letter ‘A.’

I love in childhood's little book
To read its lessons through,
And o'er each pictured page to look
Because they read so true;
And there my heart creates anew
Love for each trifling thing—
Who can disdain the meanest weed
That shows its face at spring?

The daisy looks up in my face
As long ago it smiled;
It knows no change, but keeps its place
And takes me for a child.
The chaffinch in the hedgerow thorn
Cries ‘pink, pink, pink’ to hear
My footsteps in the early morn,
As though a boy was near.

I seek no more the finch's nest
Nor stoop for daisy flowers;
I grow a stranger to myself
In these delightful hours.
Yet when I hear the voice of spring
I can but call to mind
The pleasures which they used to bring,
The joys I used to find.

The firetail on the orchard wall
Keeps at its startled cry
Of ‘tweet, tut, tut,’ nor sees the morn
Of boyhood's mischief by;
It knows no change of changing time,
By sickness never stung,
It feeds on hope's eternal prime
Around its brooded young.

Ponds where we played at duck-and-drake,
Where the ash with ivy grew,
Where we robbed the owl of all her eggs
And mocked her as she flew,
The broad tree in the spinney hedge
'Neath which the gipsies lay,
Where we our fine oak-apples got
On the twenty-ninth of May—

These all remain as then they were
And are not changed a day,
And the ivy's crown's as near to green
As thine is to the grey;
It shades the pond, o'erhangs the stile,
And the oak is in the glen;
But the paths to joy are so worn out
I can't find one agen.

The merry wind still sings the song
As if no change had been;
The birds build nests the summer long,
The trees look full as green
As e'er they did in childhood's joy,
Though that hath long been by,
When I a happy roving boy
In the fields had used to lie,

To tend the restless roving sheep
Or lead the quiet cow.
Toils that seemed more than slavery then,
How more than freedom now,
Could we but feel as then we did
When joy, too fond to fly,
Would flutter round as soon as bid
And drive all troubles by.

But rainbows on an April cloud
And blossoms pluckt in May
And painted eves that summer brings
Fade not so fast away;

Though grass is green, though flowers are gay,
And everywhere they be,
What are the leaves on branches hung
Unto the withered tree?

Life's happiest gifts and what are they?
Pearls by the morning strung,
Which ere the noon are swept away,
Short as a cuckoo's song.
A nightingale's the summer is;
Can pleasure make us proud
To think when swallows fly away
They leave her in her shroud?

THE VOICE OF NATURE

There is a language wrote on earth and sky
By God's own pen in silent majesty;
There is a voice that's heard and felt and seen
In spring's young shades and summer's endless green;
There is a book of poesy and spells
In which that voice in sunny splendour dwells;
There is a page in which that voice aloud
Speaks music to the few and not the crowd;
Though no romantic scenes my feet have trod,
The voice of nature as the voice of God

Appeals to me in every tree and flower,
Breathing his glory, magnitude and power.
In nature's open book I read, and see
Beauty's rich lesson in this seeming-pea;
Crowds see no magic in the trifling thing;
Pshaw! 'tis a weed, and millions came with spring.
I hear rich music wheresoe'er I look,
But heedless worldlings chide the brawling brook;
And that small lark between me and the sky
Breathes sweetest strains of morning's melody;
Yet by the heedless crowd 'tis only heard
As the small warbling of a common bird
That o'er the plough teams hails the morning sun;
They see no music from such magic won.
Yet I see melody in nature's laws,
Or do I dream?—still wonder bids me pause:
I pause, and hear a voice that speaks aloud:
'Tis not on earth nor in the thundercloud;
The many look for sound—'tis silence speaks,
And song like sunshine from her rapture breaks.
I hear it in my bosom ever near;
'Tis in these winds, and they are everywhere.
It casts around my vision magic spells
And makes earth heaven where poor fancy dwells.
I read its language, and its speech is joy;
So, without teaching when a lonely boy,
Each weed to me did happy tidings bring,
And laughing daisies wrote the name of spring,
And God's own language unto nature given
Seemed universal as the light of heaven
And common as the grass upon the plain,
That all may read and meet with joy again,
Save the unheeding heart that, like the tomb,
Shuts joy in darkness and forbids its bloom.

WALKS IN THE WOODS

Oh, I do love to force a way
Through woods where lone the woodman goes,
Through all the matted shades to stray,
The brambles tearing at my clothes;
And it may tear; I love the noise
And hug the solitary joys.

The woodman, he from top to toe
In leathern doublet brushes on;
He cares not where his rambles go,
Thorns, briers, he beats them every one;
Their utmost spite his armour foils;
Unhurt, he dares his daily toils.

Knee-deep in fern he daily stoops
And loud his bill or hatchet chops,
As snug he trims the faggot up
Or gaps in mossy hedges stops;
While echo chops as he hath done
As if she counted every one.

Through thickest shades I love to go
Where stovens, foiled to get above,
Cramp, crook, and form so thick below
Fantastic arbours.—Oh, I love
To sit me there till fancy weaves
Rich joys beneath a world of leaves.

The moss stump grows the easiest chair;
Agen its grain my back reclines;
And woodbine's twisted fragrance there
In many a yellow cluster shines;
The lonesome bees that hither stray
Seem travellers that lose their way.

The speedy hawthorn, first of all
To show the spring its tender green,

Here in the way, where branches fall
Thornless and smooth, is vulgar seen;
Yet in its roots of safety sure
The rabbit burrow lies secure.

A quiet comes across the mind
With every ruffled thought subdued
When fields and light are left behind
And twilight leadeth through the wood;
Parting the branches as we go,
We sometimes meet a path below,

A little path that shadows plain
That other feet have gone before;
Yet through such boughs it creeps again
As if no feet could find it more;
Yet trodden on till nearly bare
It shows that feet oft trample there;

Where stickers stroll from day to day
And gather loads of rotten wood,
And poachers left in safety stray
When midnight wears its darkest mood;
When badgers howl and foxes bark,
Then plops the gun; the thicket dark

Seems frighted at unwonted sound,
That echo scarcely dares again
To call, but mutters slowly round
What day would answer loud and plain;
She seems in fear and dread to lie
When by their dens the badgers cry.

But day has naught to do with fears,
The green light every sound enjoys;
Boys on the woodside gate he hears
And echo shouts as well as boys;
They tumble down and laugh amain
And wonder who can laugh again.

I brush along—the rustling sound
Makes jay-birds scream and swop away,
A warning to the birds around
That danger rustles in the way;
The blackbird answers, but the rest
Start silent from each mossy nest,

So many—up one starts agen,
A blackbird with its spotted breast
From hazels o'er a badger's den;
Here's five warm eggs within the nest
With spots of brown and bluish grey;
No boys will find them out to-day.

Where open spots can meet the sky,
Sweet resting-places seldom found,
Wild strawberries entertain the eye
With crimson berry shining round,
Uncropt, unlooked-for, and unknown,
So birds have gardens of their own.

Hid round with taper ashen poles,
Where deep in earth the stoven shoots,
There grunting badgers burrow holes
And bare the twisted mossy roots;
In the fresh mould are plainly seen
Footmarks when daylight hurried in.

A noise in oaks above the head
Keeps tapping on from day to day;
Woodpeckers' nests are nearly made,
And patient carpenters are they;
In hardest oaks their whimbles go
And dust like sawdust lies below.

Where ashen stovens taper grow,
The squirrels' nest upon the top

Is seen—and if one shakes below,
From branch to branch they out and hop,
And up the oak trunks, mealy white,
They're in a moment out of sight.

Those sweet excesses oft will start
When happy feelings cross the mind,
That fill with calmness all the heart
When all around one boughs are twined,
When naught but green leaves fill the eye
When brushing ash and hazel by,

Cornel and thorn and spindle tree,
And hazel with the nuts in bud,
And crab and lime that well agree
To make a host of underwood;
It doth one's spirits good to go
Through beds of fern that fan below.

The rustle that the branches make
While giving way to let me through,
The leaves that for a moment shake
As out a blackbird hasty flew—
Oh, there is stillness in the noise
That brings to quiet many joys.

Yes, as the bouncing branches start
And backward hurry to their place,
A rapture rushes at the heart,
A joy comes flushing in the face;
I feel so glad I can't explain
My joy, and on I rush again.

And now I meet a stoven full
Of clinging woodbines all in flower;
They look so rich and beautiful—
Though loath to spoil so sweet a bower—
My fingers itch to pull them down
To take a handful to the town.

So then I mix their showy bloom
With many pleasant-looking things,
And fern leaves in my posy come;
And then so beautifully clings
The heart-leaved bryony round the tree,
It too must in a posy be.

Enchanter's nightshade, some few sprigs
—So sweet a spot it blossoms in—
And within reach the leafiest twigs
Of oak, if such my reach can win;
And still unwilling to give o'er
I stoop till I can hold no more.

Then by the sun I homeward stray,
And then the woodman at his toil
I hear him chop and guess the way,
Who when I reach the side will smile
And wonder why a man should roam
And take such childish trifles home.

WILL-O'-WISP

I've seen the midnight morris-dance of hell
On the black moors while thicker darkness fell,
Like dancing lamps or bounding balls of fire,
Now in and out, now up and down, now higher,
As though an unseen horseman in his flight
Flew swinging up and down a lamp alight;
Then fixed, as though it feared its end to meet,
It shone as lamps shine in a stilly street;
Then all at once it shot and danced anew,
Till mixed with darkness out of sight it grew.
The simple shepherd under fear's eclipse
Views the dread omens of these will-o'-wisps
And thinks them haunting spirits of the earth
That shine where midnight murders had their birth;

With souls of midnight and with heads of fire
To him they shine, and bound o'er moor and mire,
Blazing like burning, crackling wisps of straw;
He sees and hears them, then with sudden awe
He pictures thieves with lanthorn light in hand,
That in lone spots for murder waiting stand.
Upon the meadow bridge's very wall
He sees a lanthorn stand, and pictures all
The muttered voices that derange his ears;
And when more near the spot, his sickening fears
See the imagined lanthorn, light and all,
Without a plash into the water fall,
And in one moment on his stifled sight
It blanks his hopes and sets his terrors right.
For furlongs off it simmers up and down,
A will-o'-wisp; and breathless to the town
He hastes, and hardly dares to catch his breath,
Existing like a doubt of life or death
Until the sight of houses cools his fears
And fireside voices greet his happy ears.
And then he rubs his hands beside his fire,
And quakes, and tells how over moor and mire
The jack-o'-lanthorn with his burning tails
Had like to led him; and he bites his nails
With very fear to think out how the blaze
Had like to cheat him into dangerous ways:
How that he thought he heard some people stand
As likely thieves with lanthorn in their hand,
When in a moment—yet he heard no fall—
Down went the lanthorn from the arches' wall
Into the flood; and on that brig alone
How his heart seemed as growing into stone.

THE MOLE-CATCHER

I

When melted snow leaves bare the black-green rings,
And grass begins in freshening hues to shoot,
When thawing dirt to shoes of ploughmen clings,
And silk-haired moles get liberty to root,
An ancient man goes plodding round the fields
Which solitude seems claiming as her own,
Wrapt in greatcoat that from a tempest shields,
Patched thick with every colour but its own.

With spud and traps and horsehair string supplied,
He potters out to seek each fresh-made hill;
Pricking the greensward where they love to hide,
He sets his treacherous snares, resolved to kill;
And on the willow sticks bent to the grass,
That such as touched jerk up in bouncing springs,
Soon as the little hermit tries to pass,
His little carcass on the gibbet hings.

And as a triumph to his matchless skill,
On some grey willow where a road runs by,
That passers may behold his power to kill,
On the bough's twigs he'll many a felon tie;
On every common dozens may be met,
Dangling on bent twigs bleaching to the sun,
Whose melancholy fates meet no regret,
Though dreamless of the snare they could not shun.

On moors and commons and the pasture green,
He leaves them undisturbed to root and run,
Enlarging hills that have for ages been
Basking in mossy swellings to the sun;
The pismires too their tip-tops yearly climb
To lay their eggs and hunt the shepherd's crumbs,
Never disturbed save when for summer thyme
The trampling sheep upon their dwelling comes.

II

He leans on nature's offerings for supply,
Like a sick child upon a mother's breast;
He feebly watches her unheeding eye,
And takes her givings with no vain request
To urge them better; he with aught is blest;
For the to-morrow he ne'er feels a fear,
His hopes upon to-day have all their rest;
When labour fails, the workhouse fare is near;
And thus on misery's edge he potters round the year.

Spring yearly meets him with his shouldered rake
To drag the crowding cresses from the brook,
And soon as May's first mornings are awake,
He threads the pasture, pewit's eggs to look;
And when these fail, the moor-pond's flaggy nook
Is beat for leeches; then the mushrooms start
In black-green fairy ring; thus nature's book
Is turned till he earth's lesson knows by heart,
In life's rude patchwork play to act the allotted part.

And in the meadows when the grass is mown,
He haunts the holes torn up by many a flood,
With swordy flag and reed and rush o'ergrown,
Progging the bladed greave about the mud,
Scaring full oft the moor-hen's summer brood,
Trying to catch the slipping eels in vain;
While, watching by the hedge's crowding wood
Of reeds, starts up the solitary crane,
Like hermit pilgrim [wandering] on some lonely plain.

And while his snuff-box offers its supply,
Complaint can never o'er his heart prevail;
Pulled out and pinched by every passer-by,
It always doth his weary walks regale,
And adds a tiresome length to every tale;
But in its need he mopes o'er field and town,
His strength sinks in him and his spirits fail;
In silent pace he potters up and down,
And scarcely says good-morn to passing maid or clown.

Want often makes him on the folded land
Stoop down a turnip from the sheep to steal,
Borrowing the shepherd's knife with palsied hand
To clean and peel it for a morning meal.
Pride's unconcern that hath no heart to feel
Full often in his pottering pace appears,
From whom his turnip-thefts he will conceal,
Who as a tyrant wakes his humble fears,
Whose proud and threatening taunts will fill his eyes with tears.

For ever in his creeping path appears
A waffling cur, in colour sandy grey,
With curling tail and sharp fox-pointed ears,
Who shows his teeth and threatens sore dismay;
But if a stranger sets his rage at bay,
Or stoops adown a threatening stone to throw,
Will drop his tail and whine and sneak away,
And linger for a while in motions slow
Behind the old man's heels till past the dreaded foe.

Then quickly he resumes his cheering pace,
And 'gins in jealous threats his ears to prick,
And barks and looks his master in the face,
Who in his leisure learns him many a trick,
To carry in his mouth his walking-stick,
Or watch and run to fetch a pelted stone,
Or from the pond whatever's thrown to pick,
And on his legs to rear himself alone
To beg at dinner hour for proffered crust and bone.

APPROACH OF SPRING

Dear heart, I love to see the quiet spring
Come teaching first the little birds to sing,
Then loitering in the sunny field and street
Like people telling stories when they meet,
And often pausing in a shower's delay
As if she feared some danger in the way,
Sending her heralds forward one by one
To try the journey she herself is on;
Now starts a daisy, then a buttercup,
And then a little primrose trembles up;
And thus she comes like to a timid maid
Of ruffling winds and dirty roads afraid.

THE PLOUGHBOY

Soon the night in mantle dark
Disperses at the singing lark,
When the morning breaks the cloud,
And the yard dog, barking loud,
Calls the men and maidens up;
And the fowl, a noisy crowd,
From the hen-roost cackle loud,
When the farm-boy blundering up

Drives the old hens 'neath the coop,
And from the stack, at maid's desire,
Throws the faggot for the fire,
Then in the hovel milks the cow
And from the stackyard drives the sow;
And when the chimney smokes, goes in
Till breakfast's ready to begin,
And in the corner grunts to stoop
And does his unlaced hightops up;
Then off behind the plough afield
He goes, the whalebone whip to wield.

DAWN

Dun-grey and high the morning lies,
And light spreads widely through the skies,
And o'er the sloping fields of corn
Gentle and sleeping lies the morn;
And through the grain one's walk may go
And not a dewdrop moist the shoe,
For not a blade or leaflet green
Deckt with a single drop is seen;
The deepest woodland path is dry
And not a cloud is in the sky,
And yet the dun spreads far away
As if 'twas all a cloud of grey.

APPROACHING NIGHT

Approaching night to dusky shadows grows
And one dun covering huddles o'er the sky;
The grey owl hoo-hoos in the elms just by,
And one lone couple of unwearied crows
To distant woods in sluggish motion fly
Amid the fading foliage to repose.

Yet still the west a streak of radiance throws
Enough to see the horizon's distant rim,
While all beside in aimless masses rest,
Trees, fields and cottages all fading dim
In seeming nothingness, by glooms deprest.

FAIRY THINGS

Grey lichens, mid thy hills of creeping thyme,
Grow like to fairy forests hung with rime;
And fairy money-pots are often found
That spring like little mushrooms out of ground,
Some shaped like cups and some in slender trim
Wineglasses like, that to the very rim
Are filled with little mystic shining seed;
We thought our fortunes promising indeed,
Expecting by and by ere night to find
Money ploughed up of more substantial kind.

Acres of little yellow weeds,
The wheat-field's constant blooms,
That ripen into prickly seeds
For fairy curry-combs,
To comb and clean the little things
That draw their nightly wain;
And so they scrub the beetle's wings
Till he can fly again.

And flannel felt for the beds of the queen
From the soft inside of the shell of the bean,
Where the gipsies down in the lonely dells
Had littered and left the plundered sheels.

FRAGMENTS

Where go the swallow tribes? the pathless main
Ne'er chronicles their flight; we ask in vain.
Yet their light lives familiar, and the sun
Is by the call of loneliest nature won
To smile; and woods where man hath never been
Are clothed in joy and beautified in green;
Spots blooming on from time's unwitnessed springs
Are fanned by these aerial wanderers' wings.

The daisy wan, the primrose pale,
Seem naught but white and yellow flowers
To every heedless passer-by,
When they attend the spring's young hours;
But they are loves and friends to me,
That tell me in each short sojourn
Of what they felt and I did feel
In springs that never will return.

Where'er the present leads us, there we spy
The past in mourning; how can memory die
Where every foot we set or look we give
Meets some crushed memory that hath ceased to live?
So busy hath death been in mortal strife,
Earth even fattens with the wrecks of life.

How many friends death steals, how many more
Doth time prove false that seemed so true before!
Where's those with yesterday so warm?—gone, gone
Like summer birds when winter cometh on.

Gay nature's always laughing: folks may die—
She never goes in mourning where they lie,
And richest monuments that wonder reads

Like common ones soon overrun with weeds;
Nor should we look for troubles ere they rise:
The greatest griefs will often wipe their eyes,
The roughest days find out their journey's end,
And those most lonely find at last a friend.

Night lies as fast asleep as innocence,
While the moon journeys her unnoticed way.

Envy and hatred from the world's rude pack
Follow success in almost every track,
Like lurking winters that are sure to bring
Storms to discomfort the young green of spring,
Crispt brown and icicled o'er with frosty chill;
But spring gets green at last as poesy will.

How strange the wood appears in dark and white,
And every little twig is hung with snow;
The old oak tops, crampt, gnarled, and dark below,
Upon their upper sides are fringed in light.

Happy as ballads of a brawling boy,
Who, when the wood gate bangs, we know 'tis joy
That shuts it, for when shut by pain
He shuts it without sound and creeps again.

The sun seemed resting on the hill,
Before he took his final leave,
And through the leaves we saw him still
Shine dropping in the dews of eve.

When Pilgrim with a heavy pack
Marched on for glory's town,
His burthen fell from off his back
And he received the crown;
But poets have a donkey's fame;
With little rest they tarry;
For the stronger they are made by fame
The heavier loads they carry.

VIRTUE LIVES ON

Fame will grow old like garments; time will tear
The scutcheoned tinsel and make worse for wear
The proudest trials to prolong their power;
E'en marbles, by and by, with sculpture deckt,
Shall mingle with the ashes they protect;
Brass eats itself away in canker rust;
Names writ on adamant shall creep to dust.
A good name only has the longest run,
As virtue graves it on the golden sun,
Peering its influence on the happy day—
While bad ones in night's darkness meet decay.

THE SHEPHERD'S SONG

Mary! let us Love employ,
Among the happy smiles of May;
And let us bind the wings of Joy,
And keep him captive for a day.
Nature in love doth now disclose
Her flowers, in full ripe smiles to thee;
'Twill be too late to seek the rose
When autumn-leaves have left the tree:
So let us wreathe Joy's brows to-day,
To-morrow he may speed away.

While on this meadow-bank we sit,
Mark thou the sights that might thee move;
Hear how the winds, in amorous fit,
Woo things inanimate to love.
The bulrush bows in graceful art
To kiss the river's lesser weeds;
And flags in many a merry start
Rustling whisper to the reeds:
Shall things inanimate agree
To love, unmoving thee and me?

See yonder skylark from the corn
Rises to sing his wedding lay;
For he was wed at early morn,
And twilight gave the bride away.
The church above the trees doth climb,
Love, promise, and we'll soon be there;
'Tis best to borrow haste from Time,
If Time has present joys to spare;
Nor leave Love's lot until the morrow,
Who oft pays backward debts in sorrow.

A WORLD FOR LOVE

Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;
Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;
Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,
That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.

And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,
How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;
Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade
Had e'er been bent by trouble's feet, and Love thy pillow made.

For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,
And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty's happy clime;
And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,
And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.

And there to seek a cot unknown to any care and pain,
And there to shut the door alone on singing wind and rain—
Far, far away from all the world, more rude than rain or wind,
Oh, who could wish a sweeter home, a better rest to find?

Than thus to love and live with thee, thou beautiful delight!
Than thus to live and love with thee the summer day and night!
The Earth itself, where thou hadst rest, would surely smile to see
Herself grow Eden once again, possest of Love and thee.

DECAY

Oh, Poesy is on the wane,
For Fancy's visions all unfitting;
I hardly know her face again,
Nature herself seems on the flitting.
The fields grow old and common things,
The grass, the sky, the winds a-blowing;
And spots where still a beauty clings
Are sighing, ‘Going! all a-going!’
Oh, Poesy is on the wane,
I hardly know her face again.

The bank with brambles overspread,
And little mole-hills round about it,
Was more to me than laurel shades,
With paths of gravel finely clouted;
And streaking here and streaking there,
Through shaven grass and many a border,
With rutty lanes had no compare,
And heaths were in a richer order.
But Poesy is on the wane,
I hardly know her face again.

I sat beside the pasture stream,
When Beauty's self was sitting by,
The fields did more than Eden seem,
Nor could I tell the reason why.
I often drank when not adry
To pledge her health in draughts divine;
Smiles made it nectar from the sky,
Love turned e'en water into wine.
Oh, Poesy is on the wane,
I cannot find her face again.

The sun those mornings used to find,
Its clouds were other-country mountains,
And heaven looked downward on the mind,
Like groves, and rocks, and mottled fountains.
Those heavens are gone, the mountains grey
Turned mist—the sun, a homeless ranger,
Pursues alone his naked way,
Unnoticed like a very stranger.
Oh, Poesy is on the wane,
Nor love nor joy is mine again.

Love's sun went down without a frown;
For very joy it used to grieve us.
I often think the West is gone;
Ah, cruel Time, to undeceive us!
The stream it is a common stream,
Where we on Sundays used to ramble,

The sky hangs o'er a broken dream,
The bramble's dwindled to a bramble!
Oh, Poesy is on the wane,
I cannot find her haunts again.

Mere withered stalks and fading trees,
And pastures spread with hills and rushes,
Are all my fading vision sees;
Gone, gone are rapture's flooding gushes!
When mushrooms they were fairy bowers,
Their marble pillars overswelling,
And Danger paused to pluck the flowers
That in their swarthy rings were dwelling.
Yes, Poesy is on the wane,
Nor joy nor fear is mine again.

Ay, Poesy hath passed away,
And Fancy's visions undeceive us;
The night hath ta'en the place of day,
And why should passing shadows grieve us?
I thought the flowers upon the hills
Were flowers from Adam's open gardens;
But I have had my summer thrills,
And I have had my heart's rewardings.
So Poesy is on the wane,
I hardly know her face again.

And friendship it hath burned away,
Like to a very ember cooling,
A make-believe on April day
That sent the simple heart a-fooling;
Mere jesting in an earnest way,
Deceiving on and still deceiving;
And hope is but a fancy-play,
And joy the art of true believing;
For Poesy is on the wane,
Oh, could I feel her faith again!

DEATH

The winds and waters are in his command,
Held as a courser in the rider's hand.
He lets them loose, they triumph at his will:
He checks their course and all is calm and still.
Life's hopes waste all to nothingness away
As showers at night wash out the steps of day.

Death hides all failings in the lowly grave;
Existence ceases, with the all we have
Said, done, or thought of; there thro' years we lie
More blank than shadows 'neath the smiling sky,
Leaving eternity to keep the key
Till judgment sets all hopes and terrors free.

The tyrant, in his lawless power deterred,
Bows before death, tame as a broken sword.
One dieth in his strength and, torn from ease,
Groans in death-pangs like tempests in the trees.
Another from the bitterness of clay
Falls calm as storms drop on an autumn day,
With noiseless speed as swift as summer light
Death slays and keeps her weapons out of sight.

The tyrants that do act the gods in clay
And for earth's glories throw the heavens away,
Whose breath in power did like to thunder sear,
When anger hurried on the heels of fear,
Whose rage planned hosts of murders at a breath—
Here in sound silence sheathe their rage in death.

Their feet, that crushed down freedom to its grave
And felt the very earth they trod a slave,
How quiet here they lie in death's cold arms
Without the power to crush the feeble worms
Who spite of all the dreadful fears they made
Creep there to conquer and are not afraid.

100

BIRDS' LAMENT

Oh, says the linnet, if I sing,
My love forsook me in the spring,
And nevermore will I be seen
Without my satin gown of green.

Oh, says the pretty-feathered jay,
Now my love is fled away
For the memory of my dear
A feather of each sort I'll wear.

Oh, says the sparrow, my love is gone,
She so much that I doted on,
And e'er since for that selfsame thing
I've made a vow I ne'er will sing.

Oh, says the water-wag-my-tail,
I courted a fair one but could not prevail,
I could not with my love prevail,
So that is the reason I wag my tail.

Oh, says the pretty speckled thrush,
That changes its note from bush to bush,
My love has left me here alone
And I fear she never will return.

Oh, says the rook, and eke the crow,
The reason why in black we go—
Because our love has us forsook,
So pity us, poor crow and rook.

Oh, says the owl, my love has gone,
It was her I doted on;
Since she has gone I know not where to follow,
But after her I'll whoop and hollo.

101

LANGLEY BUSH

One summer's day in happiest mood
I sat beside old Langley Bush,
And o'er the furze in Hanglands Wood
I listened at the singing thrush;
Naught did my idle mind engross,
The tiny flixweed's only flower
Was there, and little beds of moss
Swelled pleaching to the sunny hour.

I passed it in a sicker day.
The golden furze-blooms burnt the wind
With sultry sweets—and there I lay
Tormented with the saddest mind;
The little hill did naked lie,
The old old bush was broke and gone,
My heart had felt it glad to die
To miss life's sorrows coming on.

I looked upon its naked stump,
And pictured back the fallen tree
To days I played hop, skip and jump
As happy as a boy could be.
I turned me to that happy day
I streaked beneath its mossy bough,
And there came shadows of dismay,
So dismally, I feel it now.

I thought o'er all life's sweetest things
Made dreary as a broken charm,
Wood-ridings where the thrush still sings
And love went leaning on my arm.
I thought, and felt as desolate
As want upon a winter scene,
While by that broken stump I sat,
The type of broken hopes within.

102

PRAYER

Thou power from whom all pleasure springs,
From thraldom set the feeble free,
Aid good intents on angels' wings
And make each purpose worthy thee:

103

That whatsoe'er I do or think
My helpmate to life's good may be,
That, like the body's meat and drink,
May keep the soul in health for thee,

True temperance: that in thine eyes
I still may live thy daily guest,
And when from table I arise
Be found in thy eternal rest.

I seek it in no public mood
Of show, as many do their dress,
I seek it with a heart subdued
To almost utter hopelessness.

Nor will it weaken thy esteem
Or lessen favours meant for me;
Hypocrisy can never seem
In silence only heard by thee.

109

HONESTY (II)

The rich man claims it; but he often buys
Its substitute, that is not what it seems;
While poverty, ennobled in disguise,
Its simple bloom oft worships and esteems.
Knaves boast possession, but they forge its name;
Mobs laud and praise it, but with them 'tis noise,
Or the mere passport to some hidden game,
Beneath whose garb self-interest lurks and lies.
'Tis by the good man only deemed a prize
Too valued to be scoffed at or oppressed;
'Tis ever more respected by the wise,
Though thousands treat it as a common jest:
And that thou mayst not slight so grand a dower,
'Tis Honesty. Go thou, and wear the flower.

110

SLANDER (II)

It feeds on falsehood and on clamour lives,
And Truth, like sunshine, dims its watering eyes;
It cannot bear the searching light she gives,
But in her splendour struggles, writhes, and lies
A crushed and wounded worm, that vainly turns
All ways for rest and ease, yet findeth none.
Of its own venom-breath it wastes and burns
Away, like putrid waters in the sun.
It stains, as footmarks in a frosty morn,
Left on the bruising grass by early swain;
Truth's spring soon comes, and laughs them all to scorn;
Stains disappear—the grass is green again;
And hearts that feed the falsehood Slander brings
Are all that feel at last the venom of its stings.

113

BOSTON CHURCH (II)

Smiling in sunshine, as the storm frowns by,
Whose dreadful rage seems to thy quiet thrall
As small birds' twitterings, that beneath thee fly.
Winds call aloud, and they may louder call,
For, deaf to danger's voice, sublime and grand
Thou tower'st in thy old majesty o'er all.
Tempests, that break the tall masts like a wand,
Howl their rage weary round thee; and no more
Impression make than summer winds that bow
The little trembling weeds upon thy wall.
Lightnings have blazed their centuries round thy brow,
And left no print-marks:—so in shadows hoar
Time decks and spares thee, till that doom is hurled
That sears the ocean dry and wrecks the world.

114

ETERNITY OF TIME

Amazing, grand eternity of time!
Where things of greatest standing grow sublime,
Less from long fames, and universal praise,
Than wearing as the ‘ancient of old days.’
‘Old days,’ once spoken, seems but half the way
To reach that night-leap of eternal day.
Miltonic centuries, each a mighty boast,
Shakespearian eras—worlds, without their host,
Engraved upon the adamant of fame
By pens of steel, in characters of flame—
To which the forest oaks' eternal stay
Are but as points and commas in their way,—
These less than nothings are to ruin's doom,
When suns grow dark, and earth a vast and lonely tomb.

FLATTERY

Go, flattery, go, thou nothing clothed in sound,
The voice of ages lives not on thy tongue;
Time treads thee like a shadow on the ground
As nothing were, and laugheth at the wrong.
Thou ten days' wonder of an idle noise,
Cease teasing truth with subtleties and lies;
Truth, that thy every spider-web destroys,
With higher aim bids upward thoughts arise,
Where past the storm of strife, the sickly praise,
The barefaced lie, in secret hatched and bred,
Is left unto the storm of after days,
And thy gay-fluttering streets untenanted
Of friendships, age-swept, silent and alone,
Buried and chilled like cities into stone.

115

TO HEALTH

Mild health, I seek thee; whither? Art thou found
Mid daisies sleeping in the morning dew,
Along the meadow paths where all around
May smells so lovely? Thither would I go.
Where art thou, envious blessing? now the cold
Is gone away, and hedge and wood is seen
All lovely, and the gay marsh marigold
Edges the meadow lakes so freshly green,
My straining eye is anxious to behold
Thee up and journeying on the swallow's wing,
To see thee up and shining everywhere
Among the sweet companions of the spring.

117

ENGLAND, 1830

These vague allusions to a country's wrongs,
Where one says ‘Ay’ and others answer ‘No’
In contradiction from a thousand tongues,
Till like to prison-cells her freedoms grow
Becobwebbed with these oft-repeated songs
Of peace and plenty in the midst of woe—
And is it thus they mock her year by year,
Telling poor truth unto her face she lies,
Declaiming of her wealth with gibe severe,
So long as taxes drain their wished supplies?
And will these jailers rivet every chain
Anew, yet loudest in their mockery be,
To damn her into madness with disdain,
Forging new bonds and bidding her be free?

118

MAY

All nature breathes of joy and hails the May;
The very flowers nod dances to the wind,
The fluttering birds about the bushes play
That shine like sheets of snow with flowers belined,
Thro' schoolhouse door; in wandering fancy's way,
The boy repeats his play-games in his mind,
And builds anew his huts of stone and clay,
That freedom left, when school hours called away,
By some barn wall or low cot's sunny side.
Among the pasture mole-hills madly play
The wool-wrapt-leggèd lambs, and in gay pride
The wild foal gallops with excess of joy,
And happy moos the calf in colours pied,
Ignorant of cares that human peace destroy.

120

SPRING MORNING

How beautiful is daybreak! light betimes
Threads thro' the clouds; the red sun sweetly climbs
Up to our chamber windows; thwart the sky
The clouds like bright volcanoes slumber by
Slowly and grand. Toil, early out of doors,
Goes praising the sweet time devoid of sorrow
And prophesies the cuckoo's song to-morrow.
Birds hop about each hedge, and by the stack
The small wren twits with tail cocked o'er his back,
Building his nest right early 'neath the shed
Where cows in winter found a pleasant bed.
Flowers thicken everywhere; the very tops
Of walls are thronged with spring's delicious crops
Of tiny snow-white blossoms thickly spread.

121

SPRING SONGS

The blossom-burthened, never-weary May
Again with nature's folks keeps holiday;
Trees hide themselves in green, and happy birds
Sing sweeter songs that can be breathed in words;
The very winds sing sonnets to the sky,
And sunshine bids them welcome—so that I
Feel a new being, as from healthier climes,
And shape my idle fancies into rhymes
Of nature's ecstasy in bursting flowers,
And birds nest-building, and sunshiny showers
That on the south-west wind in singing moods
Sprinkle their drops like manna o'er the woods,
Where I still love my careless limbs to fling
Among the shadows of young leafy spring.

122

LIFE IN LONE PLACES

I've felt the loneliest pictures in my mind
When in a nook, a very dread by day,
I've found a scarce-dead night-fire left behind
Where robbers hurdled or where gipsies lay;
And I have turned me round a different way,
Half fearing lest a danger lingered still,
And almost dreaded further on to stray
Lest lurking mischief hid, devising ill;
Feeling like someone in a dreadful book,
Thinking how dismal such a spot would be
In midnight darkness, when lone travellers look
Up to their hands and yet can nothing see,
While all is black and deep and still as death,
And fear e'en startles at its stifled breath.

THE BOYS' PLAYGROUND

Here lies the germ and happiness of life—
The foot-beat playground of the village boys;
Echo is weary of the rapturous strife,
And almost fades 'neath the excessive noise;
Some race at leap-frog o'er each other's back,
Some chase their shadows in the evening sun,
Some play at hare and hounds, a noisy pack,
Or ‘Duck, duck under water’ shout, and run;
Others at hopscotch try their cautious skill,
Or nine-peg morris cut on grassy hill;
Astraddle upon clapping gates some swee,
Or tie the branches down of willow tree.
A passing-bell scarce makes a deeper sigh
Than the remembrances of days gone by.

123

WINTER SNOWSTORM (II)

One almost sees the hermit from the wood
Come bending with his sticks beneath his arm,
And then the smoke curl up its dusky flood
From the white little roof his peace to warm;
One shapes his books, his quiet, and his joys,
And in romances' world-forgetting mood
The scene so strange so fancy's mind employs
It seems heart-aching for his solitude:
Domestic spots near home and trod so oft,
Seen daily, known for years—by the strange wand
Of winter's humour changed; the little croft
Left green at night, when morn's loath looks obtrude,
Trees, bushes, grass, to one wild garb subdued,
Have gone and left us in another land.

124

ASHTON LAWN (II)

In Ashton Lawn, condemned to slow decay,
Close to the south-east nook, a ruined hill
Lies choked in thorns and briers: yet to this day
Reality may trace the castle still.
A fragment of the moat still forms a pond,
Beset with hoof-tracked paths of horse and cow,
That often go to drink; and all beyond
Greensward with little mole-hills on its brow,
And fairy-rings in its old mystery dark,
Still wears its ancient name, and shepherds call
The closen all around it still ‘Old Park,’
Still traced by buried fragments of a wall.
The castle's self will soon be nothing's heir,
Peckt up to mend old roads, old garden walls repair.

125

JUNE

Go where I will, naught but delight is seen;
The blue and luscious sky is one broad gleam
Of universal ecstasy; the green,
Rich, sweeping meadows and the laughing stream,
As sweet as happiness on heaven's breast,
Lie listening to the never-ceasing song
That day or night ne'er wearies into rest
But hums unceasingly the summer long.
The very grass, to music's rapture stirred,
Dances before the breeze's wanton wing,
While every bush stirs with a startled bird
Who eager wakes morn's dewy praise to sing.
Yet mid this summer glee I cannot borrow
One joy, for sadness chills them all to sorrow.

SUMMER AMUSEMENTS

I love to hide me on a spot that lies
In solitudes where footsteps find no track
To make intrusions; there to sympathize
With nature: often gazing on the rack
That veils the blueness of the summer skies
In rich varieties; or o'er the grass
Behold the spangled crowds of butterflies
Flutter from flower to flower, and things that pass
In urgent travel by my still retreat,
The bustling beetle tribes; and up the stem
Of bents see lady-cows with nimble feet
Climb tall church-steeple heights—or more to them—
Till at its quaking top they take their seat,
Which bows, and off they fly fresh happiness to meet.

126

FIELD FLOWERS

Hark from amid the corn that happy brawl!
'Tis village children running after flowers.
To this void bosom how the sounds recall
Memories again of childhood's merry hours;
When thro' the garden pales or o'er the wall
We reached at garden flowers with eager hands,
Or boldly sought the field flowers free for all,
Wading breast-high amid the green corn-lands
For crimson poppies and corn-bottles blue,
Startling the partridge covey unawares,
That o'er our head in wild disorder flew.
Here we, like them, were blest; life laid no snares
To rob our joys; he was a partner too.
Why did he turn a foe and fill our path with cares?

SUMMER

The woodman's axe renews its hollow stroke,
And barkmen's noises in the woods awake,
Ripping the stained bark from the fallen oak,
Where crumpled fox-fern and the branching brake
Fade 'neath their crushing feet. The timid hare
Starts from its mossy root or sedgy seat,
And listening foxes leave their startled lair
And to some blackthorn's spinney make retreat.
Haymakers with their shouldered rakes sojourn
To hedgy closes, and amid the wheat
The schoolboy runs, while pleasures thickly burn
Around his heart, to crop corn-bottle flowers,
Scaring the partridge from its quiet bourn,
That hides for shelter from the summer heat.

127

THE WOODLAND STILE

When one's been walking in the open plain,
Where the sun ne'er winks his eye, 'tis sweet awhile
To meet the shadows of a narrow lane
Or quiet arbour of a woodland stile,
To sit and hear the little bees complain
Among the woodbine blossoms o'er their toil,
And the hoarse murmurs of the distant swain,
Driving his horses o'er the sunburnt soil;
While shadows hide me and leaves entertain
My fancies with their freaks around my seat,
Dancing and whispering with the wooing wind
Like lovers o'er their secrets; while the heat
Glimmers without and can no passage find
To hurt the joys which rest so longed to meet.

A HARVEST MORNING

The mist hangs thick about the early field,
And many a shout is heard while naught appears
Till close upon the gaze, so thick concealed
Are things in morning's mist—mayhap her tears
For summer's sad departure. Silence hears
Brown harvest's ditties that disturb full soon
Her rest—toil's lusty brawl that daily cheers
Its ignorance of sorrow with the boon
Of pastoral tunes. Ere morn's red sun appears,
Till dreary evening's ruddy harvest moon
Hangs its red lamp to light them home again,
The little children in their harvest dress
Among the stubs of trifling ills complain.

137

STEPPING-STONES

Those stepping-stones, that stride the meadow-streams,
Look picturesque amid spring's golden gleams,
Where steps the traveller with a weary pace;
And boy, with laughing leisure in his face,
Sits on the midmost stone, in very whim,
To catch the struttles that beneath him swim.
Even stones across the hollow lakes are bare,
And winter floods no more rave dangers there;
But, mid the scum left where it roared and fell,
The schoolboy hunts to find the pooty shell.
Yet there the boisterous geese, with golden broods,
Hiss fierce and daring in their summer moods:
The boys pull off their hats, while passing by,
In vain to fright—themselves being forced to fly.

138

THE FAIRY-RINGS (I)

Here on the greensward, mid the old mole-hills,
Where ploughshares never come to hurt the things
Antiquity hath charge of, fear instils
Her footsteps, and the ancient fairy-rings
Shine black, and fresh, and round; the gipsy's fire,
Left yesternight, scarce leaves more proof behind
Of midnight sports, when they from day retire,
Than in these rings my fancy seems to find
Of fairy revels; and I stoop to see
Their little footmarks in each circling stain,
And think I hear them, in their summer glee,
Wishing for night, that they may dance again;
Till shepherds' tales, told 'neath the leaning tree
While shunning showers, seem Bible-truths to me—

139

THE FAIRY-RINGS (II)

Ay, almost Scripture-truths! My poorer mind
Grows into worship of these mysteries,
While fancy doth her ancient scrolls unbind
That time hath hid in countless centuries;
And when the morning's mist doth leave behind
The fuzz-ball round, and mushroom white as snow,
They strike me, to romantic moods inclined,
As shadows of things modelled long ago:
Halls, palaces, and marble-columned domes,
And modern shades of fairies' ancient homes,
Erected in these rings and pastures still,
For midnight balls and revelry; and then
Left like the ruins of all ancient skill,
To wake the wonder of mere common men.

140

THE FLOOD (II)

Those wrecky stains dart on the floods away
More swift than shadows on a stormy day.
Things trail and turn and steady—all in vain;
The engulfing arches shoot them quickly through;
The feather dances, flutters, and again
Darts through the deepest dangers still afloat,
Seeming as fairies whisked it from the view
And danced it o'er the waves as pleasure's boat,
Light-hearted as a merry thought in May.
Trays, uptorn bushes, fence-demolished rails,
Loaded with weeds, in sluggish motions stray;
Like water monsters lost, each winds and trails
Till near the arches—then as in affright
It plunges, reels, and shudders out of sight.

141

THE FLOOD (III)

Waves trough, rebound, and furious boil again,
Like plunging monsters rising underneath,
Who at the top curl up a shaggy mane,
A moment catching at a surer breath,
Then plunging headlong down and down and on,
Each following boil the shadow of the last;
And other monsters rise when those are gone,
Crest their fringed waves, plunge onward, and are past.
The chill air comes around me ocean-blea,
From bank to bank the water-strife is spread;
Strange birds like snow-spots o'er the huzzing sea
Hang where the wild duck hurried past and fled.
On roars the flood, all restless to be free,
Like troubles wandering to eternity.

142

SHEPHERD'S HUT (II)

Those rude old tales!—man's memory augurs ill
Thus to forget the fragments of old days,
Those long old songs; their sweetness haunts me still,
Nor did they perish for my lack of praise.
But old disciples of the pasture sward,
Rude chroniclers of ancient minstrelsy,
The shepherds, vanished all; and disregard
Left their old music, like a vagrant bee,
For summer's breeze to murmur o'er and die.
And in these ancient spots mind, ear, and eye
Turn listeners, till the very wind prolongs
The theme, as wishing, in its depths of joy,
To recollect the music of old songs,
And meet the hut that blessed me when a boy.

143

A WOODLAND SEAT (II)

Observe the flowers around us, how they live
Not only for themselves, as we may feel,
But for the joy which they to others give;
For Nature never will her gifts conceal
From those who love to seek them. Here amid
These trees, how many blooms disclose their pride,
From the unthinking rustic only hid,
Who never turns him from the road aside
To look for beauties which he values not.
It gives one greater zest to feel the joys
We meet in this sweet solemn-suited spot;
And with high ecstasy one's mind employs
To bear the worst that fickle life prepares,
Finding her sweets as common as her cares.

A WOODLAND SEAT (III)

In every trifle something lives to please
Or to instruct us. Every weed and flower
Heirs beauty as a birthright, by degrees
Of more or less; though taste alone hath power
To see and value what the herd pass by.
This common dandelion—mark how fine
Its hue!—the shadow of the day's proud eye
Glows not more rich of gold: that nettle there,
Trod down by careless rustics every hour—
Search but its slighted blooms, kings cannot wear
Robes prankt with half the splendour of a flower,
Pencilled with hues of workmanship divine,
Bestowed to simple things, denied to power,
And sent to gladden hearts as mean as mine.

144

SWORDY WELL

I've loved thee, Swordy Well, and love thee still.
Long was I with thee, tending sheep and cow,
In boyhood ramping up each steepy hill
To play at ‘roly-poly’ down; and now,
A man, I trifle on thee, cares to kill,
Haunting thy mossy steeps to botanize
And hunt the orchis tribes, where nature's skill
Doth, like my thoughts, run into phantasies,
Spider and bee all mimicking at will,
Displaying powers that fool the proudly wise,
Showing the wonders of great nature's plan
In trifles insignificant and small,
Puzzling the power of that great trifle, man,
Who finds no reason to be proud at all.

149

MARCH

The insect world, now sunbeams higher climb,
Oft dream of spring, and wake before their time:
Bees stroke their little legs across their wings,
And venture short flights where the snowdrop hings
Its silver bell, and winter aconite
Its buttercup-like flowers that shut at night,
With green leaf furling round its cup of gold,
Like tender maiden muffled from the cold;
They sip and find their honey-dreams are vain,
Then feebly hasten to their hives again.
The butterflies, by eager hopes undone,
Glad as a child come out to greet the sun,
Beneath the shadows of a sunny shower
Are lost, nor see to-morrow's April flower.

152

ADIEU TO MY FALSE LOVE FOR EVER

The week before Easter, the days long and clear,
So bright shone the sun and so cool blew the air,
I went in the meadow some flowers to find there,
But the meadow would yield me no posies.

The weather, like love, did deceitful appear,
And I wandered for joy when my sorrow was near,
For the thorn that wounds deeply doth bide the whole year,
When the bush it is naked of roses.

I courted a girl that was handsome and gay,
I thought her as constant and true as the day,
Till she married for riches and said my love nay,
And so my poor heart got requited.

I was bid to the bridal; I could not say no;
The bridemen and maidens they made a fine show;
I smiled like the rest, but my heart it was low,
To think how its hopes they were blighted.

The bride started gaily, the weather was fine,
Her parents looked after, and thought her divine;
She smiled in their faces, but looked not in mine;
Indeed, I'd no heart to regard her.

Though love like the poplar doth lift its head high,
The top it may fade and the root it may die,
And they may have heart-aches that now live in joy,
But Heaven I'll leave to reward her.

153

When I saw my false love in the merry church stand,
With her ring on her finger and her love in her hand,
Smiling out in the joy of her houses and land,
My sighs I strove vainly to smother.

When my false love for dinner did take the first seat,
I sat me down also, but nothing could eat;
I thought her sweet company better than meat,
Although she was tied to another.

When my false love had gone to her bride-bed at night,
My eyes filled with water made double my sight;
I thought she was there when she'd bade us ‘Good night’
And her chair was put by till the morrow.

I drank to her joy with a tear on my face,
And the wineglass as usual I pushed in the space,
Nor knew she was gone till I looked at the place,
Such a fool was I made of by sorrow.

When the maidens went laughing to see her to bed,
To untie her apron and undress her head,
I sighed out aloud, for my heart it was dead
To think not a kiss I might give her.

Now make me a bed in yon river so deep,
Let its waves be my mourners; naught living will weep;
And there let me lie and take a long sleep,
So adieu to my false love for ever.

A FAITHLESS SHEPHERD

A faithless shepherd courted me,
He stole away my liberty.
When my poor heart was strange to men,
He came and smiled and stole it then.

154

When my apron would hang low,
Me he sought through frost and snow.
When it puckered up with shame,
And I sought him, he never came.

When summer brought no fears to fright,
He came to guard me every night.
When winter nights did darkly prove,
None came to guard me or to love.

I wish, I wish, but all in vain,
I wish I was a maid again.
A maid again I cannot be,
Oh, when will green grass cover me?

I wish my babe had ne'er been born,
I've made its pillow on a thorn,
I wish my sorrows all away,
My soul with God, my body clay.

He promised beds as fine as silk
And sheets for love as white as milk,
But when he'd won my heart away
Left me to want a bed of clay.

He kept his sheep on yonder hill,
His heart seemed soft but it was steel;
I ran with love and was undone,
Oh, had I walked ere I did run!

He has two hearts and I have none,
He'll be a rogue, when I am gone,
To thee my baby, unto thee,
As he has been too long to me.

I weep the past, I dread the gloom
Of sorrows in the time to come,
When thou without a friend shalt be,
Weeping on a stranger's knee.

155

I wish, my child, thou'dst ne'er been born,
I've made thy pillow on a thorn,
I wish our sorrows both away,
Our souls with God, our bodies clay.

O SILLY LOVE! O CUNNING LOVE!

O silly love! O cunning love!
An old maid to trepan:
I cannot go about my work
For loving of a man.
I cannot bake, I cannot brew,
And, do the best I can,
I burn the bread and chill the mash,
Through loving of a man.

Shrove Tuesday last I tried and tried
To turn the cakes in pan,
And dropt the batter on the floor,
Through thinking of a man.
My mistress screamed, my master swore,
Boys cursed me in a troop;
The cat was all the friends I had,
Who helped to clean it up.

Last Christmas Eve, from off the spit
I took the goose to table,
Or should have done, but teasing love
Did make me quite unable;
And down slipt dish, and goose, and all,
With din and clitter-clatter;
All but the dog fell foul on me;
He licked the broken platter.

Although I'm ten years past a score,
Too long to play the fool,

156

My mistress says I must turn o'er
My service for a school.
Good feth! what must I do, and do,
To keep my service still?
I'll give the winds my thoughts to lose,
Indeed and so I will.

And if the wind my love should lose,
Right foolish were the play,
For I should mourn what I had lost,
And love another day.
With crosses and with losses
Right double were the ill,
So I'll e'en bear with love and all,
Alack, and so I will.

NOBODY COMETH TO WOO

On Martinmas Eve the dogs did bark,
And I opened the window to see,
When every maiden went by with her spark,
But ne'er a one came to me.
And, oh dear, what will become of me?
And, oh dear, what shall I do,
When nobody whispers to marry me—
Nobody cometh to woo?

None's born for such troubles as I be:
If the sun wakens first in the morn
‘Lazy hussy’ my parents both call me,
And I must abide by their scorn,
For nobody cometh to marry me,
Nobody cometh to woo,
So here in distress must I tarry me—
What can a poor maiden do?

157

If I sigh through the window when Jerry
The ploughman goes by, I grow bold;
And if I'm disposed to be merry,
My parents do nothing but scold;
And Jerry the clown, and no other,
E'er cometh to marry or woo;
They think me the moral of mother,
And judge me a terrible shrew.

For mother she hateth all fellows,
And spinning's my father's desire,
While the old cat growls bass with the bellows
If e'er I hitch up to the fire.
I make the whole house out of humour,
I wish nothing else but to please,
Would fortune but bring a good comer
To marry, and make me at ease!

When I've nothing my leisure to hinder
I scarce get as far as the eaves;
Her head's instant out of the window,
Calling out like a press after thieves.
The young men all fall to remarking,
And laugh till they're weary to see't,
While the dogs at the noise begin barking,
And I slink in with shame from the street.

My mother's aye jealous of loving,
My father's aye jealous of play,
So what with them both there's no moving,
I'm in durance for life and a day.
Oh, who shall I get for to marry me?
Who will have pity to woo?
'Tis death any longer to tarry me,
And what shall a poor maiden do?

158

FARE-THEE-WELL

Here's a sad good-bye for thee, my love,
To friends and foes a smile:
I leave but one regret behind,
That's left with thee the while,
But hopes that fortune is our friend
Already pays the toil.

Force bids me go, your friends to please.
Would they were not so high!
But be my lot on land or seas,
It matters not where by,
For I shall keep a thought for thee,
In my heart's core to lie.

Winter shall lose its frost and snow,
The spring its blossomed thorn,
The summer all its bloom forgo,
The autumn hound and horn
Ere I will lose that thought of thee,
Or ever prove forsworn.

The dove shall change a hawk in kind,
The cuckoo change its tune,
The nightingale at Christmas sing,
The fieldfare come in June—
Ere I do change my love for thee
These things shall change as soon.

So keep your heart at ease, my love,
Nor waste a joy for me:
I'll ne'er prove false to thee, my love,
Till fish drown in the sea,
And birds forget to fly, my love,
And then I'll think of thee.

The red-cock's wing may turn to grey,
The crow's to silver white,

159

The night itself may be for day,
And sunshine wake at night:
Till then—and then I'll prove more true
Than nature, life, and light.

Though you may break your fondest vow,
And take your heart from me,
And though my heart should break to hear
What I may never see,
Yet never canst thou break the link
That binds my love to thee.

So fare-thee-well, my own true love;
No vow from thee I crave,
But thee I never will forgo,
Till no spark of life I have,
Nor will I ever thee forget
Till we both lie in the grave.

MARY NEELE

My love is tall and handsome;
All hearts she might command;
She's matchless for her beauty,
The queen of all the land.
She has my heart in keeping,
For which there's no repeal,
For the fairest of all womankind
Is my love, Mary Neele.

I felt my soul enchanted
To view this turtle-dove,
That lately seems descended
From heavenly bowers of love;
And might I have the fortune
My wishes could reveal,
I'd turn my back on splendour
And fly to Mary Neele.

160

She is the flower of nations,
The diamond of my eye;
All others are but glow-worms
That in her splendour die.
As shining stars all vanish
When suns their light reveal,
So beauties shrink to shadows
At the feet of Mary Neele.

I ask no better fortune
Than to embrace her charms;
Like Plato I would laugh at wealth
While she was in my arms;
And if I cannot gain her
From grief there's no appeal;
My joy, my pain, my life, my all
Are fixed with Mary Neele.

The stone of vain philosophers,
That wonder-working toy,
The golden fleece of Jason,
The Helen stole from Troy,
The beauty and the riches
That all these fames conceal,
Are nothing all, and less than that,
Compared to Mary Neele.

Oh, if I cannot gain her
Right wretched must I be,
And caves and lonely mountains
Must be the life for me,
To pine in gloom and sorrow,
And hide the deaths I feel,
For light nor life I may not share
When lost to Mary Neele.

161

LOVE SCORNED BY PRIDE

Oh, far is fled the winter wind,
And far is fled the frost and snow,
But the cold scorn on my love's brow
Hath never yet prepared to go.

More lasting than ten winters' wind,
More cutting than ten weeks of frost,
Is the chill frowning of thy mind,
Where my poor heart was pledged and lost.

I see thee taunting down the street,
And by the frowning that I see
I might have known it long ere now,
Thy love was never meant for me.

Oh, had I known ere I began
That love had been so hard to win,
I would have filled my heart with pride,
Nor left one hope to let love in.

I would have wrapped it in my breast,
And pinned it with a silver pin,
Safe as a bird within its nest,
And 'scaped the trouble I am in.

I wish I was a happy bird,
And thou a true and timid dove:
Oh, I would fly the land of grief,
And rest me in the land of love.

Oh, I would rest where I love best;
Where I love best I may not be:
A hawk doth on that rose-tree sit,
And drives young love to fear and flee.

Oh, would I were the goldfinch gay!
My richer suit had tempted strong.

162

Oh, would I were the nightingale!
Thou then hadst listened to my song.

Though deep thy scorn, I cannot hate;
Thy beauty's sweet, though sour thy pride;
To praise thee is to love thee still,
And it doth cheer my heart beside.

For I could swim the deepest lake,
And I could climb the highest tree,
The greatest danger face and brave,
And all for one kind kiss of thee.

Oh, love is here, and love is there:
Oh, love is like no other thing:
Its frowns can make a king a slave,
Its smiles can make a slave a king.

BETRAYED

Dream not of love, to think it like
What waking love may prove to be,
For I dreamed so and broke my heart,
When my false lover slighted me.

Love, like to flowers, is sweet when green;
The rose in bud aye best appears;
And she that loves a handsome man
Should have more wit than she has years.

I set my back against an oak,
Thinking it to be some lusty tree;
But first it bowed and then it broke,
And so did my false love with me.

163

I put my finger in a bush,
Thinking the sweetest rose to find;
I pricked my finger to the bone,
And left the sweetest rose behind.

I threw a stone into the sea,
And deep it sunk into the sand,
And so did my poor heart in me
When my false lover left the land.

I watched the sun an hour too soon
Set into clouds behind the town;
So my false lover left, and said
‘Good night’ before the day was down.

I cropt a lily from the stalk,
And in my hand it died away;
So did my joy, so will my heart,
In false love's cruel grasp decay.

THE MAIDEN'S WELCOME

Of all the swains that meet at eve
Upon the green to play,
The shepherd is the lad for me,
And I'll ne'er say him nay.
Though father glowers beneath his hat,
And mother talks of bed,
I'll take my cloak up, late or soon,
To meet my shepherd lad.

Aunt Kitty loved a soldier lad,
Who left her love for war;
A sailor loved my sister Sue,
Whose jacket smelt of tar;
But my love's sweet as land new ploughed,
He is my heart's delight,
And he ne'er leaves his love so far
But he can come at night.

164

So father he may glower and frown,
And mother scold about it;
The shepherd has my heart to keep,
And can I live without it?
I'm sure he will not part with it,
In spite of what they say,
And if he would, as sure I am
It would not come away.

So friends may frown, while I can smile
To know I'm loved by one
Who has my heart, and him to seek
What better can be done?
And be it spring or summer both,
Or be it winter cold,
If pots should freeze upon the fire
I'd meet him at the fold.

I'm fain to make my wedding-gown,
Which he has bought for me,
But it will wake my mother's thoughts,
And evil they will be,
Although he has but stole my heart,
Which gives me naught of pain,
For by and by he'll buy the ring,
And bring my heart again.

THE FALSE KNIGHT'S TRAGEDY

A false knight wooed a maiden poor,
And his high halls left he
To stoop in at her cottage door,
When night left none to see.

And, well-a-day, it is a tale
For pity too severe—
A tale would melt the sternest eye,
And wake the deafest ear.

165

He stole her heart, he stole her love,
'Twas all the wealth she had;
Her truth and fame likewise stole he,
And eke her maidenhead.

And he gave gold, and promised more—
That she his name should bear,
That she should share his love for aye,
And live his lady fair.

But he ne'er meant a maid so low
Should wear his haughty name,
And much he feared his guilty love
Would work him muckle shame.

So underneath the mask of love
He went to work her woe;
And he did name the bridal day,
And she prepared to go.

He brought her silks, unseen, to wear,
And a milk-white steed to ride,
And not a word was to be known
Till she was made a bride.

He brought for her a milk-white steed,
And for himself a grey,
And they are off none knoweth where,
Three hours before the day.

And as they rode she wished him speak,
And not a word spoke he.
‘You were not wont, loved knight,’ she said,
‘To be thus cold to me.’

And they rode on, and they rode on;
Far on this pair did ride,
Till the maiden's heart with fear and love
Beat quick against her side.

166

And on they rode till rocks grew high.
‘Sir Knight, what have we here?’
‘Unsaddle, maid, for here we stop’:
And death's tongue smote her ear.

Some ruffian rude she took him now,
And wished she'd barred the door,
Nor was it one that she could read
Of having heard before.

‘Thou art not my true love,’ she said,
‘But some rude robber loon;
He'd take me from the saddle-bow,
Nor leave me to get down.’

‘I ne'er was your true love,’ said he,
‘For I'm more bold than true;
Though I'm the knight that came at dark
To kiss and toy with you.’

‘I know ye're not my love,’ said she,
‘That came at night and wooed;
Although ye try and mock his speech,
His way was ne'er so rude.

‘He ne'er said word but called me dear,
And dear he is to me:
Ye spake as ye ne'er knew the word,
Rude ruffian as ye be.

‘Ye never was my knight, I trow,
Ye pay me no regard,
But he would take my arm in his
If we but went a yard.’

‘No matter whose true love I am;
I'm more than true to you,
For I'll ne'er wed a shepherd wench,
Although I came to woo.’

167

And on to the rock's top they walked,
Till they stood o'er the salt sea's brim.
‘And there,’ said he, ‘'s your bridal bed,
Where you may sink or swim.’

A moonbeam shone upon his face,
The maid sunk at his feet,
For 'twas her own false love she saw,
That once so fond did greet.

‘And did ye promise love for this?
Is the grave my priest to be?
And did ye bring this silken dress
To wed me with the sea.’

‘Oh, never mind your dress,’ quoth he,
‘'Tis well to dress for sea;
Mermaids will love to see you fine;
Your bridesmaids they will be.’

‘Oh, let me cast this gown away,
It's brought no good to me,
And if my mother greets my clay
Too wretched will she be.

‘For she, for my sad sake, would keep
This guilty bridal dress,
To break and tell her bursting heart
She had a daughter less.’

So off she threw her bridal gown,
Likewise her gold-clasped shoon:
His looks frowned hard as any stone,
Hers pale turned as the moon.

‘O false, false knight, you've wrapped me warm
Ere I was cold before,
And now you strip me unto death,
Although I'm out of door.

168

‘Oh, dash away those thistles rude,
That crowd about the shore;
They'll wound my tender feet, that ne'er
Went barefoot thus before.

‘Oh, dash those stinging-nettles down,
And cut away the brier,
For deep they wound those lily arms
Which you did once admire.’

And he nor briers nor thistles cut,
Although she grieved full sore,
And he nor shed one single tear,
Nor kiss took evermore.

She shrieked—and sank, and is at rest,
All in the deep, deep sea;
And home in base and scornful pride,
With haunted heart, rode he.

Now o'er that rock there hangs a tree,
And chains do creak thereon;
And in those chains his memory hangs,
Though all beside is gone.

LOVE'S RIDDLE

‘Unriddle this riddle, my own Jenny love,
Unriddle this riddle for me,
And if ye unriddle the riddle aright,
A kiss your prize shall be,
And if ye riddle the riddle all wrong,
Ye'll treble the debt to me:

‘I'll give thee an apple without any core;
I'll give thee a cherry where stones never be;
I'll give thee a palace without any door,
And thou shall unlock it without any key;

169

I'll give thee a fortune that kings cannot give,
Nor any one take from thee.’

‘How can there be apples without any core?
How can there be cherries where stone never be?
How can there be houses without any door?
Or doors I may open without any key?
How canst thou give fortunes that kings cannot give,
When thou art no richer than me?’

‘My head is the apple without any core;
In cherries in blossom no stones ever be;
My mind is love's palace without any door,
Which thou canst unlock, love, without any key.
My heart is the wealth, love, that kings cannot give,
Nor any one take it from thee.

‘So there are love's riddles, my own Jenny love,
Ye cannot unriddle to me,
And for one kiss you've so easily lost
I'll make ye give seven to me.
To kiss thee is sweet, but 'tis sweeter by far
To be kissed, my dear Jenny, by thee.

‘Come pay me the forfeit, my own Jenny love;
Thy kisses and cheeks are akin,
And for thy three sweet ones I'll give thee a score
On thy cheeks, and thy lips, and thy chin.’
She laughed while he gave them, as much as to say,
‘'Twere better to lose than to win.’

THE BANKS OF IVORY

'Twas on the banks of Ivory, 'neath the hawthorn-scented shade,
Early one summer's morning, I met a lovely maid;
Her hair hung o'er her shoulders broad, her eyes like suns did shine,
And on the banks of Ivory, oh, I wished the maid was mine.

170

Her face it wore the beauty of heaven's own broken mould;
The world's first charm seemed living still; her curls like hanks of gold
Hung waving, and her eyes glittered timid as the dew,
When by the banks of Ivory I swore I loved her true.

‘Kind sir,’ she said, ‘forsake me, while it is no pain to go,
For often after kissing and such wooing there comes woe;
And woman's heart is feeble; oh, I wish it were a stone;
So by the banks of Ivory I'd rather walk alone.

‘For learned seems your gallant speech, and noble is your trim,
And thus to court an humble maid is just to please your whim;
So go and seek some lady fair, as high in pedigree,
Nor stoop so low by Ivory to flatter one like me.’

‘In sooth, fair maid, you mock at me, for truth ne'er harboured ill;
I will not wrong your purity; to love is all my will:
My hall looks over yonder groves; its lady you shall be,
For on the banks of Ivory I'm glad I met with thee.’

He put his hands unto his lips, and whistled loud and shrill,
And thirty-six well-armèd men came at their master's will.
Said he, ‘I've flattered maids full long, but now the time is past,
And the bonny halls of Ivory a lady own at last.

‘My steed's back ne'er was gracèd for a lady's seat before;
Fear not his speed; I'll guard thee, love, till we ride o'er the moor,
To seek the priest, and wed, and love until the day we die.’
So she that was but poor before is Lady Ivory.

171

THE MAID OF OCRAM:

or, LORD GREGORY

Gay was the Maid of Ocram
As lady e'er might be
Ere she did venture past a maid
To love Lord Gregory.
Fair was the Maid of Ocram
And shining like the sun
Ere her bower key was turned on two
Where bride-bed lay for none.

And late at night she sought her love—
The snow slept on her skin—
‘Get up,’ she cried, ‘thou false young man,
And let thy true love in.’
And fain would he have loosed the key
All for his true love's sake,
But Lord Gregory then was fast asleep,
His mother wide awake.

And up she threw the window sash,
And out her head put she:
‘And who is that which knocks so late
And taunts so loud to me?’
‘It is the Maid of Ocram,
Your own heart's next akin;
For so you've sworn, Lord Gregory,
To come and let me in.

‘Oh, pause not thus, you know me well,
Haste down my way to win.
The wind disturbs my yellow locks,
The snow sleeps on my skin.’
‘If you be the Maid of Ocram,
As much I doubt you be,
Then tell me of three tokens
That passed with you and me.’

172

‘Oh, talk not now of tokens
Which you do wish to break;
Chilled are those lips you've kissed so warm,
And all too numbed to speak.
You know when in my father's bower
You left your cloak for mine,
Though yours was naught but silver twist
And mine the golden twine.’

‘If you're the lass of Ocram,
As I take you not to be,
The second token you must tell
Which passed with you and me.’
‘Oh, know you not, oh, know you not
'Twas in my father's park,
You led me out a mile too far
And courted in the dark?

‘When you did change your ring for mine
My yielding heart to win,
Though mine was of the beaten gold,
Yours but of burnished tin,
Though mine was all true love without,
Yours but false love within?

‘Oh, ask me no more tokens
For fast the snow doth fall.
'Tis sad to strive and speak in vain,
You mean to break them all.’
‘If you are the Maid of Ocram,
As I take you not to be,
You must mention the third token
That passed with you and me.’

‘'Twas when you stole my maidenhead;
That grieves me worst of all.’
‘Begone, you lying creature, then
This instant from my hall,

173

Or you and your vile baby
Shall in the deep sea fall;
For I have none on earth as yet
That may me father call.’

‘Oh, must none close my dying feet,
And must none close my hands,
And may none bind my yellow locks
As death for all demands?
You need not use no force at all,
Your hard heart breaks the vow;
You've had your wish against my will
And you shall have it now.

‘And must none close my dying feet,
And must none close my hands,
And will none do the last kind deeds
That death for all demands?’
‘Your sister, she may close your feet,
Your brother close your hands,
Your mother, she may wrap your waist
In death's fit wedding-bands;
Your father, he may tie your locks
And lay you in the sands.’

‘My sister, she will weep in vain,
My brother ride and run,
My mother, she will break her heart;
And ere the rising sun
My father will be looking out—
But find me they will none.
I go to lay my woes to rest,
None shall know where I'm gone.
God must be friend and father both,
Lord Gregory will be none.’

Lord Gregory started up from sleep
And thought he heard a voice
That screamed full dreadful in his ear,
And once and twice and thrice.

174

Lord Gregory to his mother called:
‘O mother dear,’ said he,
‘I've dreamt the Maid of Ocram
Was floating on the sea.’

‘Lie still, my son,’ the mother said,
‘'Tis but a little space,
And half an hour has scarcely passed
Since she did pass this place.’
‘O cruel, cruel mother,
When she did pass so nigh
How could you let me sleep so sound
Or let her wander by?
Now if she's lost my heart must break—
I'll seek her till I die.’

He sought her east, he sought her west,
He sought through park and plain;
He sought her where she might have been
But found her not again.
‘I cannot curse thee, mother,
Though thine's the blame,’ said he,
‘I cannot curse thee, mother,
Though thou'st done worse to me.
Yet do I curse thy pride that aye
So tauntingly aspires;
For my love was a gay knight's heir,
And my father wed a squire's.

‘And I will sell my park and hall;
And if ye wed again
Ye shall not wed for titles twice
That made ye once so vain.
So if ye will wed, wed for love,
As I was fain to do;
Ye've gi'n to me a broken heart,
And I'll give naught to you.

175

‘Your pride has wronged your own heart's blood;
For she was mine by grace,
And now my lady-love is gone
None else shall take her place.
I'll sell my park and sell my hall
And sink my titles too;
Your pride's done wrong enough as now
To leave it more to do.

‘She owneth none that owned them all
And would have graced them well;
None else shall take the right she missed
Nor in my bosom dwell.’
And then he took and burnt his will
Before his mother's face,
And tore his patents all in two,
While tears fell down apace—
But in his mother's haughty look
Ye naught but frowns might trace.

And then he sat him down to grieve,
But could not sit for pain;
And then he laid him on the bed
And ne'er got up again.

176

THE LOST MAID

‘Say, stranger, did you see my love?
I prithee tell to me;
I left her down in the beechen grove
While I sought the strawberry;
And when wild strawberries I did gain
The woody hills upon,
I sought her in the grove in vain,
For the gentle maid was gone.

‘Then prithee, stranger, kindly say,
Did ye see the maid I seek?’
‘And tell me what she wore, I pray,
Before that I can speak.’

177

‘Oh, what she's like were hard to say,
Kind stranger, well I wot;
Like the sun, when she exists is day
And night where she is not.’

‘What clothes then did this maiden wear?
I prithee tell to me.’
‘Oh, for her dress I do not care,
For naught like her it be;
Her gown it was as white as snow,
And her kerchief it was green,
Oh, stranger, tell me if you know
Where my true love was seen.’

‘What were her looks, that I may know
If I saw the maid ye seek?’
‘Oh, her eyes they were as like the sloe,
And rosy was her cheek,
And auburn were her curls that fell
O'er a forehead white and high;
If I lose the maid I love so well,
Kind stranger, I mun die.’

‘How did she speak, that I may tell
If such one spoke to me?’
‘Oh, on the softest music dwell
Of olden minstrelsy,
The wild harp's softer ditty play,
And the lute's soft [OMITTED] trill,
And if you heard her voice ye'll say
That it was sweeter still.’

178

THE MOTHER'S LULLABY

Hush! lullaby, my baby, nor mix thy tears with mine;
I grieve to think my parents would be no friends of thine;
I grieve to think thy father—oh, grief doth words oppose,
To think thy helpless innocence should find so many foes.

Hush! lullaby, my baby, upon thy mother's arm;
My prayers shall still the storm to rest to leave my baby warm,
While to thy father's hall we go, who fast asleep doth lie:
Did he know his door was locked on thee, it might unclose his eye.

Hush! lullaby, my baby; he yet thy friend may be,
And by and by I hope to find a friend again in thee;
So hush, my little baby, the day comes by and by,
The storm is gone, the moon is up, so hush and lullaby!

Hush! lullaby, my baby; I wake thee when I sigh,
To think my parents turned their back, nor bade thee one ‘goodbye’;
Nor sighed to see thy breath nigh gone, to meet the storm so high,
But God has heard, and the storm is gone, so hush and lullaby!

A MAID'S TRAGEDY

‘Oh, ope thy door—loud howls the wind
On my naked misery;
Though thou to me hast proved unkind,
I meant no harm to thee.
I'm loath to break thy peaceful rest,
But chilly falls the rain;
The storm cuts deep my barèd breast
But not like thy disdain.

‘Love's tender pledge within my arms
Is numbed and breathes no more;
Oh, if thy heart with pity warms
Awake and ope thy door.

179

I have no clothes to shelter me;
A father's scorn I fly;
Worse pelts the storm; love, pity me,
Or at thy door I die.’

Thus wailing o'er her woes, a maid
To her [false lover] came,
Who won her heart, her love betrayed,
And left her to her shame.
The shelter of her house denied,
Her father's scorn she bore;
Here to her false love's house she hied,
‘Oh, William, ope thy door!

‘The storm I longer cannot stand;
My covering is but thin;
My babe falls from my numbing hand,
Oh, wake and let me in.
That once red cheek is cold to touch
That warmed with thy embrace
When kissed and praised by thee so much
And owned a lovely face.

‘But cropt by thee, the bloom is gone;
Love's pledge in death doth sleep;
Oh, bitter cold the storm keeps on;
I would—but cannot—weep.
Ah, wilt thou not, my false love, wake?’
In vain the maiden cried:
Benumbed with cold, her heart did break;
She sat her down, and died.

195

THE TRIUMPHS OF TIME.

Emblazoned vapour! half-eternal shade!
That gathers strength from ruin and decay;
Emperor of empires! for the world hath made
No substance that dare take thy shade away;
Thy banners naught but victories display;
In undisturbed success thou'rt grown sublime;
Kings are thy subjects, and their sceptres lay
Round thy proud footstool; tyranny and crime
Thy serving vassals are. Then hail, victorious Time!

196

The elements that wreck the marble dome,
Proud with the polish of the artisan—
Bolts that crash shivering through the humble home,
Traced with the insignificance of man—
Are architects of thine, and proudly plan
Rich monuments to show thy growing prime:
Earthquakes that rend the rocks with dreadful span,
Lightnings that write in characters sublime,
Inscribe their labours all unto the praise of Time.

Thy palaces are kingdoms lost to power;
The ruins of ten thousand thrones thy throne;
Thy crown and sceptre the dismantled tower,
A place of kings, yet left to be unknown,
Now with triumphing ivy overgrown—
Ivy oft plucked on victory's brow to shine—
That fades in crowns of kings, preferring stone;
It only prospers where they most decline,
To flourish o'er their fate, and live alone in thine.

Thy dwellings are in ruins made sublime.
Impartial monitor, no dream of fear,
No dread of treason for a royal crime,
Deters thee from thy purpose; everywhere
Thy power is shown; thou art arch-emperor here;
Thou soil'st the very crowns with stains and rust;
On royal robes thy havoc doth appear;
The little moth, to thy proud summons just,
Dares scarlet pomp to scorn, and eats it into dust.

Old shadows of magnificence, where now—
Where now and what your grandeur? Come and see
Busts broken and thrown down, with wreathless brow,
Walls stained with colours, not of paint, but thee,
Moss, lichens, ferns, and lonely elder tree,
That upon ruins gladly climb to bloom,
And add a beauty where 'tis vain to be,
Like to soft moonlight in a prison's gloom,
Or lovely maid in youth death-smitten for the tomb.

197

What now are grandeur's heirs? Things dull and drear,
The vassals of thy mockery and will;
Like Banquo's ghosts to pride their forms appear
And turn ambition's memory winter-chill.
Where kings once ruled, now spiders work their skill
In cobwebs, nor yet feel their royal fate;
There mopes the bat with triumph small and shrill,
And wise satiric owl pops out elate
From trellised architrave to show who slept in state.

Pride may build palaces and splendid halls;
Power may display its victories and be brave;
The eye finds weakest spots in strongest walls,
And meets no strength that can outwear the grave.
Nature, thy handmaid and imperial slave,
The pomp of splendour's finery never heeds:
Kings reign and die: pride may no respite crave;
Nature in barrenness ne'er mourns thy deeds:
Graves, poor and rich alike, she overruns with weeds.

In thy proud eye, imperial arbiter,
An insect small to prize appeareth man;
His pomp and honours have o'er thee no spell,
To win thy purpose from the little span
Allotted unto life in nature's plan;
Trifles to him thy favour can engage;
High he looks up, and soon his race is run,
While the small daisy upon nature's page,
On which he sets his foot, gains endless heritage.

Look at the farces played in every age
By puny empires, vaunting vain display,
And blush to read the historian's fulsome page,
Where kings are worshipped like to gods in clay.
Their pride the earth disdained and swept away,
By thee, a shadow, worsted of their all—
Legions of soldiers, battle's dread array,
Kings' speeches, golden bribes, naught saved their fall;
All 'neath thy feet are laid, thy robe their funeral pall.

198

How feeble and how vain, compared to thine,
The glittering pageantry of earthly kings,
Though in their little light they would outshine
Thy splendid sun: yet soon thy vengeance flings
Its gloom around their crowns, poor puny things,
What then remains of all that great hath been?
A tattered state, that as a mockery clings
To greatness, and concludes the idle scene—
In life how mighty thought, and found in death how mean.

Thus Athens lingers on, a nest of slaves,
And Babylon's an almost doubted name:
Thou with thy finger writ'st upon their graves,
On one obscurity, the other shame.
The richest greatness or the proudest fame
Thy sport concludeth as a farce at last:
They were and would be, but are not the same:
Tyrants, that made all subject where they passed,
Become a common jest for laughter at the last.

Here where I stand thy voice breathes from the ground
A buried tale of sixteen hundred years,
And many a Roman fragment, littered round,
In each new-rooted mole-hill reappears.
Ah! what is fame, that honour so reveres?
And what is Victory's laurel-crowned event
When thy unmasked intolerance interferes?
A Caesar's deeds are left to banishment,
Indebted e'en to moles to show us where he went.

A mighty poet thou, and every line
Thy grand conception traces is sublime:
No language doth thy godlike works confine;
Thy voice is earth's grand polygot, O Time!
Known of all tongues, and read in every clime,
Changes of languages make no change in thee:
Thy works have worsted centuries of their prime,
Yet new editions every day we see—
Ruin thy moral theme, its end eternity.

199

A satirist, too, thy pen is deadly keen;
Thou turnest things that once did wonder claim
To jests ridiculous and memories mean;
The Egyptian pyramids, without a name,
Stand monuments to chaos, not to fame,
Stone jests of kings which thou in sport didst save
As towering satires of pride's living shame,
Beacons to prove thy overbearing wave
Will make all fame at last become its owner's grave.

Mighty survivors! Thou shalt see the hour
When all the grandeur that the earth contains,
Its pomp, its splendour, and its hollow power,
Shall waste like water from its weakened veins,
And not a shadow or a myth remain—
When names and fames of which the earth is full,
And books, with all their knowledge urged in vain—
When dead and living shall be void and null,
And nature's pillow be at last a human skull.

E'en temples raised to worship and to prayer,
Sacred from ruin in all eyes but thine,
Are laid as level, and are left as bare,
As spots with no pretensions to resign;
Nor lives one relic that was deemed divine
By thee, great sacrilegious shade; all, all
Are swept away, and common weeds enshrine
That place of tombs and memories prodigal—
Itself a tomb at last, the record of its fall.

All then shall mingle fellowship with one,
And earth be strewn with wrecks of human things,
When tombs are broken up and memory's gone
Of proud aspiring mortals, crowned as kings,
Mere insects, sporting upon waxen wings
That melt at thy all-mastering energy;
And, when there's naught to govern, thy fame springs
To new existence, conquered, yet to be
An uncrowned partner still of dread eternity.

200

'Tis done, o'erpowering vision! And no more
My simple numbers chronicle thy fame;
'Tis gone: the spirit of my voice is o'er,
Adventuring praises to thy mighty name.
To thee an atom am I, and in shame
I shrink from these aspirings to my doom;
For all the world contains to praise or blame
Is but a garden hastening out of bloom
To fill up nature's wreck—mere rubbish for the tomb.

Imperial moralist! Thy every page,
Like grand prophetic visions, doth install
Truth for all creeds. The savage, saint, and sage
In unison may answer to thy call.
Thy voice, as universal, speaks to all;
It tells us what all were and are to be;
That evil deeds will evil hearts enthral,
And virtue only change the dread decree,
That whoso righteous lives shall win eternity.

THE HEART THAT'S SMIT

The heart that's smit with the white and red
That rosy cheeks do entertain,
And on a bosom's lily bed
Longs for to lie and be well again,
The wounded that doth pains endure
From star-like eyes and snowy skin
Is stung by toys that admit no cure
If there's no heart within.

In vain they love, in vain may glow
At beauty that is all display,
Love without roots can never grow
But like cropt flowers decay.
The scentless flower that in show exceeds
But pleases for an hour,
Then's tost aside like children's weeds—
And such is beauty's power.

201

The heart's the soil where love doth grow,
Its virtue doth all charms excel,
Their union is true bliss below,
Love must be where they dwell.
The finest jewels so rich and rare
Are always cased in a meaner skin,
Nor would the casket be locked with care
But for the gem within.

204

MAN'S VANITY AND LIFE

Man is an insect, life his cell,
Nor lives he till death breaks the shell;
He dreameth here, and waketh there,
So what, forsooth, hath life to heir?
A painted nothing of the mind,
Whose peace we hunt, and never find;
A fairy-tale of what hath been,
Where all is heard and nothing seen;
A mystic show which thoughts devise,
A rumour clothed in prophecies;
A dream unmarred, a hope deferred,
Here all is fancy, nothing heard.
Anon, man peeps behind the screen;
The spell is out, the show is seen,

205

The rumour proved, and so belied,
The prophecy nigh thrown aside,
The dream half faded, woke too soon,
The hope torn up, and wellnigh done.
Anon, he lets the curtain fall;
The past's forgot, the present all,
The dream renews, the scene beguiles,
And hope's torn blossom lives and smiles.
The clouds seem gone, the skies are blue,
The sun is out—it must be true;
The dread of former storms and rain
Are naught, as they'd be ne'er again;
The flower is open, leaves are green,
The summer reigns, the air serene;
The bird hath sung and built its nest,
Love's bowers too made, and they at rest,
All nature seems in pleasure's span,
Insects seem blest, and so does man,
In spirits high, in joyance loud,
In fancy great, in nature proud,
And all but wanting wings to fly
To mingle with eternity.

Anon he feasts: life's viands shine,
Mirth flutters, and prepares to dine:
The hall's decked out, the guests are come,
Eyes serve for suns and roses bloom;
The dance is off, the music sweet,
And loud the prate of merry feet.
Aye doth my ear deceive my will—
I turn to join, and all is still:
That moment revel's sons were gay,
And this is silent—where are they?
'Twas then their morn, but now 'tis noon,
So guests are fed and dinner done,
The wine drank up and bottle drained,
The riddle told though unexplained,
The songs all sung, the jests all said,
The dance is done and all is sped.

206

The insect fares as summer fares—
Its joys are short, and so were theirs.
Sleep came ere mirth did well begin,
Death, where they feasted, owns the inn;
So in he went to claim his pay
And clear the wasted scraps away—
When eyes grew dim, the roses wan,
The rooms all still: and where is man?
Gone like a star from heaven's face,
Nor e'en his shadow heirs his place.

VERSES ON LIFE

Life was and is and still will be
Of cares the endless history,
By hopes conceived, by trouble penned,
Which joys began and sorrows end.
If at the first a smile appears
'Tis but the prologue unto tears,
Where each leaf is, when turnèd o'er,
The echo of those turned before.

Life was and is and will be on
A ruin with its glory gone,
A wreck that braves the storms in vain,
For calms it ne'er shall know again,
A dream enjoyed with fancy's eyes,
Where hope awakes without a prize,
A path whose starting all admire,
That leads to naught but thorn and brier.

Life is a game where thousands choose
To hazard even all, and lose;
A lottery, where millions pawn
Their chance, though blanks are death when drawn,
One prize is all, and they are wise

207

Who let their reason choose that prize;
The gem of life it proves when got,
And poor are they who have it not;
Its value at the last shall be
A passport for eternity.

208

SONG

[I dreamed of love and thought it sweet]

I dreamed of love and thought it sweet
And took the winter for the spring;
A maiden's charms won me to woo
Where beauty's blooms so thick did hing
That I from thence did fear no blast
To bid young hope's frail bud decay,
Till tenderest words met bitter scorn
And then I wished myself away—

But all too late; and such as she
Might well deceive the wisest mind,
For love sure ne'er met one before
So scornful bent, so seeming kind;
For fair as spring, as summer warm,
Her young blood it did seem to flow;
And yet her heart did prove so cold
Love's bud died there and could not blow.

Her face looks open as the day,
And in her lips and in her eyes
Smiles and goodwill do seem to play,
That are love's deaths in green disguise;

209

Her breasts peep from her kerchief folds
Like sunshine thro' a parting cloud,
And yet love finds within that bed
Naught but a dead and wintry shroud.

All hopes are gone that wished her mine;
And now her mind I prove and know
I'm glad—and yet methinks those hopes
That then did cheat did cheer me so
I almost wish I ne'er had sued,
But still hoped on and still believed;
For it were best to dream of joy
Than thus to wake and be deceived.

SONG

[Whence comes this coldness, prithee say!]

Whence comes this coldness, prithee say!
If woman's love be this,
Ah, woe is me and welladay!
A changing thing it is:
To love at morn, and doubt at noon,
And at a little shower
Shut up their smiles, and so be done,
Like any other flower.

Alack! the smile did me betray
The hour we ever met;
For, woe is me and welladay!
Thee I may ne'er forget.
Upbraiding I can offer none,
Nor scorn for scorn allow;
I had not loved as I have done
If I could hate thee now.

210

THE LOVER'S SONG

I've heard thee sing of plaintive things,
And as thy fingers swept the strings,
Thy eyes have wept most tenderly;
Then list awhile till I beguile
Thy heart with sorrow's melody.

A young heart tried a maid to move
And pined to death for very love;
The maiden naught but scorn returned
Nor dropt one tear upon his bier;
He died unhonoured and unmourned.

I knew thou'dst mourn so sad a thing;
Oh, touch, my Anna, touch the string
With sprightlier airs, nor grief endure;
That heart you weep, though wounded deep,
Is yet not past your cure.

213

THE WORLD'S END

To hunt birds' nests on summer morns,
So far my leisure seemed to run,
I've paused to wonder where I'd got
And thought I'd got beyond the sun;
It seemed to rise another way,
The very world's end seemed as near;
Some strange bush pointed where it lay,
So back I turned for very fear

With eager haste and wonder-struck,
Pursued as by a dreaded spell,
Till home—Oh, could I write a book,
I thought, what wonders I could tell!
And when again I left the town
To the world's end I thought I'd go
And o'er the brink just peep adown
To see the mighty depths below.

225

THE BLACKCAP

The blackcap is a singing bird,
A nightingale in melody;
Last March in Open Wood I heard
One sing that quite astonished me;
I took it for the nightingale—
It jug-jugged just the same as he—
So creeping through the mossy rail
I in the thicket got to see:

When one small bird of saddened green,
Black head, and breast of ashy grey,
In ivied oak tree scarcely seen,
Stopt all at once and flew away;
And since, in hedgerow's dotterel trees,
I've oft this tiny minstrel met,
Where ivy flapping to the breeze
Bear ring-marked berries black as jet;
But whether they find food in these
I've never seen or known as yet.

226

THE MISSEL-THRUSH'S NEST

In early March, before the lark
Dare start, beside the huge oak tree,
Close fixed agen the powdered bark,
The mavis' nest I often see;
And mark, as wont, the bits of wool
Hang round about its early bed;
She lays six eggs in colours dull,
Blotched thick with spots of burning red.

KINGFISHERS

Look where two splendid feathered things
Sit on that grey and stretching bough,
That from the leaning willow hings
Half o'er the gulling flood below.
Like foreign birds' their plumage shines
In splendour's rich and varied hue;
The peacock's tail is scarce as fine—
Rich-shaded, orange, green, and blue.

No finer birds are known to fly
Than these gay-dressed kingfishers are,
Who live on fish and watch the fry
Of minnows nimbly passing there;
And there they'll sit whole hours away
In that same lone and watching spot,
And when they dart to seize their prey
Drop down as sudden as a shot.

Sandmartin-like, they make a hole
A steepy headlong bank beside,
As well as ever did the mole,
And there their many eggs they hide.

227

And as is natural to their kind,
Where mill-dam waters wildly foam,
Places more hard to reach than find
They choose, a safe and quiet home.

Their hole a full arm's length is made,
Turned at the last with sudden bend,
Where lots of fishes' bones are laid
Close to the large and furthest end;
Their eggs are white as wrynecks' be
And much about that middle size,
And boys oft skulk behind a tree
To watch the old one where she flies,
And then pull out their knives in glee
And delve in vain to reach the prize.

THE SPIDER-CATCHER

There is a stranger comes with May
To haunt the homestead's orchard tree,
Sings ‘eejip, eejip’ all the day,
And many cheated folks there be,
Whose fancies lead their ears astray,
Think Bible Egypt is its home,
A marvel of the mighty way
That birds without a guide will come.

It sings its strange and foreign call
All day in motion and at rest,
And in the orchard's hollow wall
It makes a large and curious nest
Of straws that from the yard it gains,
Of cobwebs fine as very down,
And lays six eggs of tawny stains,
Besprent with dots of darker brown.

228

Its back is of a slaty blue,
Its paler bosom ashen grey,
Its wings are of a darker hue,
And now and ever all the day
The orchard trees are its retreats;
And there this ever busy guest
A something every moment meets
To catch and carry to its nest.

'Neath cot and hovel eaves it drops,
And flies and insects often gets,
And round the barn-hole fluttering stops
Where spiders spread their flimsy nets;
And boys from what they've seen and heard
Them oft as spider-catchers call;
But yet the busy ‘eejip bird’
Remains a guess and doubt with all.

230

THE LANDRAIL (II)

I've listened, when to school I've gone,
That craking noise to hear,
And crept and listened on and on
But ne'er once gotten near;

I've trampled through the meadow grass
And dreaded to be caught,
And stood and wondered what it was,
And very often thought

Some fairy thing had lost its way,
Night's other worlds to find,
And hiding in the grass all day
Mourned to be left behind;

But I've since found their eggs, forsooth,
And so we may agen,
But great the joy I missed in youth
As not to find them then;

For when a boy a new nest meets
Joy gushes to his breast,
Nor would his heart so quickly beat
Were guineas in the nest.

I've hunted till the day has been
So vanished that I dare
Not go to school nor yet be seen
That I was playing there;

So mid the wheat I've made a seat
Upon an old meer-stone,
And hid, and all my dinner eat,
Till four o'clock was gone.

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THE REDCAP

The redcap is a painted bird
And beautiful its feathers are;
In early spring its voice is heard
While searching thistles brown and bare;
It makes a nest of mosses grey
And lines it round with thistle-down;
Five small pale spotted eggs they lay
In places never far from town.

I've seen them build on eldern bough
And tip-top of our russeting,
But never did I see till now
A bird's nest in a garland hing;
In this old princifeather tree,
As hiding from the sudden showers,
The redcap's nest delighteth me,
Hid in a bunch of lilac flowers.

THE WILLOW-BITER

Beside a mole-hill, thickly topt
With wild rock-roses' lemon blooms,
I stooped, and out a something popt,
A very mouse in russet plumes;
So low and nimble was its flight
It rather seemed to run than fly,
And in a furze bush out of sight
It in a moment left my eye.

A lapt-up ball of withered grass
Appeared its little tiny house;
And sure enough my early guess
Thought it the dwelling of a mouse;

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At length I found a little hole
I scarce could get a finger through,
And eggs, a dozen on the whole—
I wanted them to tell it true—

As large as is a large white pea,
And less than wrens' in hovels are,
With spots scarce big enough to see
Most finely freckled here and there.
The woodmen call them, in their way,
The willow-biters, 'cause they see
Them biting in the month of May
The young shoots of the willow tree;
But what they are in learning's way
Is all unknown to them or me.

THE LARK'S NEST

From yon black clump of wheat that grows
More rank and higher than the rest,
A lark—I marked her as she rose—
At early morning left her nest.
Her eggs were four of dusky hue,
Blotched brown as is the very ground,
With tinges of a purply hue
The larger ends encircling round.

Behind a clod how snug the nest
Is in a horse's footing fixed!
Of twitch and stubbles roughly dressed,
With roots and horsehair intermixed.
The wheat surrounds it like a bower,
And like to thatch each bowing blade
Throws off the frequent falling shower
—And here's an egg this morning laid!

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THE SWALLOW'S NEST

Here down the meadow runs a path
Snake-winding through the pleasant hay,
That leadeth over many a swath
Which shed their fragrance all the way.
At last the eye beholds the view
Of many arches all a-row,
That leads the traveller safely through
When floods are roaring loud below.

There 'neath an arch, as like to drop,
Two hermit swallows yearly fix
Their nest beneath the freestone top—
You'd almost wonder how it sticks.
And through and through the brig they whip—
Thoughts hardly can the pace maintain—
Then ‘twit’ and in the water dip,
And ‘twit’ and hurry back again.

THE MOOR-HEN'S NEST

I in my summer rambles love to see
A flood-washed bank support an aged tree,
Whose roots are bare; yet some with foothold good
Crankle and spread and strike beneath the flood;
Yet still it leans as safer hold to win
On t'other side, and seems as tumbling in.
Yet every summer finds it green and gay
And winter leaves it safe as did the May;
Nor does the moor-hen find its safety vain,
For on its roots their last year's homes remain;
And once again a couple from the brood
Seek their old birthplace, and in safety's mood
Build up their flags and lay; though danger comes,
It dares and tries and cannot reach their homes;
And still they hatch their eggs and sweetly dream

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On their shelfed nest hung just to touch the stream;
And soon their sooty brood from fear elope
Where bulrush forests give them sweeter hope;
Their hanging nest that aids their wishes well
Each leaves for water as it leaves the shell;
They dive and dare and every gambol try
Till they themselves to other scenes can fly.

THE FIRETAIL

Around the old and ruined wall,
About the dead and hollow tree,
The firetail's ‘tweet-tut’ fretting call
Keeps up a teasing melody.
It starts at every passer-by,
And boys that by its dwelling roam
Well know its danger-daunting cry
And watch it till its ventures home.

Its nest is made of hair and moss
And down and cobwebs very fine;
Its eggs are blue withouten gloss,
I've found as many oft as nine.
The female has a fiery tail,
And is a dull and sandy brown,
But beautiful appears the male
With crimson breast and jetty crown.

THE GREEN WOODPECKER AND THE WRYNECK

Hark! heard ye not the gentle rap
Like one tip-tapping at a door?
Then look above that woodland gap
The old oak dotterel leaneth o'er,

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Upon whose rough and powdered rind
The green woodpecker eager clings;
And now it screams aloud to find
Us near, and round the tree it springs.

In touchwood trees it taps for food,
And in those holes of tiny size
Which insects make in rotten wood
It thrusts its slender tongue and cries;
Its tongue, a finger's length or more,
Fast glues them if they do but move;
But hardest oaks its bill can bore—
E'en birds will labour hard for love.

It knocks and craunches in the wood
For half the April, soon and late,
And though as sounds were understood
It screams and cackles to its mate,
Who quickly mocks the tuneless noise;
And then, as cheered, it bores in glee,
Snug-hid from mischief-wandering boys,
Who wonder what the sound may be.

And when the hole is deep enough,
It seeks its moss and wool and hair
And all the scraps of downy stuff
That field and forest have to spare;
And here the wryneck often comes
And finds a snug nest ready made
And layeth siege—whose hissing hums
May make the larger birds afraid.

The green woodpecker's eggs are grey,
Scarce larger than a sparrow's are,
And spotted in the self-same way,
Save that the spots are rather spare.

236

The wryneck's are a snowy white,
At whose large ends a simple ring
Still whiter shines when in the light;
I've often found them in the spring.

And one nest in an apple tree
That o'er an orchard path did lean,
Where I went every morn to see,
Had eggs as many as sixteen.
She'd raise her feathers on her crown
And hiss as if to frighten boys;
E'en crouching cats would jump adown
Nor dared to meet the dreaded noise.

I've seen it raise its copple crest,
For I have watched it day by day,
And though I've found it on its nest
It never tried to get away,
But waved its speckled head awry
And hissed as if a snake to feign,
And waited till its brood could fly
Yet never sought the tree again.

THE FERN-OWL

Hark! there's that churring noise we heard
And thought it some wild frolic boy;
'Tis sure enough an unknown bird,
I've seldom heard so strange a cry.

'Tis like a ‘skreeker’ quickly turned,
Which nurses twine the child to please,
A cricket's note more loudly churned,
And yet but little like to these.

I've heard it at the fall of eve,
Just after gentle showers of rain,
At early morn it would deceive
My ear, and here it calls again.

237

'Tis always hidden in the woods,
I never heard it on the plain,
And seldom in its singing moods,
So all inquiry ends in vain.

I've heard it in the April showers
What time the sun was going bed,
And in May's early morning hours,
When dews have bent the blossom's head.

But whether it the fern-owl be,
Or, as may hap, a stranger bird,
Is still a hidden mystery
Whose truth as fact I've never heard.

I've read in books but found it not,
I've talked with men of mickle skill,
To hunt it I've in thickets got,
But all remains a mystery still.

THE CHIFF-CHAFF

See at yon flitting bird that flies
Above the oak tree tops at play,
Uttering its restless melodies
Of ‘chipichap’ throughout the day.

Its nest is built in little bush
Scarcely a foot above the ground,
Or hid in clumps of sedge or rush
In woods where they are rarely found.

Its nest is like an oven made
With moss and leaves and bits of grass,
And all so nice and snugly laid
That hands may spoil but not replace.

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It enters by a little hole,
Its inside is a feather bed
From yards and poultry hovels stole;
Its eggs are small and spotted red.

And all the spring and all the May,
If I forbore the gate to clap,
Down that wood-riding day by day
We heard it singing ‘chipichap,’

And o'er the tree-tops saw it fly,
Dancing about, a fairy thing,
But never yet could come so nigh
To tell the colour of its wing.

The bushes they are dripping wet,
Or we would seek its curious nest,
There oft in bushy places met,
Where sedges mingle with the rest.

LONE HAPPINESS

‘These birds, how happy must they be!’
I muttered, as I reached to pull
The woodbine twisting round the tree
In spots so wild and beautiful;
The furze flowers, spread on either hand,
Shine one broad shower of gleaming gold,
And on this mole-hill where I stand
To look, 'tis luscious to behold.

I've oft been glad at heart to see
A footpath winding through the grass
O'er narrow stiles 'neath spreading tree,
Not wide enough for two to pass;
But now no ownership I fear,
Nor path to keep nor stile to climb,
I feel myself a monarch here,
My very fancies grow sublime.

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Yon bird that winnows in the sky
On narrow, pointed, quivering wings,
These sheep that in the mole-hills lie,
Are all the hermit living things
I see—and from the world away
I feel what she can never give,
So happy at my heart to-day
That from the world I wish to live.

THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS

The crow goes flopping on from wood to wood,
The wild duck wherries to the distant flood,
The starnels hurry o'er in merry crowds,
And overhead whew by like hasty clouds;
The wild duck from the meadow-water plies
And dashes up the water as he flies;
The pigeon suthers by on rapid wing,
The lark mounts upward at the call of spring.
In easy flights above the hurricane
With doubled neck high sails the noisy crane.
Whizz goes the pewit o'er the ploughman's team,
With many a whew and whirl and sudden scream;
And lightly fluttering to the tree just by,
In chattering journeys whirls the noisy pie;
From bush to bush slow swees the screaming jay,
With one harsh note of pleasure all the day.

240

THE WOODLARK (II)

Yet chance will sometimes prove a faithless guest,
Leading some wanderer by her haunts to roam;
And startled by the rustle, from her nest
She flutters out and so betrays her home;
Yet it is seldom accident can meet

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With her weed-hidden and surrounded nest;
I've often wondered, when agen my feet
She fluttered up and fanned the anemone
That blossomed round in crowds, how birds could be
So wise to find such hidden homes again;
And this in sooth oft puzzled me—they go
Far off and then return; but nature's plain—
She giveth what sufficeth them to know
That they of comfort can their share retain.

ON SEEING TWO SWALLOWS LATE IN OCTOBER (II)

But, little lingerers, old esteem detains
Ye haply thus to brave the chilly air
When skies grow dull with winter's heavy rains
And all the orchard trees are nearly bare;
Yet the old chimneys still are peeping there

242

Above the russet thatch where summer's tide
Of sunny joys gave you such social fare
As makes you haply wishing to abide
In your old dwelling through the changing year.
I wish ye well to find a dwelling here,
For in the unsocial weather ye would fling
Gleanings of comfort through the winter wide,
Twittering as wont above the old fireside,
And cheat the surly winter into spring.

THE BUMBARREL'S NEST

The oddling bush, close sheltered hedge new plashed,
Of which spring's early liking makes a guest
First with a shade of green though winter-dashed—
There, full as soon, bumbarrels make a nest
Of mosses grey with cobwebs closely tied,
And warm and rich as feather-bed within,
With little hole on its contrary side
That pathway peepers may no knowledge win
Of what her little oval nest contains—
Ten eggs and often twelve, with dusts of red
Soft frittered; and full soon the little lanes
Screen the young crowd and hear the twitting song
Of the old birds who call them to be fed,
While down the hedge they hang and hide along.

251

THE FLITTING

I've left my own old home of homes,
Green fields and every pleasant place;
The summer like a stranger comes,
I pause and hardly know her face.
I miss the hazel's happy green,
The bluebell's quiet hanging blooms,
Where envy's sneer was never seen,
Where staring malice never comes.

I miss the heath, its yellow furze,
Mole-hills and rabbit tracks that lead
Through besom-ling, and teazle burrs
That spread a wilderness indeed;
The woodland oaks and all below
That their white-powdered branches shield,
The mossy paths: the very crow
Croaks music in my native field.

I sit me in my corner chair
That seems to feel itself from home,
And hear bird music here and there
From hawthorn hedge and orchard come;
I hear, but all is strange and new:
I sat on my old bench in June,
The sailing puddock's shrill ‘peelew’
On Royce Wood seemed a sweeter tune.

I walk adown the narrow lane,
The nightingale is singing now,
But like to me she seems at loss
For Royce Wood and its shielding bough.
I lean upon the window-sill,
The trees and summer happy seem;
Green, sunny green they shine, but still
My heart goes far away to dream

252

Of happiness, and thoughts arise
With home-bred pictures many a one,
Green lanes that shut out burning skies
And old crook'd stiles to rest upon;
Above them hangs the maple tree,
Below grass swells a velvet hill,
And little footpaths sweet to see
Go seeking sweeter places still,

With by and by a brook to cross
O'er which a little arch is thrown:
No brook is here, I feel the loss
From home and friends and all alone.
The stone pit with its shelvy sides
Seemed hanging rocks in my esteem;
I miss the prospect far and wide
From Langley Bush, and so I seem

Alone and in a stranger scene,
Far, far from spots my heart esteems,
The closen with their ancient green,
Heaths, woods, and pastures' sunny streams.
The hawthorns here were hung with may,
But still they seem in deader green,
The sun e'en seems to lose its way
Nor knows the quarter it is in.

I dwell on trifles like a child,
I feel as ill becomes a man,
And still my thoughts like weedlings wild
Grow up to blossom where they can.
They turn to places known so long
I feel that joy was dwelling there,
So home-fed pleasures fill the song
That has no present joys to heir.

I read in books for happiness,
But books are like the sea to joy;

253

They change—as well give age the glass
To hunt its visage when a boy.
For books they follow fashions new
And throw all old esteems away,
In crowded streets flowers never grew,
But many there hath died away.

Some sing the pomps of chivalry
As legends of the ancient time,
Where gold and pearls and mystery
Are shadows painted for sublime;
But passions of sublimity
Belong to plain and simpler things,
And David underneath a tree
Sought when a shepherd Salem's springs,

Where moss did into cushions spring,
Forming a seat of velvet hue,
A small unnoticed trifling thing
To all but heaven's hailing dew.
And David's crown hath passed away,
Yet poesy breathes his shepherd-skill,
His palace lost—and to this day
The little moss is blooming still.

Strange scenes mere shadows are to me,
Vague impersonifying things;
I love with my old haunts to be
By quiet woods and gravel springs,
Where little pebbles wear as smooth
As hermits' beads by gentle floods,
Whose noises do my spirits soothe
And warm them into singing moods.

Here every tree is strange to me,
All foreign things where'er I go,
There's none where boyhood made a swee
Or clambered up to rob a crow.

254

No hollow tree or woodland bower
Well known when joy was beating high,
Where beauty ran to shun a shower
And love took pains to keep her dry,

And laid the sheaf upon the ground
To keep her from the dripping grass,
And ran for stooks and set them round
Till scarce a drop of rain could pass
Through; where the maidens they reclined
And sung sweet ballads now forgot,
Which brought sweet memories to the mind,
But here no memory knows them not.

There have I sat by many a tree
And leaned o'er many a rural stile,
And conned my thoughts as joys to me,
Naught heeding who might frown or smile.
'Twas nature's beauty that inspired
My heart with raptures not its own,
And she's a fame that never tires;
How could I feel myself alone?

No, pasture mole-hills used to lie
And talk to me of sunny days,
And then the glad sheep resting by
All still in ruminating praise
Of summer and the pleasant place;
And every weed and blossom too
Was looking upward in my face
With friendship's welcome ‘How do ye do?’

All tenants of an ancient place
And heirs of noble heritage,
Coeval they with Adam's race
And blest with more substantial age.
For when the world first saw the sun
These little flowers beheld him too,
And when his love for earth begun
They were the first his smiles to woo.

255

There little lambtoe bunches springs
In red-tinged and begolden dye
For ever, and like China kings
They come but never seem to die.
There may-bloom with its little threads
Still comes upon the thorny bowers
And ne'er forgets those pinky heads
Like fairy pins amid the flowers.

And still they bloom as on the day
They first crowned wilderness and rock,
When Abel haply wreathed with may
The firstlings of his little flock,
And Eve might from the matted thorn
To deck her lone and lovely brow
Reach that same rose that heedless scorn
Misnames as the dog rosey now.

Give me no high-flown fangled things,
No haughty pomp in marching chime,
Where muses play on golden strings
And splendour passes for sublime,
Where cities stretch as far as fame
And fancy's straining eye can go,
And piled until the sky for shame
Is stooping far away below.

I love the verse that, mild and bland,
Breathes of green fields and open sky,
I love the muse that in her hand
Bears flowers of native poesy;
Who walks nor skips the pasture brook
In scorn, but by the drinking horse
Leans o'er its little brig to look
How far the sallows lean across,

And feels a rapture in her breast
Upon their root-fringed grains to mark

256

A hermit moor-hen's sedgy nest
Just like a naiad's summer bark.
She counts the eggs she cannot reach,
Admires the spot and loves it well,
And yearns, so nature's lessons teach,
Amid such neighbourhoods to dwell.

I love the muse who sits her down
Upon the mole-hill's little lap,
Who feels no fear to stain her gown
And pauses by the hedgerow gap;
Not with that affectation, praise
Of song, to sing and never see
A field flower grow in all her days
Or e'en a forest's aged tree.

E'en here my simple feelings nurse
A love for every simple weed,
And e'en this little shepherd's purse
Grieves me to cut it up; indeed
I feel at times a love and joy
For every weed and every thing,
A feeling kindred from a boy,
A feeling brought with every spring.

And why? this shepherd's purse that grows
In this strange spot, in days gone by
Grew in the little garden rows
Of my old home now left; and I
Feel what I never felt before,
This weed an ancient neighbour here,
And though I own the spot no more
Its every trifle makes it dear.

The ivy at the parlour end,
The woodbine at the garden gate,
Are all and each affection's friend
That rendered parting desolate.

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But times will change and friends must part,
And nature still can make amends;
Their memory lingers round the heart
Like life, whose essence is its friends.

Time looks on pomp with vengeful mood
Or killing apathy's disdain;
So where old marble cities stood
Poor persecuted weeds remain.
She feels a love for little things
That very few can feel beside,
And still the grass eternal springs
Where castles stood and grandeur died.

262

BOYHOOD PLEASURES

Oh, could I feel my spirits beat
As once they did when life, a boy,
Went everywhere with dancing feet,
Met everything with joy;
Got nuts before the shells were brown,
Shells, pith and all to eat,
And dragged the crab-tree bushes down,
And thought the bitter sweet;
Ah, could I feel as I did then
And so be glorious once agen!

To think it fame to clamber up
The highest tree to rob the crow,
To think it worth the while to stoop
For every weed that used to grow,
To take home pockets-full of shells,
Hurded as manhood hurds his wealth,
To steal in where the cowslip dwells
And crop quick handfuls up by stealth,
Lest they who owned the close should come
And threaten whips and drive us home.

The hurry and the look behind,
The valued prize of yellow flowers,
The panting haste a tree to find
When overtook by sudden showers;
And then in spite of all the rain,
When all the hedges hung with drops,
We scrambled up the bush to gain
A pink's nest almost at the top,
Till shook boughs soaked us to the skin,
And then the trouble we were in!

Our cowslips soon were thrown away,
And if the rain kept in the sky
We in some hovel sneaked to play
Until our jackets seemed as dry.

263

How glad those days! look back agen,
Man's spirits can't imagine how;
For sorrows which we reckoned then
Grow sweeter than our pleasures now;
Time writes them with a golden pen
But never lives them back agen.

APPROACHING NIGHT

Oh, take this world away from me!
Its strife I cannot bear to see,
Its very praises hurt me more
Than e'en its coldness did before,
Its hollow ways torment me now
And start a cold sweat on my brow,
Its noise I cannot bear to hear,
Its joy is trouble to my ear,
Its ways I cannot bear to see,
Its crowds are solitudes to me.
Oh, how I long to be agen
That poor and independent man,
With labour's lot from morn to night
And books to read at candle-light;
That followed labour in the field
From light to dark when toil could yield
Real happiness with little gain,
Rich thoughtless health unknown to pain:
Though leaning on my spade to rest,
I've thought how richer folks were blest
And knew not quiet was the best.

AUTUMN MORNING

The storm is heaving up the sky,
The south is dark and dreary
That smiled so bright—as once did I;
But now I'm sad and weary,

264

Heart-sick of what the world contains,
Its pleasing and its smiling.
Its pay's not half its cost in pains,
For pleasure grows beguiling.

The old wood heaves a massy wave
Like rivers overflowing,
And now the wind begins to rave
And loud the storm is growing;
So heaved the pleasures of the past
In life's bright crowded morning,
But oh, I long for peace at last,
And trouble gives me warning.

Heart-sick of every joy and care
That darken and enlighten,
I sink down in my elbow chair—
Oh, when will memory brighten?
The storm has rattled down the wind,
The sun again is dawning,
O God, give me the joy to find
A calm in autumn's morning.

THE SECRET

I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.

And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.

265

And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.

IDLE FAME

I would not wish the burning blaze
Of fame around a restless world,
The thunder and the storm of praise
In crowded tumults heard and hurled.

I would not be a flower to stand
The stare of every passer-by;
But in some nook of fairyland,
Seen in the praise of beauty's eye.

I would not be the common song
For all the world to shout and praise,
But just a theme remembered long
By beauty in its sweetest days.

I would not be applause's guest
Where crowded praises fall in showers,
But just a joy in beauty's breast,
The music of her silent hours.

I would not be the common talk,
But just a choice in beauty's song,
A whisper muttered in her walk,
A rapture dropping from her tongue.

I would not give a wish to see
The praise that fashion has to bring,
But feel it more than praise to be
The song that beauty loves to sing,

266

The kerchiefs that her bosom deck,
Her airy garments' easy flow,
And, wavering round her taper neck,
Dark ringlets falling upon snow.

I would not be the gaze of all,
A tale for every mouth to tell,
But oh, where beauty's glances fall
In rapture, I'd be fain to dwell.

Oh, I would be, as beauty's guest,
The blossom which she tends and ties,
The oftenest by her finger pressed,
Gazed on the oftenest by her eyes;

The arbour where she loves to rest,
The page turned down to read and read,
The sweetest thought within her breast
That gives the poet beauty's meed.

Go, envy, with thy gay parade,
The worship and the scorn of praise!
Leave me the solitary glade
Where beauty in its pleasure strays.

SONG'S ETERNITY

What is song's eternity?
Come and see.
Can it noise and bustle be?
Come and see.
Praises sung or praises said
Can it be?
Wait awhile and these are dead—
Sigh, sigh;
Be they high or lowly bred
They die.

267

What is song's eternity?
Come and see.
Melodies of earth and sky,
Here they be.
Song once sung to Adam's ears
Can it be?
Ballads of six thousand years
Thrive, thrive;
Songs awakened with the spheres
Alive.

Mighty songs that miss decay,
What are they?
Crowds and cities pass away
Like a day.
Books are writ and books are read;
What are they?
Years will lay them with the dead—
Sigh, sigh;
Trifles unto nothing wed,
They die.

Dreamers, list the honey-bee;
Mark the tree
Where the bluecap, ‘tootle tee,’
Sings a glee
Sung to Adam and to Eve—
Here they be.
When floods covered every bough,
Noah's ark
Heard that ballad singing now;
Hark, hark,

‘Tootle tootle tootle tee’—
Can it be
Pride and fame must shadows be?
Come and see—
Every season owns her own;
Bird and bee

268

Sing creation's music on;
Nature's glee
Is in every mood and tone
Eternity.

The eternity of song
Liveth here;
Nature's universal tongue
Singeth here
Songs I've heard and felt and seen
Everywhere;
Songs like the grass are evergreen:
The giver
Said ‘Live and be’—and they have been,
For ever.

‘STILL UNCHANGEABLE’

Love can melt the stony-hearted,
Love's a tie that can't be parted,
Though so often crossed and thwarted.

Love from coldest hopes can borrow
Joys that shall be bright to-morrow,
Though it often meets with sorrow.

Love in every limb is blooming
In that witching angel woman,
Though age's storm is slowly coming.

Joy, tripping light as any feather,
Leads on in love's divinest weather,
And one seat holds them all together.

Cheek to cheek is pressed so tender,
Love should from all ills defend her
In every walk, and never wander.

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But how many have their meetings,
Smiling lips and happy greetings,
Tender looks and bosom-beatings,

That shall part! and time, concealing,
Tries to conquer every feeling:
But memory will her sighs be stealing.

There are faces thought the dearest,
There are hearts once linked the nearest,
That oft meet with lot severest:

That met in love's divinest weather
And ere their choice could part would rather
Die—and yet not come together!

'Tis more than love for this and t'other,
Dearer than sister feels for brother,
And earth but seldom owns another.

And though the mind is crossed and thwarted
And love's first thraldom cut and parted,
It seems the dearest where it started.

WITH GARMENTS FLOWING

Come, come, my love, the bush is growing,
The linnet sings the tune again
He sung when thou with garments flowing
Went talking with me down the lane,
Dreaming of beauty ere I found thee,
And musing by the bushes green;
The wind, enamoured, streaming round thee
Painted the visions I had seen.

I guessed thy face without the knowing
Was beautiful as e'er was seen;
I thought so by thy garments flowing
And gait as airy as a queen;

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Thy shape, thy size, could not deceive me;
Beauty seemed hid in every limb;
And then thy face, when seen, believe me,
Made every former fancy dim.

Yes, when thy face in beauty brightened
The music of a voice divine,
Upon my heart thy sweetness lightened;
Life, love, that moment, all were thine;
All I imagined musing lonely,
When dreaming 'neath the greenwood tree,
Seeming to fancy visions only,
Breathed living when I met with thee.

I wander oft, not to forget thee
But just to feel those joys again,
When by the hawbush stile I met thee
And heard thy voice adown the lane
Return me its good-humoured greeting;
And oh, what music met my ear!
And then thy looks of wonder meeting,
To see me come and talk so near!

Thy face that held no sort of scorning,
Thy careless jump to reach the may;
That bush—I saw it many a morning
And hoped to meet thee many a day;
Till winter came and stripped the bushes,
The thistle withered on the moors,
Hopes sighed like winds along the rushes—
I could not meet thee out of doors.

But winter's gone and spring is going
And by thy own fireside I've been,
And told thee, dear, with garments flowing
I met thee when the spring was green;
When travellers through snow-deserts rustle,
Far from the strife of humankind,
How little seems the noise and bustle
Of places they have left behind!

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And on that long-remembered morning
When first I lost this heart of mine,
Fame, all I'd hoped for, turned to scorning
And love and hope lived wholly thine;
I told thee, and with rapture glowing
I heard thee more than once declare,
That down the lane with garments flowing
Thou with the spring wouldst wander there.

BEAUTY

Beauty is nothing but the power
Which the admirer gives,
The shadow of the fading flower
That in the fancy lives.

A sun it is of feeble kind,
Tho' bright its little reign,
Yet if a cloud doth cross the mind
All is put out again.

The daisy comes at early spring
To win our first esteem,
Summers their blushing roses bring
To wake a sweeter dream;

And then comes autumn's painted reign,
With winter in her way:
Thus ere we know the joys we gain
From beauty, they decay.

AFTER-FAME

Time's stream in light is flowing,
Where fame goes stirring on,
Where the mighty are agoing—
Yet they never shall be gone.

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Their names are earth's for ever,
A breath for every mind,
Everlasting as the river,
Never-ceasing as the wind.

DISTANT HILLS

What is there in those distant hills
My fancy longs to see,
That many a mood of joy instils?
Say, what can fancy be?

Do old oaks thicken all the woods,
With weeds and brakes as here?
Does common water make the floods,
That's common everywhere?

Is grass the green that clothes the ground?
Are springs the common springs?
Daisies and cowslips dropping round,
Are such the flowers she brings?

Their brooms are they [the] yellow broom,
Their briers the smelling brier?
Questions from fancy seldom come
But such are everywhere.

Does day come with its common sky
That's seen both near and far?
Does night the selfsame moon supply
With many a little star?

Are cottages of mud and stone,
By valley, wood, and glen,
And their calm dwellers little known
Men, and but common men,

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That drive afield with carts and ploughs?
Such men are common here,
And pastoral maidens milking cows
Are dwelling everywhere.

If so my fancy idly clings
To notions far away,
And longs to roam for common things
All round her every day,

Right idle would the journey be
To leave one's home so far,
And see the moon I now can see
And every little star.

And have they there a night and day,
And common counted hours?
And do they see so far away
This very moon of ours?

I mark him climb above the trees
With one small cousin star,
And think me in my reveries—
He cannot shine so far.

And o'er his face that ancient man
Will ever stooping be;
What else he in no sort of plan
Could ever get to see.

The poets in the tales they tell
And with their happy powers
Have made lands where their fancies dwell
Seem better lands than ours.

Their storied woods and vales and streams
Grow up within the mind
Like beauty seen in pleasant dreams
We nowhere else can find.

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Yet common things, no matter what,
Which nature dignifies,
If happiness be in their lot,
They gratify our eyes.

Some value things from being new,
Yet nature keeps the old;
She watches o'er the humblest too
In blessings manifold.

The common things of every day,
However mean and small,
The heedless eye may throw away,
But she esteems them all.

The common things in every place
Display their sweets abroad,
The daisy shows a happy face
On every common sward.

Why need I sigh far hills to see
If grass is their array,
While here the little paths go through
The greenest every day?

Such fancies fill the restless mind,
At once to cheat and cheer
With thought and semblance undefined,
Nowhere and everywhere.

THE STRANGER

When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more than I could bear;
Ay, gone rejoicing under care
Where I had sunk in black despair.

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When pain disturbs my peace and rest,
Am I hopeless grief to keep,
When some have slept on torture's breast
And smiled as in the sweetest sleep,
Ay, peace on thorns, in faith forgiven,
And pillowed on the hope of heaven?

Though low and poor and broken down,
Am I to think myself distrest?
No, rather laugh where others frown
And think my being truly blest;
For others I can daily see
More worthy riches worse than me.

Ay, once a stranger blest the earth
Who never caused a heart to mourn,
Whose very voice gave sorrow mirth—
And how did earth his worth return?
It spurned him from its lowliest lot,
The meanest station owned him not;

An outcast thrown in sorrow's way,
A fugitive that knew no sin,
Yet in lone places forced to stray—
Men would not take the stranger in.
Yet peace, though much himself he mourned,
Was all to others he returned.

Rebuke from him no sinner mourned,
He never judged a man for wrong.
Mercy to all his smile returned,
Yet mercy scorned him all along,
Ay, scorned him to the last, and then
Condemned him as the worst of men.

His presence was a peace to all,
He bade the sorrowful rejoice.

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Pain turned to pleasure at his call,
Health lived and issued from his voice.
He healed the sick and sent abroad
The dumb rejoicing in the Lord.

The blind met daylight in his eye,
The joys of everlasting day;
The sick found health in his reply;
The cripple threw his crutch away.
Yet he with troubles did remain
And suffered poverty and pain.

Yet none could say of wrong he did,
And scorn was ever standing by;
Accusers by their conscience chid,
When proof was sought, made no reply.
Yet without sin he suffered more
Than ever sinners did before.

And yet for sin he suffered all
To set the world-imprisoned free,
To cheer the weary when they call—
And who could such a stranger be?
The God, the Saviour from on high
That aids the feeble. Need I sigh?

THE OLD COTTAGERS

The little cottage stood alone, the pride
Of solitude surrounded every side.
Bean-fields in blossom almost reached the wall;
A garden with its hawthorn hedge was all
The space between.—Green light did pass
Through one small window, where a looking-glass,
Placed in the parlour, richly there revealed
A spacious landscape and a blooming field.
The pasture cows that herded on the moor

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Printed their footsteps to the very door,
Where little summer flowers with seasons blow
And scarcely gave the eldern leave to grow.
The cuckoo that one listens far away
Sung in the orchard trees for half the day;
And where the robin lives, the village guest,
In the old weedy hedge the leafy nest
Of the coy nightingale was yearly found,
Safe from all eyes as in the loneliest ground;
And little chats that in beanstalks will lie
A nest with cobwebs there will build, and fly
Upon the kidney-bean that twines and towers
Up little poles in wreaths of scarlet flowers.

There a lone couple lived, secluded there
From all the world considers joy or care,
Lived to themselves, a long lone journey trod,
And through their Bible talked aloud to God;
While one small close and cow their wants maintained,
But little needing, and but little gained.
Their neighbour's name was peace, with her they went,
With tottering age, and dignified content,
Through a rich length of years and quiet days,
And filled the neighbouring village with their praise.

COUNTRY LETTER

Dear brother Robin, this comes from us all
With our kind love, and could Gip write and all
Though but a dog he'd have his love to spare,
For still he knows, and by your corner chair
The moment he comes in he lies him down
And seems to fancy you are in the town.
This leaves us well in health, thank God for that!
For old acquaintance Sue has kept your hat
Which mother brushes ere she lays it by
And every Sunday goes upstairs to cry.

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Jane still is yours till you come back agen
And ne'er so much as dances with the men;
And Ned the woodman every week comes in
And asks about you kindly as our kin;
And he with this and goody Thompson sends
Remembrances with those of all our friends.
Father with us sends love until he hears
And mother she has nothing but her tears,
Yet wishes you like us in health the same
And longs to see a letter with your name,
So, loving brother, don't forget to write.
Old Gip lies on the hearth stone every night;
Mother can't bear to turn him out of doors
And never noises now of dirty floors;
Father will laugh but lets her have her way,
And Gip for kindness get a double pay.
So Robin write and let us quickly see
You don't forget old friends no more than we,
Nor let my mother have so much to blame
To go three journeys ere your letter came.

THE FENS

Wandering by the river's edge,
I love to rustle through the sedge
And through the woods of reed to tear
Almost as high as bushes are.
Yet, turning quick with shudder chill,
As danger ever does from ill,
Fear's moment-ague quakes the blood,
While plop the snake coils in the flood

And, hissing with a forkèd tongue,
Across the river winds along.
In coat of orange, green, and blue
Now on a willow branch I view,

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Grey waving to the sunny gleam,
Kingfishers watch the ripple stream
For little fish that nimble by
And in the gravel shallows lie.

Eddies run before the boats,
Gurgling where the fisher floats,
Who takes advantage of the gale
And hoists his handkerchief for sail
On osier twigs that form a mast—
And quick his nutshell hurries past,
While idly lies, nor wanted more,
The sprit that pushed him on before.

There's not a hill in all the view,
Save that a forkèd cloud or two
Upon the verge of distance lies
And into mountains cheats the eyes.
And as to trees, the willows wear
Lopped heads as high as bushes are;
Some taller things the distance shrouds,
That may be trees or stacks or clouds,
Or may be nothing; still they wear
A semblance where there's naught to spare.

Among the tawny tasselled reed
The ducks and ducklings float and feed.
With head oft dabbing in the flood
They fish all day the weedy mud,
And tumbler-like are bobbing there,
Heels topsy-turvy in the air,
Then up and quack and down they go,
Heels over head again below.

The geese in troops come droving up,
Nibble the weeds, and take a sup;
And closely puzzled to agree,
Chatter like gossips over tea.
The gander with his scarlet nose

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When strife's at height will interpose;
And, stretching neck to that and this,
With now a mutter, now a hiss,
A nibble at the feathers too,
A sort of ‘Pray be quiet, do,’
And turning as the matter mends,
He stills them into mutual friends;
Then in a sort of triumph sings
And throws the water o'er his wings.

Ah, could I see a spinney nigh,
A puddock riding in the sky
Above the oaks with easy sail
On stilly wings and forkèd tail,
Or meet a heath of furze in flower,
I might enjoy a quiet hour,
Sit down at rest, and walk at ease,
And find a many things to please.
But here my fancy's moods admire
The naked levels till they tire,
Nor e'en a mole-hill cushion meet
To rest on when I want a seat.

Here's little save the river scene,
And grounds of oats in rustling green,
And crowded growth of wheat and beans,
That with the hope of plenty leans
And cheers the farmer's gazing brow,
Who lives and triumphs in the plough.
One sometimes meets a pleasant sward
Of swarthy grass; and quickly marred,
The plough soon turns it into brown,
And, when again one rambles down
The path, small hillocks meet the eye
And smoke beneath a burning sky.
Green paddocks have but little charms
With gain the merchandise of farms;
And, muse and marvel where we may,
Gain mars the landscape every day—

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The meadow grass turned up and copt,
The trees to stumpy dotterels lopt,
The hearth with fuel to supply
For rest to smoke and chatter by;
Giving the joy of home delights,
The warmest mirth on coldest nights.
And so for gain, that joys repay,
Change cheats the landscapes every day,
Nor trees nor bush about it grows
That from the hatchet can repose,
And the horizon stooping smiles
O'er treeless fens of many miles.
Spring comes and goes and comes agen,
And all is nakedness and fen.

SPEAR-THISTLE

Where the broad sheepwalk opens bare and brown
With scant grass ever pining after showers,
And unchecked winds go fanning up and down
The little strawy bents and nodding flowers,
There the huge thistle, spurred with many thorns,
The sun-crackt upland's russet swells adorns.

Not undevoid of beauty there they come,
Armed warriors, waiting neither suns nor showers,
Guarding the little clover plots to bloom
While sheep nor oxen dare not crop their flowers
Unsheathing their own knobs of tawny flowers
When summer cometh in her hottest hours.

The pewit, swopping up and down
And screaming round the passer-by,
Or running o'er the herbage brown
With copple crown uplifted high,
Loves in its clumps to make a home
Where danger seldom cares to come.

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The yellow-hammer, often prest
For spot to build and be unseen,
Will in its shelter trust her nest
When fields and meadows glow with green;
And larks, though paths go clòsely by,
Will in its shade securely lie.

The partridge, too, that scarce can trust
The open downs to be at rest,
Will in its clumps lie down, and dust
And prune its horseshoe-circled breast,
And oft in shining fields of green
Will lay and raise its brood unseen.

The sheep, when hunger presses sore,
May nip the clover round its nest;
But soon the thistle, wounding sore,
Relieves it from each brushing guest,
That leaves a bit of wool behind,
The yellow-hammer loves to find.

The horse will set his foot and bite
Close to the ground-lark's guarded nest
And snort to meet the prickly sight;
He fans the feathers of her breast—
Yet thistles prick so deep that he
Turns back and leaves her dwelling free.

Its prickly knobs the dews of morn
Doth bead with dressing rich to see,
When threads doth hang from thorn to thorn
Like the small spinner's tapestry;
And from the flowers a sultry smell
Comes that agrees with summer well.

The bee will make its bloom a bed,
The bumble-bee in tawny brown;
And one in jacket fringed with red
Will rest upon its velvet down

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When overtaken in the rain,
And wait till sunshine comes again.

And there are times when travel goes
Along the sheep-tracks' beaten ways,
Then pleasure many a praise bestows
Upon its blossoms' pointed rays,
When other things are parched beside
And hot day leaves it in its pride.

THE DESTROYER

In suns and showers luxuriant May came forth
And spread her riches as of nothing worth,
Cowslips and daisies, buttercups and crowds
Without a name as if they dropt from clouds,
On green and close and meadow everywhere,
So thick, the green did almost disappear
To gold and silver hues, and blooms did vie
With the rich grass' luxuriant mastery.
The simple shepherd in his early hour
With almost every footstep crushed a flower.
The winds did all they could, though oft in vain,
To raise and form them on their stalks again,
Yet some were crushed so much they could not rise,
Finding in poet's heart a room for sighs.
And those his dog beat down did hardly mind
But formed again as happy as the wind,
Leaving a lesson sad with every day
That harm falls most in man's destroying way:
And who could think in such a lovely time
And such a spot, where quiet seemed in prime,
As ne'er to be disturbed, that strife and fear
Like crouching tigers had howled havoc here?

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THE EARLY DAISY

With all the pleasant things
That come with spring,
What time the mavis builds and sings,
I love the daisy well;
Ere hedges throw a sprout
Of greenness out
They peep and shine about
And care not where they dwell.

Beside the garden pales
Their silver bloom prevails
And glads the children's tales
While sitting there at play;
In the grass they come and crowd,
Wherever weed's allowed
A footing, they are proud
In glad spring's early day.

Sallows that by the little pond recline
And sweetly shine
In tasselled gold seem not so sweet as thine
Low blooming at their foot!
I've thought so when a boy
In play's employ,
Racing the lambs in joy
And resting at its root.

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The blackthorns like a sheet
And faintly sweet
Pale March in hedges meet
Like snows in bloom,
But daisies came before
On green and moor
And ere snowstorms were o'er
I saw them come.

The mind will dream and cling
To pleasant things
That come again with spring,
As when health used to go
Down little paths and spy
Cowslips so nigh
That, as we wandered by,
Would pat agen the shoe.

VIOLET AND DAISY

The little violets blue and white,
Refreshed with dews of sable night,
Come shining in the morning light
In thorn-enclosèd grounds;
And, whether winds be cold or chill,
When their rich smells delight instil,
The young lamb blaas beside the hill
On young spring's happy rounds.

But roads are mire and hedges brown
When daisies greet me up and down,
Some with a red spot on the crown
Spread open to the sky,
That often frowns, and yet will smile,
And with spring's hopes its love beguile—
Oh, may I shape my life the while
With such an humble eye.

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A FIRESIDE SKETCH

Where does comfort's bosom glow?
Where lives he a tenant now?
In snug places out of doors,
Fields, or woods, or rushy moors?
No, for winter occupies
Every bit of earth and skies;
Overhead the clouds are dull,
Underfoot the roads are full
Of mire and sludge, and water too,
That slushes in the ploughman's shoe,
And spatters from the hasty horse,
That has the meadow's floods to cross.
So where is comfort? can it be,
Underneath the woodland tree,
Where the shepherd still about
Found primrose buds ere March was out,
And maidens in the summer lay
On their elbows in the hay?
And labour's self, that could not bear
To wear his lazy jacket there,
Complains as much as any one
And puts another garment on;
And still, do all he ever may,
He cannot keep the cold away.
He buttons up as on he goes,
His hat he slouches o'er his nose,
And, glad to keep the storm behind,
He turns his back upon the wind,
And knocks his hands, and stamps his toes,
And in his pockets as he goes
Will hide them—yet, do what he may,
He can't get out of winter's way.

No, 'tis not there: the trees around
Have thrown their shelter on the ground.
The sheep lie quaking underneath,
And cows seem almost starved to death,

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That rest awhile, then up again,
Then streak and try to bite in vain;
But grass is short on hill and swamp,
They bite ten times before they champ,
Till storms come on with wild affray.
Then turning heads another way
They hurkle underneath the bushes
Knee-deep among the whistling rushes,
And let them hurkle where they will
They're in the way of winter still.

So where is comfort? does he roam,
Or, what is likelier, keep at home?
Where smoke its sooty flight ascends
And green logs frizzle at both ends
With sap until it blazes high—
Till summer seems as sitting by:
When industry in haste to go
Will just one moment hold a toe,
And toil, whose clothes are on the drop,
That has but little time to stop,
Half warms his fingers where he may
And knocks them as he goes away,
To make them and to keep them warm
While doing jobs about the farm.

Where is comfort? maybe, here;
Sitting in the elbow chair,
With a pipe beneath his nose,
While the smoke at leisure goes
Up agen the mantel-tree
In a wreath of silver-grey;
With a jug of gingered ale,
Or little book that owns a tale
For merry-making, not too long,
And what is better, shorter song—
While in the chimney-top the snow
Falls right upon the fire below

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With just a little quench, and then
It seems to burn as bright agen.
And when that's gone, they look for more,
A heap of roots is at the door;
And now a song, and now a tale,
And now and then a jug of ale!
The gloomiest day and roughest weather,
Care's foot falls lighter than a feather
And joy holds both his sides together
Before he laughs, and all's akin
To comfort, who is host within;
Who lays another billet on,
Begins good cheer; and when it's gone,
The world and he are wholly quits,
The king of hearty mirth he sits.
The news so full of greedy wars,
Of struggling honours, stubborn scars,
No sooner in his presence lies
But wonder bustles with surprise,
Leaving content with heart at ease,
And noisy war as quiet peace.

With not one argument to spend
In contradicting foe or friend,
Or one worth while to waste with care,
Ease occupies his cushioned chair.
The world at earnest is but whim,
He's naught with it, or it with him.
All things in common he receives,
Nor doubts in earnest, nor believes:
He hears the weekly paper read,
Then lifts his hand above his head
His pipe to reach, his thoughts to ease,
And smokes earth's troubles into peace,
That sheds its fragrance all about,
Until he knocks the ashes out:
Then o'er his knees he pants to stoop,
And garters his loose stockings up,
And seeks his stick, and leaves his room

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To take a walk till dinner's come.
Here comfort, like the miser's pelf,
Is self all occupied with self,
Heedless of either praise or blame,
The same in all and just the same,
Whose mind amusement never lacks,
Content with last year's almanacs;
Paper and print are books with him
And difference but another's whim.
A mind so easily supplied
Makes as it thinks of all beside.

And gossip, who with industry
Could never long agree to be,
Although her tongue more toil commands
Than he can do with both his hands,
She leaves the news from door to door
And every morning looks for more—
In vain she taps the arm of ease
And tells the likeliest tale to please;
He scarcely turns his head awry
And ‘humph’ and ‘ha's’ his whole reply.
She waiting keeps the empty chair,
And cannot sit, but stands to hear
The news looked o'er—and all the rest,
Too long to listen to, is guessed;
Then bids good-day, a grace for news,
And busy idleness pursues,
As satisfied with fools' deceit
As honest people are with meat.
Her whisper worries mischief on,
Then waits until the noise is gone,
And in the tempest will contrive
To be the harmless'st thing alive,
Playing bo-peep behind the screen
At all the world, and still unseen.
A grape on thistles never grows,
And peace with gossip never goes;

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O comfort, be it mine to live,
Far from the cure she has to give,
A blameless and a quiet life,
As comfort's partner all my life;
And as to trouble, pain, or care,
Let them not have a sigh to spare;
But comfort, let me live with him,
Right sound at heart and stout of limb!
Then, comfort, edge thy chair away,
I'll be thy votary, if I may.

HARVEST RHYME

The harvest morn, a busy man—
There's naught can do without him—
Has scarce a minute in his hands
To rest and look about him.
The wheat is shining in the stowk,
The barley's flung together,
The beans begin to black and drowk
And merry is the weather.

The mist is early forced to run,
The sun it burns him early,
And the dykes they reek before the sun
Has dried the bearded barley:
So by the hedge the shockers sat
In the day's grey mellow dawning
And with the snuff-box seasoned chat
In the harvest's early morning.

The morning, like the grazing horse
Up, out, and stirring early,
Their giant shadows stalk across
Some three or four lands of barley;

293

The boy with shouldered fork and rake
Laughs loud and halloos early—
‘What a soldier would my shadow make
As he marches by the barley!’

The milkmaid singing like a boy
With her yokes upon her shoulder
Has in her face such health and joy,
All love her that behold her.
The partridge where she nimbles past
Whews up with sudden warning
And the hare bolts from his bunch of grass,
So early in the morning,

But the lark sits on the barley swath
As she passes to the pasture
And though the mouse runs o'er her path
He meets with no disaster;
With not a thought to hurt or harm,
All ways of mischief scorning,
She sings along the busy farm
The joy of every morning.

Through the hedge the horse-boy rustles past
Where the horses blundered through;
O'er head and shoulders pattering fast
He shakes down showers of dew.
His dirty slop as dabbled shows
As in a shower of rain,
But careless as a song he goes
And cracks them from the grain.

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ON A JOURNEY: FRAGMENT

The coy hedge-sparrow flaps her wing
And hops about the hedges,
And soon to brood the early spring
Will have some downy pledges;
They'll lift their heads and cree and crow
Hid by the dyke's bulrushes,
Almost before the winter haw
Has left the leafing bushes.

The blackbird's wing was drabbling wet
With the shower so sudden coming
As on the whitethorn bush he sat
Where the wild white rose was blooming;
The young ones in a nest of love,
Where the hedge the bramble hopples,
Cree'd, cawed and stretched their necks above
With their down all hung with dropples.

The jay set up his copple crown
And screamed to see a stranger
And swopt and hurried up and down
To warn the birds of danger;
And magpies where the spinney was
Noised five and six together,
While patiently the woodman's ass
Stood stretching round his tether.

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THE GREENWOOD SIDE

The stray path rambles through the furze
That gives the balmy smells of June,
The glad wind all the bushes stirs,
Brown linnet chitters o'er a tune:
Then, maiden, walk and hear the lay,
And be a friend with joy to-day.

The wild heath spreads a table green,
Health, hope, and joy are at the feast,
Then on my arm in pleasure lean
And journey here a welcome guest:
Then come away and let us find
Joys that for years will please the mind.

What is there half so sweet and dear
As sweet discourse from lips we love
In earth's green spots and places where
Joys breathe a blessing from above,
And, free from care's disquiet ways,
Find things to profit and to praise?

Come, throw domestic cares aside,
Home toils may wait another day;
Delay waits by the greenwood side
And stoops for blossoms by the way,
Where arm in arm and side by side
We'll dally o'er the heath so wide.

Here's flowers of almost every kind,
Blue little bells scarce reach your foot,
Shake so enticing to the wind
They'll make ye stoop to get the root;
And there's the ling to tempt your stay,
To get a load and take away.

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Briers crossing paths I'll trample down,
And bur-balls which we wander through,
I'll stoop to pluck them from thy gown
And feel it honour so to do;
Love has so many things to say,
Come with the instant nor delay.

Hasten and leave delay behind,
The sun has half his journey gone;
Haste bending to the summer wind
While one hand holds thy bonnet on.
E'en now thy vision fills my eye
And beauty's garment flutters by.

ROUND OAK AND EASTWELL

In my own native field two fountains run
All desolate and naked to the sun;
The fell destroyer's hand hath reft their side
Of every tree that hid and beautified
Their shallow waters in delightful clumps,
That sunburnt now o'er pebbles skips and jumps.
One where stone quarries in its hills are broke
Still keeps its ancient pastoral name, Round Oak,
Although one little solitary tree
Is all that's left of its old pedigree;
The other, more deformed, creeps down the dell,
Scarcely the shade of what was once Eastwell,
While the elm-groves that groaned beneath no tax
Have paid their tribute to the lawless axe,
And the old rooks that waited other springs
Have fled to stranger scenes on startled wings.
The place all lonely and all naked lies,
And Eastwell spring in change's symphonies
Boils up its sand unnoticed and alone,
To all its former happiness unknown,
Its glory gone, its Sunday pastimes o'er,

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The haunts of shepherds and of maids no more.
The passer-by unheeding tramples on
Nor heeds the spring, nor trees nor bushes gone,
While the stray poet's memory haunts the spot
Like a friend's features time hath nigh forgot.

WINTER IN THE FENS

So moping flat and low our valleys lie,
So dull and muggy is our winter sky,
Drizzling from day to day with threats of rain,
And when that falls still threatening on again;
From one wet week so great an ocean flows
That every village to an island grows,
And every road for even weeks to come
Is stopt, and none but horsemen go from home;
And one wet night leaves travel's best in doubt,
And horseback travellers ask if floods are out
Of every passer-by, and with their horse
The meadow's ocean try in vain to cross;
The horse's footings with a sucking sound
Fill up with water on the firmest ground,
And ruts that dribble into brooks elsewhere
Can find no fall or flat to dribble here;
But filled with wet they brim and overflow
Till hollows in the road to rivers grow;
Then wind with sudden rage, abrupt and blea,
Twirls every lingering leaf from off each tree.
Such is our lowland scene that winter gives,
And strangers wonder where our comfort lives;
Yet in a little close, however keen
The winter comes, I find a patch of green,
Where robins, by the miser winter made
Domestic, flirt and perch upon the spade;
And in a little garden-close at home
I watch for spring—and there's the crocus come!

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MORNING SHOWERS

Now the meadow water smokes,
And the hedgerow's dripping oaks
Pitter-patter all around
And dimple the once dusty ground;
The spinners' threads about the weeds
Are hung with little drops in beads;
Clover silver-green becomes,
And purple-blue surrounds the plums,
And every place breathes fresh and fair
When morning pays her visit there.

The waterfowl with suthering wing
Dive down the river, splash and spring
Up to the very clouds again
That sprinkle scuds of coming rain,
That fly and drizzle all the day
Till dripping grass is turned to grey;
The various clouds [now] move or lie
Like mighty travellers in the sky,
All mountainous and ridged and curled,
That may have travelled round the world.

When the rain at midday stops,
Spangles glitter in the drops,
And, as each thread a sunbeam was,
Cobwebs glitter in the grass.
The sheep all loaded with the rain
Try to shake it off again,
And ere dried by wind and sun
The load will scarcely let them run.

CLOUD SHAPES

Clouds rack and drive before the wind
In shapes and forms of every kind,
Like waves that rise without the roar,
And rocks that guard an untrodden shore;

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Now castles pass majestic by
And ships in peaceful havens lie;
These gone, ten thousand shapes ensue,
For ever beautiful and new.

The scattered clouds lie calm and still,
And day throws gold on every hill;
Their thousand heads in glory run,
As each were worlds and owned a sun.
The rime it clings to everything,
It beards the early buds of spring;
The mossy pales, the orchard spray,
Are feathered with its silver-grey.

THE MEADOW LAKE

I've often gazed with pleasure by the edge
Of the old meadow lake, floodwashed and crook'd,
The water-rat slow rustling in the sedge,
The fish-ring wavering in the clear; I've looked
In rapture on the mellow summer shine
Of the still water gleaming in the sun,
Just wrinkled by the plash of quiet kine
Who knee-deep in the flags would drink—and done,
Back to their feed on the shorn sward again;
The flags, the bulrush, and the barbèd leaf
Of water-weed, bethread with lighter vein,
And water-lily giving flies relief,
Who float half drowsy to its sheltering bay—
These lie close on the water and still dry:
If dropples plash upon them from the spring
Of playful fish, they scarce a moment lie
But roll like water from the moor-hen's wing,
Its oily green still sunny as before.
Thus musing on the brink, a startled fright
Comes with a sudden plunge from t'other side,
And flags and rush in quick disorder start

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When, instant, musing shepherd is descried,
Whose dog ran forward with a gladsome heart
To hunt the water-rat and scared moor-hen
Who dives and flounders and then dives agen;
Till weary quite, once more he seeks the side,
And shakes the water from his dripping hide,
And rolls upon the grass and dances round
The shepherd as he soodles round the ground.

FRAGMENTS

The hedgerow hips to glossy scarlet turn,
Haws swarm so thick till bushes seem to burn,
And blackthorn sloes, some hung in misty dew,
True to the season, darken into blue.

Morn comes again; the dark melts into grey,
And all the heaven's spangles go away,
Save one bright star that winks and twinkles still,
Till the sun starts him off against his will;
Then the heaven's mantle seems on earth to pass
And buttercups turn stars amid the grass.

The girning winds bit sharp and thin
And made the early riser blow his nails,
And crizzling frost shot needles in the dyke
And crumpt beneath the feet down grassy vales.

An ocean almost boundless to the mind
Of yellow harvest rolls before the wind;
Look where we will, the waves of plenty run,
And light and shadow hurries from the sun
That looks so gloriously; and by and by
The farmer comes and rubs the ears to try
Its ripeness; and at once the fields display
The glittering hook that rustles every way.

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The burnet's tawny knopples
Like little honeycombs—
Bees seeking honey dinners
With many passing hums
Would come and set them bowing
And their sweets would so detain
They'd turn again when gone away
And bend them down again.

The weeds beside the hedge dance
Like so many drunken men,
Then rest till breezes whisper,
Then up and dance agen;
The meadow-sweet in darksome green
Shines in the merry light,
Till winds lift up their undersides
And then they change to white.

The fieldling flower it thrives the best
The furthest off from every eye,
The bird is happier on her nest
Where but the sheep go grazing by;
Ah me, I think that I could rest
And think and sleep deliciously,
A time-worn forest's hermit-guest,
And fix a tent beneath a tree.

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MYSTERY

There is a vague oblivion, dark and vast
As is the future, fruitless as the past
To fathom and unravel to the end,
Of great adventure's darings. Books are penned
Mere guesses into truth, and at the last
Mere guesses only, going where they came
To that exhaustless blank that swallows all
With shadows and with darkness overcast.
There mystery lives indefinite and grand,
Wed to a million fames: Perouse and all
His gallant navigators left the land
For earth's remotest depths, and where they fell
Discovery's courage ne'er can understand,
Nor rumour's thousand trumpets ever tell.

PLEASURES OF POESY

To me hath poesy been a recompense
And pleasure not to be described but by
The inward thought; words cannot tell from whence
The feelings that the still heart profits by
In brooding moods where fancy loves to lie
Afar from all ambitions but her own,
Picturing strange landscapes of delight and joy,
Beauty's delightful places, where the eye
Sees things more fair than earth hath ever known,
Where the great masters of the past inherit
Green memories and glad visions that atone
For all the troubles and disquietude
That spurning fortune leaveth with their merit,
Marring their lives with tempests ever rude.

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SUNSET VISIONS

The sunset even of a winter's day
Leaves beauties every time it goes away,
And in the west most gloriously weaves
A world of visions, every time it leaves.
Oh, when life's voyage in these storms is done,
For such a city clothed in such a sun!
For I have gazed, when day and toil were by,
And saw such splendid places in the sky,
Such cities, palaces, and golden hills,
And seas that calmest happiness instils,
And felt that surely fancy could not so
Impose upon the mind with every glow
That truth or fiction could invent or see,
Seeming as rich, and yet as nothing be.
No, something cometh to the gazing mind,
And when the colours fade, bright hope remains behind.

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PASTORAL LIBERTY

Oh, for the unshackled mood as free as air,
And pleasure wild as birds upon the wing,
The unwronged impulse won from seasons fair
Like birds' perennial travels with the spring!
Come, peace and joy, the unworn path to trace,
Crossing ling-heaths and hazel-crowded glen,
Where health salutes me with its ruddy face
And joy breathes freely from the strife of men.
Oh, lead me anywhere but in the crowd!
On some lone island rather would I be
Than in the world, worn knowledge noising loud,
Wealth gathering up and losing; leave with me
Calm joy and humble hope from quiet won,
To live in peace unhurt and hurting none.

THE CLUMP OF FERN

Here underneath the stile's moss-covered post
A little bunch of fern doth thrive and spring,
Hid from the noisy wind and coming frost
Like late-reared young 'neath the wood-pigeon's wing.
I've seen beneath the furze-bush clumps of ling,
So beautiful in pinky knots of bloom,
That made the inmost heart's emotions breathe
A favourite love for the unsocial heath,
That gives man no inviting hopes to come
To fix his dwelling and disturb the scene.
So, in my loneliness of mood, this green
Large clump of crimpled fern-leaves doth bequeath
Like feelings; and wherever wanderers roam
Some little scrap of happiness is seen.

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HEREAFTER

The past we know; but hope can find no rest
In what is gone; time's flood is rolling there;
And childhood's play, green memories once so blest,
And youth's love-bowers so ignorant of care
Are overwhelmed in waters of despair.
Hope's dreary visits there can find no rest,
But turn again to this sad heart to sigh.
The past is o'er, the present is distress;
Hope sickens in the storms that pass not by,
While deep as darkness fate's hid mysteries lie,
Whose very shadows seem to startle fear,
And shrinks from knowledge that approaches nigh,
The knowledge where futurity sojourns,
Where every traveller goes and none returns.

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LABOUR'S LEISURE

Oh, for the feelings and the careless health
That found me toiling in the fields, the joy
I felt at eve with not a wish for wealth,
When, labour done and in the hedge put by
My delving spade, I homeward used to hie
With thoughts of books I often read by stealth
Beneath the blackthorn clumps at dinner-hour;
It urged my weary feet with eager speed
To hasten home where winter fire did shower
Scant light, now felt as beautiful indeed
Where bending o'er my knees I used to read
With earnest heed all books that had the power
To give me joy in most delicious ways
And rest my spirits after weary days.

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THE MUSIC OF NATURE

Children-like insects dancing in the sun;
Bees like the busy crowds in labour's power;
Rainfalls shed music in the drops that run
Out from the brimful spring and wet each flower,
Bending its features downward, like a nun
Musing upon her shadow, by the light
That makes the surface glass-like and conveys
Reflection; dimpling streams give music bright
To hushing showers, as echoes of sweet praise
And instances of thought in wisdom's ways;
The great Orion and the Pleiades
Pervade the spheres and thrones celestial crowned,
And all ascensive nature, by degrees,
Is omnipresent with melodious sound.

YOUNG LAMBS

The spring is coming by a many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two—till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead—and lets me go
Close by and never stirs, but beaking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.

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EARLY NIGHTINGALE

When first we hear the shy-come nightingales,
They seem to mutter o'er their songs in fear,
And, climb we e'er so soft the spinney rails,
All stops as if no bird was anywhere.
The kindled bushes with the young leaves thin
Let curious eyes to search a long way in,
Until impatience cannot see or hear
The hidden music; gets but little way
Upon the path—when up the songs begin,
Full loud a moment and then low again.
But when a day or two confirms her stay
Boldly she sings and loud for half the day;
And soon the village brings the woodman's tale
Of having heard the new-come nightingale.

WINTER WALK

The holly bush, a sober lump of green,
Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey,
And smiles at winter, be it e'er so keen,
With all the leafy luxury of May.
And oh, it is delicious, when the day
In winter's loaded garment keenly blows
And turns her back on sudden falling snows,
To go where gravel pathways creep between
Arches of evergreen that scarce let through
A single feather of the driving storm;
And in the bitterest day that ever blew
The walk will find some places still and warm
Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm
To little birds that flirt and start away.

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THE SOLDIER

Home furthest off grows dearer from the way;
And when the army in the Indias lay
Friends' letters coming from his native place
Were like old neighbours with their country face.
And every opportunity that came
Opened the sheet to gaze upon the name
Of that loved village where he left his sheep
For more contented peaceful folk to keep;
And friendly faces absent many a year
Would from such letters in his mind appear.
And when his pockets, chafing through the case,
Wore it quite out ere others took the place,
Right loath to be of company bereft
He kept the fragments while a bit was left.

PLOUGHMAN SINGING

Here morning in the ploughman's songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,
And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her by.
Woke early, I arose and thought that first
In winter-time of all the world was I.
The old owls might have hallooed if they durst,
But joy just then was up and whistled by
A merry tune which I had known full long,
But could not to my memory wake it back,
Until the ploughman changed it to the song.
O happiness, how simple is thy track!
—Tinged like the willow shoots, the east's young brow
Glows red and finds thee singing at the plough.

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SPRING'S MESSENGERS

Where slanting banks are always with the sun
The daisy is in blossom even now;
And where warm patches by the hedges run
The cottager when coming home from plough
Brings home a cowslip root in flower to set.
Thus ere the Christmas goes the spring is met
Setting up little tents about the fields
In sheltered spots.—Primroses, when they get
Behind the wood's old roots, where ivy shields
Their crimpled, curdled leaves, will shine and hide.
—Cart-ruts and horses' footings scarcely yield
A slur for boys, just crizzled and that's all.
Frost shoots his needles by the small dyke side,
And snow in scarce a feather's seen to fall.

LETTER IN VERSE

Like boys that run behind the loaded wain
For the mere joy of riding back again,
When summer from the meadow carts the hay
And school hours leave them half a day to play;
So I with leisure on three sides a sheet
Of foolscap dance with poesy's measured feet,
Just to ride post upon the wings of time
And kill a care, to friendship turned in rhyme.
The muse's gallop hurries me in sport
With much to read and little to divert,
And I, amused, with less of wit than will,
Run till I tire.—And so to cheat her still,
Like children running races who shall be
First in to touch the orchard wall or tree,
The last half-way behind, by distance vext,
Turns short, determined to be first the next;

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So now the muse has run me hard and long—
I'll leave at once her races and her song;
And turning round, laugh at the letter's close
And beat her out by ending it in prose.

SNOWSTORM (I)

What a night! The wind howls, hisses, and but stops
To howl more loud, while the snow volley keeps
Incessant batter at the window-pane,
Making our comforts feel as sweet again;
And in the morning, when the tempest drops,
At every cottage door mountainous heaps
Of snow lie drifted, that all entrance stops
Until the besom and the shovel gain
The path, and leave a wall on either side.
The shepherd, rambling valleys white and wide,
With new sensations his old memory fills,
When hedges left at night, no more descried,
Are turned to one white sweep of curving hills,
And trees turned bushes half their bodies hide.

SNOWSTORM (II)

The boy that goes to fodder with surprise
Walks o'er the gate he opened yesternight.
The hedges all have vanished from his eyes;
E'en some tree-tops the sheep could reach to bite.
The novel scene engenders new delight,
And, though with cautious steps his sports begin,
He bolder shuffles the huge hills of snow,
Till down he drops and plunges to the chin,
And struggles much and oft escape to win—
Then turns and laughs but dare not further go;

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For deep the grass and bushes lie below,
Where little birds that soon at eve went in
With heads tucked in their wings now pine for day
And little feel boys o'er their heads can stray.

SIGNS OF WINTER

The cat runs races with her tail. The dog
Leaps o'er the orchard hedge and knarls the grass.
The swine run round and grunt and play with straw,
Snatching out hasty mouthfuls from the stack.
Sudden upon the elm-tree tops the crow
Unceremonious visit pays and croaks,
Then swops away. From mossy barn the owl
Bobs hasty out—wheels round and, scared as soon,
As hastily retires. The ducks grow wild
And from the muddy pond fly up and wheel
A circle round the village and soon, tired,
Plunge in the pond again. The maids in haste
Snatch from the orchard hedge the mizzled clothes
And laughing hurry in to keep them dry.

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SUNRISE IN SUMMER

The summer's morning sun creeps up the blue
O'er the flat meadows' most remotest view:
A bit at first peeps from the splendid ball,
Then more, and more, until we see it all.
And then so ruddy and so cool it lies,
The gazer views it with unwatering eyes,
And cattle opposite its kindly shine
Seem something feeding in a land divine:
Ruddy at first, yet ere a minute's told
Its burning red keeps glowing into gold,

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And o'er the fenny level richly flows,
Till seeded dock in shade a giant grows;
Then blazing bright with undefinèd day
He turns the morning's earnest gaze away.

THE HERONRY

Within a pleasant lawn where pleasure strays
And I with friendship found her many days,
Where summer comes in haste and leaves but slow
And seems from such a place as loath to go,
Where gravel walks creep under evergreens
And lawns embosomed open lovely scenes,
There on the fish-pond one small island lies
Where a tall clump of firdales meet the eyes;
And when the spring with joy the earth invests
Each tree-top seems as bending down with nests;
For there a troop of heronshaws repair
And yearly pile a stack of dwellings there,
Crank on the trees and on their branches stand,
And the whole scene seems changed to foreign land.

OLD DYKES

I often wander by the ancient dykes,
Flood-washed into unnumbered crooks and turns,
Where many an antique tree my fancy strikes
That as an ancient privilege sojourns
Upon its banks: some wasted to a shell
Where oft from sudden showers path-passers hide;
Some twisted various ways as like to drop,
And some half tumbled down—yet ere they fell
Grew steadfast—where the shepherd climbs at top
To shorten steps and jump on t'other side;

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Some with their trunks into the water lean,
Then crooking like a bow turn up and throw
A spreading bower of rich luxurious green
Over the angler's head who sits below.

SHOWERS

The fitful weather changes every hour,
And many a footstep hurries from the shower;
The men at plough, the shepherd on the lea,
Look up and scamper to the nearest tree;
The ditcher, ere the last shower's hardly gone,
Runs to the bush and puts his jacket on,
And in escaping haste is often seen
To where the ash hangs o'er the thistly green,
An hollow dotterel wasted to a shell,
Large as a little hut and known as well
To all the outdoor tenants in the fields,
That from the heaviest tempest shelter yields;
Here two or three were met to shun the rain
That slowly cleared and faster fell again.

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WINTER FIELDS

Oh, for a pleasant book to cheat the sway
Of winter—where rich mirth with hearty laugh
Listens and rubs his legs on corner seat;
For fields are mire and sludge—and badly off
Are those who on their pudgy paths delay;
There striding shepherd, seeking driest way,
Fearing night's wetshod feet and hacking cough
That keeps him waken till the peep of day,
Goes shouldering onward and with ready hook
Progs oft to ford the sloughs that nearly meet

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Across the lands; croodling and thin to view,
His loath dog follows—stops and quakes and looks
For better roads, till whistled to pursue;
Then on with frequent jump he hurkles through.

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RIVER SCENE

Now came the river sweeping round the nooks,
By thirsty summer's pilgrimage subdued;
Dark and yet clear the glassy water looks,
As slow and easy in majestic mood
It sweeps along by osier-crowded glen
Until it seems an almost naked flood
Along the flats of the unwooded fen;
Yet even there prolific summer dwells
And garnishes its sides in vivid green
Of flags and reeds, the otter's pathless den.
Now lane without a guidepost plainly tells
The homeward path, while from a stile is seen
The open church tower and its little bells
And chimneys low where peaceful quiet dwells.

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FOOTPATHS (II)

Now tracking fields where passenger appears
As wading to his waist in crowding grain,
Wherever as we pass the bending ears
Pat at our sides and gain their place again;
Then crooked stile, with little steps that aid
The climbing, meets us; and the pleasant grass
And hedgerows old with arbours ready made
For weariness to rest in pleasant shade
Surround us; and with ecstasy we pass
Wild flower and insect tribes that ever mate
With joy and dance from every step we take
In numberless confusion; all employ
Their little aims for peace and pleasure's sake,
And every summer's footpath leads to joy.

FOOTPATHS (III)

Now sudden as a pleasure unawares
A wooden plank strides o'er a little brook,
That unto thirst the sweetest boon prepares,
Paved o'er with pebbles to the very brink;
And so invitingly its waters look,
Though not athirst, it urges us to drink;
Then comes a sloping hill, and what's beyond?
We stray to look and find a little pond,
Where dotterel trees bend as if falling in,
And sallow bushes, of their station fond,

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Stretch from each side and welcome meeting win,
Where snug the hermit moor-hen loves to lie,
Who from the passing footstep plunges in
And from his old haunt seldom dares to fly.

FOOTPATHS (IV)

Now, almost hid in trees, a little gate
Cheats us into the darkness of the wood;
We almost think the day is wearing late,
So dreamy is the light that dwells around;
And so refreshing is its sombre mood,
We feel at once, shut out from sun and sky,
All the deliciousness of solitude,
While sauntering noiseless o'er the leafy ground;
The air we breathe seems void of every trace
Of earth and all its trouble, and the mind
Yearns for a dwelling in so sweet a place,
From trouble's noise, such stillness seemeth by;
But soon the ride brings some unwelcome spire
To bid the charm of solitude retire.

FOOTPATHS (V)

Yet still the little path winds on and on
Down hedgerow sides and many a pastoral charm;
We soon forget the charm of poesy gone
In the still woodland with its silent balm,
And find some other joy to dream upon:
A distant notice of some nestling farm,
Crowded with russet stacks that peep between
Huge homestead elms or orchard's squatting trees,
Where apples shine sun-tanned and mellow green,
Home comforts for dull winter reveries,

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When the long evening claimeth news and friends;
Calm pleasures thus home-nearing fancy sees,
That maketh banished fancies full amends
As the crook'd footpath at the village ends.

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EARLY IMAGES (II)

And mark the nimble swallow jerk and fling
Its flight o'er new-mown meadows happily,
And cuckoo, quivering upon narrow wing,
Take sudden flitting from the neighbouring tree,
And heron, stalking solitary thing,
Mount up into high travel far away,
And that mild indecision hanging round
Skies holding bland communion with the ground
In gentlest pictures of the infant day,
Now picturing rain—while many a pleasing sound
Grows mellower, distant in the mealy grey
Of dewy pastures, and full many a sight
Looms sweeter in its indistinct array
Than when it glows in morning's stronger light.

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PEACEFUL SCENES

Ay, there's a wholesome feeling out of doors
That nourishes the heart with happy themes;
The very cattle on the flaggy moors
To the mind's eye a pleasant picture seems,
And occupations of home husbandry,
Some with the plough, some singing by the side
Of the slow wagon; and when these I see,
They give such blameless pictures void of strife,
Such sweet employments 'neath a smiling sky,
I even feel that better lot of life,
That in such spots calm providence is by,
And sweet domestic peace, whose quiet eye
Feels most delight in its own humble home
And checks the restless mood that often longs to roam.

FIR-WOOD

The fir-trees taper into twigs and wear
The rich blue-green of summer all the year,
Softening the roughest tempest almost calm
And offering shelter ever still and warm
To the small path that travels underneath,
Where loudest winds—almost as summer's breath—
Scarce fan the weed that lingers green below
When others out of doors are lost in snow.
And sweet the music trembles on the ear
As the wind suthers through each tiny spear,
Makeshifts for leaves; and yet, so rich they show,
Winter is almost summer where they grow.

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FIELD PATH

The beans in blossom with their spots of jet
Smelt sweet as gardens wheresoever met;
The level meadow grass was in the swath;
The hedge-brier rose hung right across the path,
White over with its flowers; the grass that lay
Bleaching beneath the twittering heat to hay
Smelt so deliciously, the puzzled bee
Went wondering where the honey sweets could be;
And passer-by along the level rows
Stoopt down and whipt a bit beneath his nose.

THE OLD MAN

The stranger, striding down the paths of spring,
Will turn half round a stooping man to see,
And wonder why a man so old should sing
Humming along as bums the bumble-bee;
For though so old, a merry man is he,
And where he goes right merry is the way;
You hear him ere you see him down the grain,
As sings the skylark at the peep of day,
Or trudging on the narrow crooked lane.

GRASSHOPPERS

Grasshoppers go in many a thrumming spring
And now to stalks of tasselled sour-grass cling,
That shakes and swees awhile, but still keeps straight;
While arching oxeye doubles with his weight.
Next on the cat-tail grass with farther bound
He springs, that bends until they touch the ground.

333

BADGER

When midnight comes a host of dogs and men
Go out and track the badger to his den,
And put a sack within the hole, and lie
Till the old grunting badger passes by.
He comes and hears—they let the strongest loose.
The old fox hears the noise and drops the goose.
The poacher shoots and hurries from the cry,
And the old hare half wounded buzzes by.
They get a forkèd stick to bear him down
And clap the dogs and take him to the town,
And bait him all the day with many dogs,
And laugh and shout and fright the scampering hogs.
He runs along and bites at all he meets:
They shout and hollo down the noisy streets.

He turns about to face the loud uproar
And drives the rebels to their very door.
The frequent stone is hurled where'er they go;
When badgers fight, then every one's a foe.
The dogs are clapt and urged to join the fray;
The badger turns and drives them all away.
Though scarcely half as big, demure and small,
He fights with dogs for hours and beats them all.
The heavy mastiff, savage in the fray,
Lies down and licks his feet and turns away.
The bulldog knows his match and waxes cold,
The badger grins and never leaves his hold.
He drives the crowd and follows at their heels
And bites them through—the drunkard swears and reels.

The frighted women take the boys away,
The blackguard laughs and hurries on the fray.
He tries to reach the woods, an awkward race,
But sticks and cudgels quickly stop the chase.
He turns agen and drives the noisy crowd
And beats the many dogs in noises loud.
He drives away and beats them every one,

334

And then they loose them all and set them on.
He falls as dead and kicked by boys and men,
Then starts and grins and drives the crowd agen;
Till kicked and torn and beaten out he lies
And leaves his hold and cackles, groans, and dies.

THE FOX

The shepherd on his journey heard when nigh
His dog among the bushes barking high;
The ploughman ran and gave a hearty shout,
He found a weary fox and beat him out.
The ploughman laughed and would have ploughed him in,
But the old shepherd took him for the skin.
He lay upon the furrow stretched for dead,
The old dog lay and licked the wounds that bled,
The ploughman beat him till his ribs would crack,
And then the shepherd slung him at his back;
And when he rested, to his dog's surprise,
The old fox started from his dead disguise;
And while the dog lay panting in the sedge
He up and snapt and bolted through the hedge.

He scampered to the bushes far away;
The shepherd called the ploughman to the fray;
The ploughman wished he had a gun to shoot.
The old dog barked and followed the pursuit.
The shepherd threw his hook and tottered past;
The ploughman ran, but none could go so fast;
The woodman threw his faggot from the way
And ceased to chop and wondered at the fray.
But when he saw the dog and heard the cry
He threw his hatchet—but the fox was by.
The shepherd broke his hook and lost the skin;
He found a badger-hole and bolted in.
They tried to dig, but, safe from danger's way,
He lived to chase the hounds another day.

335

THE VIXEN

Among the taller wood with ivy hung,
The old fox plays and dances round her young.
She snuffs and barks if any passes by
And swings her tail and turns prepared to fly.
The horseman hurries by, she bolts to see,
And turns agen, from danger never free.
If any stands she runs among the poles
And barks and snaps and drives them in the holes.
The shepherd sees them and the boy goes by
And gets a stick and progs the hole to try.
They get all still and lie in safety sure,
And out again when everything's secure,
And start and snap at blackbirds bouncing by
To fight and catch the great white butterfly.

TURKEYS

The turkeys wade the close to catch the bees
In the old border full of maple trees,
And often lay away and breed and come
And bring a brood of chelping chickens home.
The turkey gobbles loud and drops his rag
And struts and sprunts his tail and then lets drag
His wing on ground and makes a huzzing noise,
Nauntles at passer-by and drives the boys
And bounces up and flies at passer-by.
The old dog snaps and grins, nor ventures nigh.
He gobbles loud and drives the boys from play;
They throw their sticks and kick and run away.

MARTEN

The marten cat, long-shagged, of courage good,
Of weasel shape, a dweller in the wood,
With badger hair, long-shagged, and darting eyes,
And lower than the common cat in size,

336

Small head, and ever running on the stoop,
Snuffing the ground, and hind-parts shouldered up—
He keeps one track and hides in lonely shade
Where print of human foot is never made,
Save when the woods are cut: the beaten track
The woodman's dog will snuff, cock-tailed and black,
Red-legged, and spotted over either eye:
Snuffs, barks, and scrats the lice, and passes by.
The great brown hornèd owl looks down below,
And sees the shaggy marten come and go.

The marten hurries through the woodland gaps,
And poachers shoot and make his skin for caps.
When any woodmen come and pass the place,
He looks at dogs and scarcely mends his pace.
And gipsies often and bird-nesting boys
Look in the hole and hear a hissing noise.
They climb the tree—such noise they never heard,
And think the great owl is a foreign bird;
When the grey owl her young ones cloaks in down,
Seizes the boldest boy and drives him down.
They try agen and pelt to start the fray.
The grey owl comes and drives them all away,
And leaves the marten twisting round his den,
Left free from boys and dogs and noisy men.

THE SQUIRREL'S NEST

One day, when all the woods were bare and blea,
I wandered out to take a pleasant walk
And saw a strange-formed nest on stoven tree
Where startled pigeon buzzed from bouncing hawk.
I wondered strangely what the nest could be
And thought besure it was some foreign bird,
So up I scrambled in the highest glee,
And my heart jumped at every thing that stirred.
'Twas oval shaped; strange wonder filled my breast;

337

I hoped to catch the old one on her nest
When something bolted out—I turned to see—
And a brown squirrel pattered up the tree.
'Twas lined with moss and leaves, compact and strong;
I sluthered down and wondering went along.

THE HEDGEHOG

The hedgehog hides beneath the rotten hedge
And makes a great round nest of grass and sedge,
Or in a bush or in a hollow tree;
And many often stoop and say they see
Him roll and fill his prickles full of crabs
And creep away; and where the magpie dabs
His wing at muddy dyke, in aged root
He makes a nest and fills it full of fruit,
On the hedge bottom hunts for crabs and sloes
And whistles like a cricket as he goes.
It rolls up like a ball or shapeless hog
When gipsies hunt it with their noisy dog;
I've seen it in their camps—they call it sweet,
Though black and bitter and unsavoury meat.

YOUNG RABBITS

The idle boys the Sunday never heed
And go to places where the rabbits breed;
Where'er the moulds are fresh they try and stay
And clap the dog to scrat the moulds away;
He scrats and looks and barks and snuffs to find
The sleepy young ones lapt in down and blind.
They put them in again and look for more
And lap them up as quiet as before.
When any comes they skulk behind the tree.
The gipsy joins them in his rags and glee

338

And digs the holes out with a rotten stake
And thrusts his hand and never cares for snake.
The dog, that follows all that passes by,
He ties him to his hand and makes him lie.

BIRDS IN ALARM

The firetail tells the boys when nests are nigh
And tweets and flies from every passer-by.
The yellow-hammer never makes a noise
But flies in silence from the noisy boys;
The boys will come and take them every day,
And still she lays as none were ta'en away.

The nightingale keeps tweeting-churring round
But leaves in silence when the nest is found.
The pewit hollos ‘chewrit’ as she flies
And flops about the shepherd where he lies;
But when her nest is found she stops her song
And cocks [her] coppled crown and runs along.
Wrens cock their tails and chitter loud and play,
And robins hollo ‘tut’ and fly away.

DYKE SIDE

The frog croaks loud, and maidens dare not pass
But fear the noisome toad and shun the grass;
And on the sunny banks they dare not go
Where hissing snakes run to the flood below.
The nuthatch noises loud in wood and wild,
Like women turning skreeking to a child.
The schoolboy hears and brushes through the trees
And runs about till drabbled to the knees.
The old hawk winnows round the old crow's nest;
The schoolboy hears and wonder fills his breast.

339

He throws his basket down to climb the tree
And wonders what the red-blotched eggs can be:
The green woodpecker bounces from the view
And hollos, as he buzzes by, ‘kew kew.’

QUAIL'S NEST

I wandered out one rainy day
And heard a bird with merry joys
Cry ‘wet my foot’ for half the way;
I stood and wondered at the noise,

When from my foot a bird did flee—
The rain flew bouncing from her breast—
I wondered what the bird could be,
And almost trampled on her nest.

The nest was full of eggs and round;
I met a shepherd in the vales,
And stood to tell him what I found.
He knew and said it was a quail's,

For he himself the nest had found,
Among the wheat and on the green,
When going on his daily round,
With eggs as many as fifteen.

Among the stranger birds they feed,
Their summer flight is short and low;
There's very few know where they breed,
And scarcely any where they go.

AUTUMN BIRDS

The wild duck startles like a sudden thought,
And heron slow as if it might be caught;
The flopping crows on weary wing go by,
And greybeard jackdaws, noising as they fly;

340

The crowds of starnels whizz and hurry by
And darken like a cloud the evening sky;
The larks like thunder rise and suther round,
Then drop and nestle in the stubble ground;
The wild swan hurries high and noises loud,
With white necks peering to the evening cloud.
The weary rooks to distant woods are gone;
With length of tail the magpie winnows on
To neighbouring tree, and leaves the distant crow,
While small birds nestle in the hedge below.

BLACKBIRD'S NEST

The cloudy morning brought a pleasant day,
And soon the busy mist was all away,
When first I wandered out and chanced to see
A woodbine twining round a stoven tree,
That ventured up and formed a bush at top
And bended leaning till it met a prop,
And overhung with leaves so thick a shade
You couldn't see the nest the blackbird made,
Who fluttered o'er my head as if from boys;
And soon her partner answered to the noise.
The path went closely by, but seldom prest
By passer-by, who never saw the nest;
The old birds sat and sung in safety sure,
And the young brood, pin-feathered, lay secure.

THE PARTRIDGE

One day across the fields I chanced to pass.
Where chickens chelped and scuttled in the grass;
And as I looked about to find the seat,
A wounded partridge dropped agen my feet.

341

She fluttered round and calling as she lay;
The chickens chelped and fluttered all away.
I stooped to pick her up, when up she drew
Her wounded wing and cackled as she flew.
I wondered much to hear the chickens lie
As still as nothing as I wandered by;
And soon she came agen with much ado
And swept the grass and called them as she flew;
But still they kept their seat and left no trace
And old cows snorted when they passed the place.

CROWS IN SPRING

The crow will tumble up and down
At the first sight of spring
And in old trees around the town
Brush winter from its wing.

No longer flapping far away
To naked fen they fly,
Chill fare as on a winter's day,
But field and valley nigh;

Where swains are stirring out to plough
And woods are just at hand,
They seek the upland's sunny brow
And strut from land to land,

And often flap their sooty wing
And sturt to neighbouring tree,
And seem to try all ways to sing
And almost speak in glee.

The ploughman hears and turns his head
Above to wonder why;
And there a new nest nearly made
Proclaims the winter by.

342

THE NUTHATCH

In summer showers a skreeking noise is heard,
Deep in the woods, of some uncommon bird;
It makes a loud and long-continued noise
And often stops the speed of men and boys.
They think somebody mocks and goes along,
And never think the nuthatch makes the song,
Who always comes along, the summer's guest;
But bird-nest hunters never found the nest.
The schoolboy hears the noise from day to day,
And stoops among the thorns to find a way,
And starts the jay-bird from the bushes green;
He looks, and sees a nest he's never seen,
And bears the spotted eggs with many joys,
And thinks he's found the bird that made the noise.

THE GROUNDLARK

Close where the milking maidens pass,
In roots and twitches drest
Within a little bunch of grass
A groundlark made her nest.

The maiden touched her with her gown
And often frit her out,
And looked and set her bucket down
But never found it out.

The eggs were large and spotted round
And dark as is the fallow ground;
The schoolboy kicked the grass in play
But danger never guessed;
And when they came to mow the hay
They found an empty nest.

343

WILD DUCK'S NEST

As boys were playing in their school's dislike
And floating paper boats along the dyke,
They laid their baskets down a nest to see
And found a small hole in a hollow tree;
When one looked in, and wonder filled his breast,
And hallooed out, ‘A wild duck on her nest.’
They doubted, and the boldest went before,
And the duck bolted when they waded o'er
And suthered up and flew against the wind
And left the boys and wondering thoughts behind.
The eggs lay hid in down and lightly prest,
They counted more than thirty in the nest.
They filled their hats with eggs and waded o'er
And left the nest as quiet as before.

THE BEAUTIFUL STRANGER

I cannot know what country owns thee now,
With France's fairest lilies on thy brow.
When England knew thee thou wert passing fair:
I never knew a foreign face so rare.
The world of waters rolls and rushes by,
Nor lets me wander where thy valleys lie.
But surely France must be a pleasant place
That greets the stranger with so fair a face;
The English maiden blushes down the dance,
But few can equal the fair maid of France.
I saw thee lovely and I wished thee mine,
And the last song I ever wrote is thine.
Thy country's honour on thy face attends;
Men may be foes, but beauty makes us friends.

344

THE TRAMP

He eats (a moment's stoppage to his song)
The stolen turnip as he goes along;
And hops along and heeds with careless eye
The passing crowded stage-coach reeling by.
He talks to none, but wends his silent way,
And finds a hovel at the close of day,
Or under any hedge his house is made.
He has no calling and he owns no trade.
An old smoked blanket arches o'er his head,
A wisp of straw or stubble makes his bed.
He knows a lawless law that claims no kin
But meet and plunder on and feel no sin—
No matter where they go or where they dwell,
They dally with the winds and laugh at hell.

FARMER'S BOY

He waits all day beside his little flock
And asks the passing stranger what's o'clock,
But those who often pass his daily tasks
Look at their watch and tell before he asks.
He mutters stories to himself and lies
Where the thick hedge the warmest house supplies,
And when he hears the hunters far and wide
He climbs the highest tree to see them ride—
He climbs till all the fields are blea and bare
And makes the old crow's nest an easy-chair.
And soon his sheep are got in other grounds—
He hastens down and fears his master come,
He stops the gap and keeps them all in bounds
And tends them closely till it's time for home.

345

BRAGGART

With careful step to keep his balance up
He reels on warily along the street,
Slabbering at mouth and with a staggering stoop
Mutters an angry look at all he meets.
Bumptious and vain and proud, he shoulders up,
And would be something if he knew but how;
To any man on earth he will not stoop
But cracks of work, of horses, and of plough.
Proud of the foolish talk, the ale he quaffs,
He never heeds the insult loud that laughs:
With rosy maid he tries to joke and play—
Who shrugs and nettles deep his pomp and pride,
And calls him drunken beast and runs away—
King to himself and fool to all beside.

MERRY MAID

Bonny and stout and brown, without a hat,
She frowns offended when they call her fat—
Yet fat she is, the merriest in the place,
And all can know she wears a pretty face.
But still she never heeds what praise can say,
But does the work, and oft runs out to play.
To run about the yard and ramp and noise
And spring the mop upon the servant-boys.
When old hens noise and cackle everywhere
She hurries eager if the eggs are dear,
And runs to seek them when they lay away
To get them ready for the market day.
She gambols with the men and laughs aloud,
And only quarrels when they call her proud.

346

SCANDAL

She hastens out and scarcely pins her clothes
To hear the news and tell the news she knows;
She talks of sluts, marks each unmended gown,
Herself the dirtiest slut in all the town.
She stands with eager haste at slander's tale,
And drinks the news as drunkards drink their ale.
Excuse is ready at the biggest lie—
She only heard it and it passes by.
The very cat looks up and knows her face
And hastens to the chair to get the place;
When once set down she never goes away,
Till tales are done and talk has naught to say.
She goes from house to house the village o'er,
Her slander bothers everybody's door.

MARKET DAY

With arms and legs at work and gentle stroke
That urges switching tail nor mends his pace,
On an old ribbed and weather-beaten horse,
The farmer goes jogtrotting to the fair,
Both keep their pace that nothing can provoke,
Followed by brindled dog that snuffs the ground
With urging bark and hurries at his heels.
His hat slouched down, and greatcoat buttoned close
Bellied like hoopèd keg, and chuffy face
Red as the morning sun, he takes his round
And talks of stock: and when his jobs are done
And Dobbin's hay is eaten from the rack,
He drinks success to corn in language hoarse,
And claps old Dobbin's hide, and potters back.

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‘THE LASS WITH THE DELICATE AIR’

Timid and smiling, beautiful and shy,
She drops her head at every passer-by.
Afraid of praise, she hurries down the streets
And turns away from every smile she meets.
The forward clown has many things to say
And holds her by the gown to make her stay.
The picture of good health she goes along,
Hale as the morn and happy as her song.
Yet there is one who never feels a fear
To whisper pleasing fancies in her ear;
Yet e'en from him she shuns a rude embrace,
And stooping holds her hands before her face—
She even shuns and fears the bolder wind,
And holds her shawl, and often looks behind.

THE LOUT (I)

No sort of learning ever hurts his head;
He buys a song and never hears it read;
He gets the tune and never heeds the words;
His pocket, too, a penny oft affords
To buy a book, no matter what about,
And there he keeps it till he wears it out.
In every job he's sure to have a share,
And shouts to haste his speed he cannot bear.
He seldom seeks the house in leisure hour,
But finds the haystack in a sudden shower,
And hid from all he there contrives to lie,
Rain how it will, to keep his garments dry.
He owns one suit and wears it all the week,
A dirty slop as dingy as his cheek.

348

THE LOUT (II)

For Sunday's play he never makes excuse,
But plays at taw, and buys his Spanish juice.
Hard as his toil, and ever slow to speak,
Yet he gives maidens many a burning cheek;
For none can pass him but his witless grace
Of bawdry brings the blushes in her face.
As vulgar as the dirt he treads upon,
He calls his cows or drives his horses on;
He knows the tamest cow and strokes her side
And often tries to mount her back and ride,
And takes her tail at night in idle play,
And makes her drag him homeward all the way.
He knows of nothing but the football match,
And where hens lay, and when the duck will hatch.

THE LOUT (III)

He plays with other boys when work is done,
But feels too clumsy and too stiff to run,
Yet where there's mischief he can find a way
The first to join and last [to run] away.
What's said or done he never heeds or minds
But gets his pence for all the eggs he finds.
He thinks his master's horses far the best,
And always labours longer than the rest.
In frost and cold though lame he's forced to go—
The call's more urgent when he journeys slow.
In surly speed he helps the maids by force
And feeds the cows and hallos till he's hoarse;
And when he's lame they only jest and play
And bid him throw his kiby heels away.

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GIPSIES

The gipsies seek wide sheltering woods again,
With droves of horses flock to mark their lane,
And trample on dead leaves, and hear the sound,
And look and see the black clouds gather round,
And set their camps, and free from muck and mire,
And gather stolen sticks to make the fire.
The roasted hedgehog, bitter though as gall,
Is eaten up and relished by them all.
They know the woods and every fox's den
And get their living far away from men;
The shooters ask them where to find the game,
The rabbits know them and are almost tame.
The aged women, tawny with the smoke,
Go with the winds and crack the rotted oak.

THE CLOWN

With hands in pocket hid and buttoned up,
The clown goes jogging merrily along;
The wind blows in his face and makes him stoop,
And rain beats hard and stops his merry song;
His shaggy coat is buttoned with a loop,
With whip held up for stroke robust and strong,
And hat half stuffed with straw to keep it up;
He gruffly hollos ‘whop’ and lobs along;
He never turns, but with a careless switch
Whoos up his team that answers with a jerk;
When friends are met he gives his coat a hitch
And cocks his beaver up and talks of work;
To lose no time he trails his whip along
And bends it 'neath his arm to tie the thong.

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THE THRESHER

With hand in waistcoat thrust, the thresher goes
Early at morn to follow his employ;
He nothing wants to know and nothing knows,
And wearies life along with little joy;
He lives without the world among the poor,
And nothing sees but stock agen the door,
And hears the felfare droves before the storm
Stripping the hawthorn hedges round the farm.
The shepherd seeks his door, but cannot stay,
And tells his only news—the time of day;
The milk[maid] stops awhile her hands to blow
And shake her cloak and bonnet from the snow;
Hard labour is the all his life enjoyed,
His idlest leisure is to be employed.

THE STUDENT

He always tells a story plain and plump,
And talks so loud he almost makes you jump;
He asks a question and his learning shows,
And takes his pocket-book to show he knows;
The village all his learning will allow,
And every boy he passes makes his bow;
To such a man all will their manners show
And if he is not proud he might be so;
He meets with many but has naught to say
And never talks with any by the way;
Some say that study makes the man so pale,
He shuns the toper and refuses ale,
And takes a quiet journey every day
And seems to gather knowledge by the way.

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THE MOLE-CATCHER

Tattered and ragg'd, with greatcoat tied in strings,
And collared up to keep his chin from cold,
The old mole-catcher on his journey sings,
Followed by shaggy dog infirm and old,
Who potters on and keeps his steady pace;
He is so lame he scarce can get abroad
But hopples on and growls at anything;
Yet silly sheep will scarcely leave the road.
With stick and spud he tried the new-made hills
And bears his cheating traps from place to place;
Full many are the miners that he kills.
His trotting dog oft looks him in the face;
And when his toils are done he tries to play
And finds a quicker pace and barks him on his way.

THE FOWLER

With boots of monstrous leg and massy strength,
The fowler journeys on his weary way;
With furry cap and gun of monstrous length,
He hunts the reedy forest for his prey.
The timid wild duck vainly hurries by,
And when the wild-goose droves their place proclaim
He stands behind his horse and gathers nigh,
Who scorn to fear and fly from beast so lame.
They plop and hurry from the noises loud;
The wounded whirl and whirl and fall agen;
They make vast slaughter in the varied crowds
That haunt the watery fen;
The others rise and hurry to the clouds
And fly far distant from the haunts of men.

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THE PACKMEN

Close by the road the traveller set his cart
And clogged his horse's feet in journey slow,
The ploughman's horses made a sudden start
And snorted loud to see the fire below;
And there they sat and hid them from the shower,
From many a weary mile through thick and thin,
And ate their meals and rested many an hour
And found a pleasant bed at night within;
And in the morning by the break of day
Left the broke hedge and drove their house away.
And panniered asses with an hungry eye
Snatched the tall thistle as they wandered by.
They travel over England far and wide
And rarely in the balanced panniers ride.

THE RETURNED SOLDIER

The soldier, full of battles and renown,
The gaping wonder of each quiet lown,
And strange to every face he knew so well,
Comes once again in this old town to dwell.
But man alone is changed; the very tree
He sees again where once he used to swee;
And the old fields where once he tented sheep,
And the old mole-hills where he used to leap,
And the old bush where once he found a nest
Are just the same, and pleasure fills his breast.
He sees the old path where he used to play
At chock and marbles many a summer day,
And loves to wander where he went a boy,
And fills his heart with pleasure and with joy.

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THE OUTCAST

He goes about the fields from day to day
And gathers wool to bother want away;
But want as usual follows at his heels,
He cannot labour and he never steals.
But meddlers haunt and watch him by the way
And hope to catch him with some stolen prey;
While pilfered hedges broke and open lie
They never see him bear the faggot by.
He often passes by but never takes
The rotten hedges that another breaks,
While the rude ruffian stands upon a lie
And throws his scorn at every passer-by.
The weak and harmless often bear the blame
But look in slander's face and feel no shame.

He lives among the persecuted poor,
And laughter jeers and passes by his door.
He rarely meets a face without a frown,
The poorest mortal laughs and runs him down;
He never makes reply but holds his tongue
And only mutters as he goes along.
Yet when he wanders where the stranger strays,
He often meets with kindness by the way,
And labour often holds his bottle up
And bids him drink and take a hearty sup;
And wearing on for many a weary hour,
He dithers, oft o'ertaken in the shower.
The hedger looks and throws the noggin by
And bids him take it home his clothes to dry.

THE SLY MAID

The ballad in the ploughman's pocket wears
A greater fame than poets ever knew;
The maiden claims his present from the fairs
And gets it all by heart as lover's due.

354

Timid and shy and full of maiden fears,
She blushes deep at every praise she hears;
Yet when she meets a sweetheart in the way,
She's filled with thoughts and flurried all the day.
She cannot do her work nor make her paste,
But puts the miller's eye out in her haste.
The roads are clean as pennies all the way
And show the shoe-nails where the water lay;
So without pattens forth the maiden goes
To show her last new gown and Sunday clothes.

THE GIDDY MAID

She runs away and gathers up her gown
And does her jobs and gallops down the town;
She runs about so giddy all the day
She loses half her errands by the way,
And Goody tells her, when from work she steals,
Her random head will never save her heels.
Yet beauty's ever with her in the race,
And health and laughter ever in her face.
The stranger oft another book bestows
And thinks her prettier than the maids he knows.
Her cheeks so full of health are never white,
Save once upon the harvest-supper night
When she to fright the lad who loved her most
Burnt brandy on a plate to act the ghost.

THE SCHOOLBOY

With slate and bag at back and full of books,
The merry schoolboy saunters on and looks
Fresh as the morn that meets him in the face;
And often stops to play in many a place,
To bawl at taw and hallo ‘knuckle down’
And hunt birds' nestes when he leaves the town.

355

He hates the cuckoos singing all the day
That suck birds' eggs and cheat him all the way,
And often sets his basket down and runs
To pelt the birds that nestle in the sun,
And often keeps from school with vain excuse
And then gets pence to buy him Spanish juice;
And when his sum is hard he lounges on
And pines for freedom till the day is gone.

SUNDAY DIP

The morning road is thronged with merry boys
Who seek the water for their Sunday joys;
They run to seek the shallow pit, and wade
And dance about the water in the shade.
The boldest ventures first and dashes in,
And others go and follow to the chin,
And duck about, and try to lose their fears,
And laugh to hear the thunder in their ears.
They bundle up the rushes for a boat
And try across the deepest place to float:
Beneath the willow trees they ride and stoop—
The awkward load will scarcely bear them up.
Without their aid the others float away,
And play about the water half the day.

STONE-PIT

The passing traveller with wonder sees
A deep and ancient stone-pit full of trees;
So deep and very deep the place has been,
The church might stand within and not be seen.
The passing stranger oft with wonder stops
And thinks he e'en could walk upon their tops,
And often stoops to see the busy crow,

356

And stands above and sees the eggs below;
And while the wild horse gives its head a toss,
The squirrel dances up and runs across.
The boy that stands and kills the black-nosed bee
Dares down as soon as magpies' nest are found,
And wonders when he climbs the highest tree
To find it reaches scarce above the ground.

FARM BREAKFAST

Maids shout to breakfast in a merry strife,
And the cat runs to hear the whetted knife,
And dogs are ever in the way to watch
The mouldy crust and falling bone to catch.
The wooden dishes round in haste are set,
And round the table all the boys are met;
All know their own save Hodge who would be first,
But every one his master leaves the worst.
On every wooden dish, a humble claim,
Two rude-cut letters mark the owner's name;
From every nook the smile of plenty calls,
And reasty flitches decorate the walls,
Moore's Almanack where wonders never cease—
All smeared with candle-snuff and bacon-grease.

WINTER

'Tis winter weather; up and down
The schoolboy slurs again,
The deepest pond in all the town
Would bear a loaded wain.

The little birds half-pined agen,
Though dogs may blink and growl,
Will come where Goody feeds the hen
Half-tame as are the fowl.

357

And signs of harder weather still
Are noticed every day,
The wild-geese droves in noises shrill
Go floating far away;

And cawdy-mawdies flit agen,
In colour like the snow,
They swop away from dreary fen
And heed not where they go.

On, on they go, and seldom stop,
A warmer spot to find,
And up the meadow floods they swop
Like snowballs in the wind.

'Tis winter here and everywhere;
In vain the robins sing,
The eve comes in still more severe
And nothing tokens spring.

Cats curl their tails and watch no more
The stackyard's squeaking mouse,
But waiting for the open door
They hurry in the house.

The ickles on the eaves and that
To sticks of silver run,
And break upon the ploughman's hat
When melted by the sun.

They shorten till the day is done
And lengthen every morn,
When drops like diamonds in the sun
Hang knobs on every thorn.

Yet comfort still the heart surrounds,
No matter how severe
The weather is, when home abounds
With comfort all the year.

358

Where pleasant easy hearts can find,
And pleasant books together,
A shelter from the cold and wind,
A fig for dreary weather!

WOODCROFT CASTLE (I)

Woodcroft, thy castle many a story yields—
How drunken rebels, scorning flood and fen,
Turned up their horses in thy blooming fields
And killed bold Hutchinson and all his men;
They show the dangerous height from which he fell—
The narrow moat the naked wall surrounds;
The staring towers in naked quiet dwell,
And sheep and oxen fill the lonely grounds.
The sailing puddock makes a lonesome cry,
And strangers tell the tale while passing by:
How rebels entered, and the master fell,
And morts of riches buried in the well!
The labourer wonders where the riches lay,
Digs on, and thinks of money all the day.

WOODCROFT CASTLE (II)

Absorbing time, that all things overwhelms,
Will round the castle ancient thoughts recall;
The fragment of a moat, the triple elms,
The cannon holes that pierce the mossy wall,
The ancient arching gateway striding high,
Where Cromwell's stubborn army entered through,
The castle barn the stranger passes by,
And the old house which many a pencil drew.
Some dim-seen paintings triumph on the walls,
And travellers still the antique rooms admire,
Where my lord's parlour still the past recalls;
Where Cromwell doubtless would from strife retire,
The locked-up room where superstition sleeps
And Cromwell's memory in dread mystery creeps.

359

THE STONE

The traveller journeying on the road alone
Sees by the highway side an ancient stone
And finds it pleasant in the weary day
To sit him down and wear an hour away.
The strongest hand of mischief needed more,
And failed to move, or break, or turn it o'er.
The man of ninety knew it when a boy,
The only thing that nothing could destroy,
And just the same as then it now appears,
The fragment maybe of some hundred years.
Beside the stone the wild flower gathers high,
No grazing horse can bite or trample nigh,
And smaller birds contented and alone
Can sit and shelter by the ancient stone.

A HILL-SIDE HOUSE

There is a house stands in a lonely way,
The hill seems falling on it all the day;
It seems half-hidden, like a robber's den,
And seems more safe for robbers than for men.
The trees look bushes scarcely half as big,
Seem taking root and growing on the rig.
The cows that travel up with little heed
Seem looking down upon the roof to feed,
And if they take a step or stumble more
They seem in danger then of tumbling o'er.
The cocks and hens that fill a little space
Are all that look like home about the place.
The woods seem ready on the house to drop,
And rabbits breed above the chimney-top.

360

NOVEMBER

The shepherds almost wonder where they dwell,
And the old dog for his right journey stares:
The path leads somewhere, but they cannot tell,
And neighbour meets with neighbour unawares.
The maiden passes close beside her cow,
And wanders on, and thinks her far away;
The ploughman goes unseen behind his plough
And seems to lose his horses half the day.
The lazy mist creeps on in journey slow;
The maidens shout and wonder where they go;
So dull and dark are the November days.
The lazy mist high up the evening curled,
And now the morn quite hides in smoke and haze;
The place we occupy seems all the world.

SPRING

The cow-boy hears the spring and sees the crows,
And cocks his hat, and whistles as he goes;
The maidens hurry to the hedge and play
To catch the clothes the shower has blown away.
The horse leaps up, the cow's no longer dull,
The maids bring home the buckets brimming full,
The old cow tosses up the gate away
And seeks the pasture where the summer lay.
The ploughman often stops and wipes his brow,
And sits and eats his luncheon on the plough.
The traveller birds in all directions fly,
And winds no longer moan a desert sky;
The ploughman, blundering on robust and strong,
Makes faces at the wind and lobs along.

361

WILD BEES' NEST

The mower tramples on the wild bees' nest,
And hears the busy noise, and stops the rest;
Who careless proggle out the mossy ball
And gather up the honey, comb and all.
The boy that seeks dewberries from the sedge,
And lays the poison berries on the hedge,
Will often find them in the meadow hay,
And take his bough and drive the bees away.
But when the maiden goes to turn the hay
She whips her apron up and runs away;
The schoolboy eats the honey, comb and all,
And often knocks his hat agen the wall,
And progs the stick in every hole he sees
To steal the honey-bag of black-nosed bees.

THE FEN

The dreary fen a waste of water goes,
With nothing to be seen but Royston crows;
The traveller journeying on the road for hours
Sees nothing but the dykes and water-flowers.
The lonely lodges scattered miles away
Lock up from fear and robbers all the day;
The merry maiden that no place dislikes
Runs out and fills her kettle from the dykes.
She hurries wildly from the face of men
And knows no company but cock and hen.
Here highland maiden sees in Sunday's hour
The glorious sight of sainfoin grounds in flower,
And meets the savoury smells that wake the morn,
The woodbine hedges and the poppied corn.

362

GOING TO THE FAIR

A stranger meets a many folks and knows
A fair is somewhere by their Sunday clothes;
The maiden goes with morning in her face,
Healthy and happy at the wind's embrace.
She hastens by the clown, who bids her stay,
And begs to take her basket all the way.
Though she refuses she oft looks behind
As if to token she was half inclined.
She has a look and smile for every one,
And many a heart aches deeply when she's gone.
Her face is beautiful, and every hind
Feels loath to pass her without speaking kind.
Another in such hurry to the fair
Forgets her money till she's half-way there.

AUTUMN MORNING

The mist lies on the weeds, but clears away,
And half the fields lie open to the day.
The ditcher hollos out, and cleans his spade,
To see the dogs go where his dinner's laid.
They snuff about, and stare, and hurry by
The silly sheep, that need not start and fly.
They snuff the morning gale and hurry on,
And only follow where the game is gone;
And bite the weeds in wantonness and play,
And leap along the stubbles all the day;
Then sit on end with pointed foot, and eye
The partridge brood that round the bushes fly;
And soon the shooters' thunder loudly calls,
And half the covey in the stubble falls.

363

AUTUMN EVENING

I love to hear the evening crows go by
And see the starnels darken down the sky;
The bleaching stack the bustling sparrow leaves,
And plops with merry note beneath the eaves.
The odd and lated pigeon bounces by,
As if a wary watching hawk was nigh,
While far and fearing nothing, high and slow,
The stranger birds to distant places go;
While short of flight the evening robin comes
To watch the maiden sweeping out the crumbs,
Nor fears the idle shout of passing boy,
But pecks about the door, and sings for joy;
Then in the hovel where the cows are fed
Finds till the morning comes a pleasant bed.

FARM SCENE (I)

The noisy blathering calves are fed, and all
The cows are fothered up and in their stall;
Weary with toils and plodding through the mire,
The ploughmen all are round the kitchen fire;
One pats the shaggy dog between his legs,
Another throws a crust to one that begs;
One sings a song and strokes in highest glee
The tabby cat that sits upon his knee;
One cracks about his horses and his plough,
One kisses Dolly 'cause he milked her cow;
Another has a smutty word to say
And makes the maiden blush and turn away;
Till every song is sung and tale is said,
Then maids lap up the fire and all to bed.

364

FARM SCENE (II)

The cow-boy shuns the shower and seeks the mat
To clean his shoes, and swings his napless hat
And drags his faggot in, a glad supply,
While laughing maidens help his clothes to dry.
The butter is made up, the bever set,
And all the ploughmen in the kitchen met;
One runs about the new-laid eggs to find,
One gets the garden beans with flannel lined
And pelts the laughing maidens with the shells;
And in the brier bush where the robin dwells
The tender maiden runs and carries crumbs;
Close to the door the fighting sparrow comes;
A maiden runs and shakes the damsons down
And hides them in her apron for the clown;
One takes a handful first and runs away,
And so they keep half work, half holiday.

MERRILY TO TOIL

Lapt up in sacks to shun the rain and wind,
And shoes thick-clouted with the sticking soil,
And sideling on his horse, the careless hind
Rides litherly and singing to his toil.
The boy rides foremost where the sack is gone
And holds it with his hands to keep it on;
Then splashing down the road in journey slow
Through mire and sludge with cracking whips they go.
He lays his jacket with his luncheon by
And drinks from horses' footings when adry;
They pass the maiden singing at her cow
And start the lark that roosted by the plough,
That sings above them all the livelong day
And on they drive and hollo care away.

365

COW-BOY'S HUT

The cow-boy's hut of straw neglected lies,
Where the old tattered sheepskin hangs and dries,
Two trays on end, half down, with stubble lined,
And snugly thacked atop to block the wind,
And all below with stubble thickly spread
That served for chair, for table, and for bed,
Where he, when cows were still, would lie at ease
And eat his barley crust and shell his peas;
And when the rain forbid his steps to roam
Would lie and sleep till time to ramble home;
The ballad from his pocket lost forlorn
Lies bleaching to the weather, wet and torn,
Till the rude bird-boy in the fields alone
Repairs the hulk and claims the goods his own.

THE FARMYARD

Confusion's plenty lies in every way,
And hogs and calves are noising all the day;
The maiden serves them all with merry looks
And often leaves the pattens in the mucks;
Though Hodge is sent to keep the causeys clean,
His idle toil scarce shows her where he's been;
With surly speed he sings an idle song,
And like a walking may-tree lobs along.
The rattling bucket calls the hogs away;
Calves toze the maidens' garments in their play;
The hogs lie rooting underneath the straw,
And ducks go waddling with a loaded craw;
The ploughman loads the straw with chubby face,
And carts and wagons stand in every place.

366

THE POOL

Where the clear water rises to the brink,
Battered by cattle coming there to drink,
Boys bring the mower's bottle to the fore
And hold and fill it till it bubbles o'er;
And eager ploughmen with a ruddy face
Throw in a stone to reach the clearest place,
And take a hearty soak and haste away,
And cow-boys seek it twenty times a day;
And when the idle boy has had his fill
He sucks the bubbles with an oaten quill;
While ever shy the timid maiden stands
And stooping sips the water from her hands;
Content to be adry she goes agen,
Because she will not kneel before the men.

DELUGE

The maiden ran away to fetch the clothes
And threw her apron o'er her cap and bows;
But the shower catched her ere she hurried in
And beat and almost dowsed her to the skin.
The ruts ran brooks as they would ne'er be dry,
And the boy waded as he hurried by;
The half-drowned ploughman waded to the knees,
And birds were almost drowned upon the trees.
The streets ran rivers till they floated o'er,
And women screamed to meet it at the door.
Labour fled home and rivers hurried by,
And still it fell as it would never stop;
E'en the old stone-pit, deep as house is high,
Was brimming o'er and floated o'er the top.

367

HEN'S NEST

Among the orchard weeds, from every search,
Snugly and sure, the old hen's nest is made,
Who cackles every morning from her perch
To tell the servant girl new eggs are laid;
Who lays her washing by, and far and near
Goes seeking all about from day to day,
And stung with nettles tramples everywhere;
But still the cackling pullet lays away.
The boy on Sundays goes the stack to pull
In hopes to find her there, but naught is seen,
And takes his hat and thinks to find it full,
She's laid so long so many might have been.
But naught is found and all is given o'er
Till the young brood come chirping to the door.

WINTER WEATHER

The crows drive onward through the storm of snow
And play about, naught caring where they go.
The young colt breaks the fences in his play
And spreads his tail and gallops all the way.
The hunkèd ploughman goes without a song
And knocks his hands and scarce can get along.
Behind the thickest hedge the labourer stands
And puts his gloves away to knock his hands.
The traveller's stooping haste to get away
Keeps both hands in his pockets all the day.
The schoolboy often stops his hands to blow
And loves to make rude letters on the snow.
While tottering shepherd, though infirm and old,
Faces the cutting wind and feels no cold.

368

MORRIS DANCERS

Deckt out in ribbons gay and papers cut
Fine as a maiden's fancies, off they strut
And act the morris dance from door to door;
Their highest gain's a penny, nothing more.
The children leave their toys to see them play,
And laughing maidens lay their work away.
The stolen apple in her apron lies
To give her lover in his gay disguise.
E'en the old woman leaves her knitting off
And lays the bellows in her lap to laugh.
Upon the floor the stool-made wagons lie,
And playing scholars lay the lesson by.
The cat and dog in wonder run away
And hide beneath the table from the play.

FARM TASKS

All are employed: one's gone to seek the tup,
And one is gone to fetch the horses up;
One hastens off to seek the cackling hen,
And one to let the sheep out from the pen;
One runs and feeds the hens with barley bigg,
Another goes and mends the wooden brig
That maids may safely pass the meadow brook,
So deep that fear dare scarcely stop to look.
One with old Dobbin to the mill is gone
And rides upon the sack to keep it on;
One reaches down the gears to go to plough,
Another cuts the stack to feed the cow.
The hogs are fed and noising round for more,
And dogs are sent to drive them from the door.

369

TIT FOR TAT

The old hens cackle and begin the day,
And maidens run and drive the dogs away.
The laughing maiden hurries in the house
And twirls the mop the passing clown to souse,
Who runs in turn and kicks the bucket down
And splashes muddy water on her gown.
Another maid with laughter in her eye
Splashes him from the wash-tub passing by:
She laughs at threats and pays him no regard;
Her face protects her from an angry word;
But holds her apron up to stop the blow
When angry Hodge the turnip dares to throw.
The other only claims a kiss for pay;
She knows the claim and seldom runs away.

BLACKBERRYING

He fills his pockets, and his hat provides
A plenteous space for what he gets besides;
He climbs the hedge, and where the dyke is wide
He sticks his fork and leaps on t'other side.
The schoolboy often stands for half the day
And tries to make excuses for his stay,
And tempted stands the loaded bush to pull,
And often tries to get his basket full,
And eager marks of his intrusion bears,
And tears his coat and hands and never cares.
The maiden often pulls the berries off
And stains her face and wonders why they laugh.
The children, muffled from the cold for play,
Go round and pick the hedges all the day.

370

THE FORD

The ploughman stops his wagon at the fore
And sees the brook a river running o'er;
He tries the depth and progs his whip about;
The timid maiden sees the waters out
And asks the ploughman's aid to ride across;
The boy rides fearless on the foremost horse;
The maiden trembles while she keeps her seat
And screams to see the water at her feet;
Fear brings the deepest blushes on her face,
The wagon-boat swims in the deepest place,
The boy holds fast to see the floating tray
And thinks the horses will be swam away;
But soon they gain the side, a merry throng,
And lose their fears and talk and drive along.

MOUSE'S NEST

I found a ball of grass among the hay
And progged it as I passed and went away;
And when I looked I fancied something stirred,
And turned agen and hoped to catch the bird—
When out an old mouse bolted in the wheats
With all her young ones hanging at her teats;
She looked so odd and so grotesque to me,
I ran and wondered what the thing could be,
And pushed the knapweed bunches where I stood;
Then the mouse hurried from the craking brood.
The young ones squeaked, and as I went away
She found her nest again among the hay.
The water o'er the pebbles scarce could run
And broad old cesspools glittered in the sun.

371

SHEEP IN WINTER

The sheep get up and make their many tracks
And bear a load of snow upon their backs,
And gnaw the frozen turnip to the ground
With sharp quick bite, and then go noising round
The boy that pecks the turnips all the day
And knocks his hands to keep the cold away
And laps his legs in straw to keep them warm
And hides behind the hedges from the storm.
The sheep, as tame as dogs, go where he goes
And try to shake their fleeces from the snows,
Then leave their frozen meal and wander round
The stubble stack that stands beside the ground,
And lie all night and face the drizzling storm
And shun the hovel where they might be warm.

HIGH SUMMER

The ground is hard, and o'er the fallows now
The boys are forced to lean upon the plough;
The ground is full of cracks and gapes for wet,
And cobwebs hang on all the bushes met.
The snakes lie beaking where the waters play
And make the maiden almost faint away.
The idle boy sits on the brigs at play
And keeps a bough to knock the flies away;
And ever followed by a lazy dog,
He wades the flaggy dyke and pelts the frog
And gets the great brier balls and likes them well
And crops the coddled apples for the smell
And fills his hands among the poppied corn
With pleasant weeds that scent the gales of morn.

372

BREAK OF DAY

The lark he rises early,
And the ploughman goes away
Before it's morning fairly
At the guessing break of day;
The fields lie in the dawning,
And the valley's hid in gold,
At the pleasant time of morning
When the shepherd goes to fold.

The maiden laughs and hollos
When she sees the feeding cows;
They switch their tails and follow
When she can't get over sloughs;
I love the gentle dawning,
And the valleys hid in gold,
At the pleasant time of morning
When the shepherd goes to fold.

MARRIED TO A SOLDIER

The pride of all the village,
The fairest to be seen,
The pride of all the village
That might have been a queen,
Has bid good-bye to neighbours
And left the dance and play
And married to a soldier
And wandered far away.

The cottage is neglected,
Where young men used to go
And talk about her beauty
And see her come and go;
The bench agen her cottage
Where she used to work at eve
Is vanished with the woodbine;
And all are taken leave.

373

Her cottage is neglected,
Her garden gathers green,
The summer comes unnoticed,
Her flowers are never seen;
There's none to tie a blossom up
Or clean a weed away;
She's married to a soldier
And wandered far away.

The neighbours wonder at her,
And surely well they may,
To think one so could flatter
Her heart to go away.
But the cocked hat and feather
Appeared so very gay,
She bundled clothes together
And married far away.

TRESPASS

I dreaded walking where there was no path
And prest with cautious tread the meadow swath,
And always turned to look with wary eye,
And always feared the farmer coming by;
Yet everything about where I had gone
Appeared so beautiful, I ventured on;
And when I gained the road where all are free
I fancied every stranger frowned at me,
And every kinder look appeared to say,
‘You've been on trespass in your walk to-day.’
I've often thought, the day appeared so fine,
How beautiful if such a place were mine;
But having naught I never feel alone
And cannot use another's as my own.

374

THE SHY LOVER

I often longed, when wandering up and down,
To hear the rustle of thy Sunday gown;
And when we met, I passed, and let thee go,
And felt I loved, but dare not tell thee so:
Snares are so thickly spread on woman's way,
The common ballad teaches, men betray.
I thought and felt it rudeness if I tried,
And well-meant kindness might be misapplied.
I longed to walk with thee, where waters play
And lined with water-cresses all the way;
And read the poets as I went along
And thought they knew thy name in every song.
The mind on thee and beauty's music dwells,
And listens to the sound of Glinton bells.

THE POET'S SONG

The maid has beauty at her will
Too often flung away,
And broken down and lovely still
Oh, who would betray?

The wealthy have their wealth and power
And almost all the world to spend;
They seldom know a weary hour,
And favour never wants a friend.

The many have a home retreat
To while away a weary hour;
The poorest have a corner seat
And only covet wealth and power.

Despised and hated all along,
The bard has nothing but a song.

375

THE POET'S DEATH

The world is taking little heed
And plods from day to day:
The vulgar flourish like a weed,
The learned pass away.

We miss him on the summer path
The lonely summer day,
Where mowers cut the pleasant swath
And maidens make the hay.

The vulgar take but little heed;
The garden wants his care;
There lies the book he used to read,
There stands the empty chair.

The boat laid up, the voyage o'er,
And passed the stormy wave,
The world is going as before,
The poet in his grave.

LOVE AND SOLITUDE

I hate the very noise of troublous man
Who did and does me all the harm he can.
Free from the world I would a prisoner be
And my own shadow all my company;
And lonely see the shooting stars appear,
Worlds rushing into judgment all the year.
Oh, lead me onward to the loneliest shade,
The dearest place that quiet ever made,
Where kingcups grow most beauteous to behold
And shut up green and open into gold.
Farewell to poesy—and leave the will;
Take all the world away—and leave me still
The mirth and music of a woman's voice,
That bids the heart be happy and rejoice.

383

SIGHING FOR RETIREMENT

Oh, take me from the busy crowd,
I cannot bear the noise!
For Nature's voice is never loud;
I seek for quiet joys.

The book I love is everywhere,
And not in idle words;
The book I love is known to all,
And better love affords.

The book I love is everywhere,
And every place the same;
God bade me make my dwelling there,
And look for better fame.

384

I never feared the critic's pen,
To live by my renown;
I found the poems in the fields,
And only wrote them down.

And quiet Epping pleases well,
Where Nature's love delays;
I joy to see the quiet place,
And wait for better days.

FIRST LOVE

No single hour can pass for naught,
No moment-hand can move,
But calendars an aching thought
Of my first lonely love.

385

Where silence doth the loudest call
My secret to betray,
As moonlight holds the night in thrall,
As suns reveal the day,

I hide it in the silent shades,
Till silence finds a tongue;
I make its grave where time invades,
Till time becomes a song.

I bid my foolish heart be still,
But hopes will not be chid:
My heart will beat, and burn, and chill,
First love will not be hid.

When summer ceases to be green,
And winter bare and blea,
Death may forget what I have been
When I shall cease to be.

When words refuse before the crowd
My Mary's name to give,
The muse in silence sings aloud:
And there my love will live.

WHAT IS LOVE?

Say, what is love? To live in vain,
To live, and die, and live again?
Say, what is love? Is it to be
In prison still and still be free—
Or seem as free? Alone, and prove
The hopeless hopes of real love?
Does real love on earth exist?
'Tis like a sunbeam in the mist,
That fades and nowhere will remain,
And nowhere is o'ertook again.

386

Say, what is love? A blooming name,
A rose-leaf on the page of fame,
That blooms, then fades, to cheat no more,
And is what nothing was before?
Say, what is love? Whate'er it be,
It centres, Mary, still with thee.

THE EXILE

Love is the mainspring of existence. It
Becomes a soul whereby I live to love.
On all I see, that dearest name is writ;
Falsehood is here—but truth has life above,
Where every star that shines exists in love.
Skies vary in their clouds, the seasons vary
From heat to cold, change cannot constant prove;
The south is bright—but smiles can act contrary;
My guide-star gilds the north, and shines with Mary.

My life hath been one love:—no, blot it out;
My life hath been one chain of contradictions,
Madhouses, prisons, whore-shops—never doubt
But that my life hath had some strong convictions
That such was wrong; religion makes restrictions
I would have followed—but life turned a bubble,
And clomb the giant stile of maledictions;
They took me from my wife, and to save trouble
I wed again, and made the error double.

Yet absence claims them both, and keeps them too,
And locks me in a shop, in spite of law,
Among a low-lived set and dirty crew:
Here let the Muse oblivion's curtain draw,
And let man think—for God hath often saw
Things here too dirty for the light of day;
For in a madhouse there exists no law.
Now stagnant grows my too refinèd clay;
I envy birds their wings to fly away.

387

Absence in love is worse than any fate;
Summer is winter's desert, and the spring
Is like a ruined city desolate;
Joy dies and hope retires on feeble wing;
Nature sinks heedless; birds unheeded sing.
'Tis solitude in city's crowds; all move
Like living death, though all to life still cling.
The strongest, bitterest thing that life can prove
Is woman's undisguise of hate and love.

How beautiful this hill of fern swells on,
So beautiful the chapel peeps between
The hornbeams, with its simple bell; alone
I wander here, hid in a palace green.
Mary is absent, but the forest queen,
Nature, is with me; morning, noon, and gloaming,
I write my poems in these paths unseen;
And when among these brakes and beeches roaming,
I sigh for truth and home and love and woman.

Here is the chapel yard enclosed with pales,
And oak-trees nearly top its little bell;
Here is the little bridge with guiding rails
That lead me on to many a pleasant dell;
The fern-owl chitters like a startled knell
To nature, yet 'tis sweet at evening still;
A pleasant road curves round the gentle swell,
Where nature seems to have her own sweet will,
Planting her beech and thorn about the sweet fern hill.

I have had many loves, and seek no more;
These solitudes my last delights shall be.
The leaf-hid forest and the lonely shore
Seem to my mind like beings that are free.
Yet would I had some eye to smile on me,
Some heart where I could make a happy home in,
Sweet Susan that was wont my love to be,
And Bessy of the glen—for I've been roaming
With both at morn and noon and dusky gloaming.

388

Cares gather round; I snap their chains in two,
And smile in agony and laugh in tears;
Like playing with a deadly serpent who
Stings to the death, there is no room for fears,
Where death would bring me happiness; his shears
Kill cares that hiss to poison many a vein;
The thought to be extinct my fate endears;
Pale death, the grand physician, cures all pain;
The dead rest well who lived for joys in vain.

This twilight seems a veil of gauze and mist;
Trees seem dark hills between the earth and sky;
Winds sob awake, and then a gusty hist
Fans through the wheat, like serpents gliding by.
I love to stretch my length 'tween earth and sky,
And see the inky foliage o'er me wave.
Though shades are still my prison where I lie,
Long use grows nature, which I easy brave,
And think how sweet cares rest within the grave.

Remind me not of other years, nor tell
My broken hopes of joys they are to meet,
While thy own falsehood rings the loudest knell
To one fond heart that aches, too cold to beat.
Mary, how oft with fondness I repeat
That name alone to give my troubles rest;
The very sound, though bitter, seemeth sweet;
In my love's home and thy own faithless breast,
Truth's bonds are broke and every nerve distressed.

Life is to me a dream that never wakes;
Night finds me on this lengthening road alone;
Love is to me a thought that ever aches,
A frost-bound thought that freezes life to stone.
Mary, in truth and nature still my own,
That warms the winter of my aching breast,
Thy name is joy, nor will I life bemoan;
Midnight, when sleep takes charge of nature's rest,
Finds me awake and friendless—not distressed.

389

Friend of the friendless, from a host of snares,
From lying varlets and from friendly foes,
I sought thy quiet truth to ease my cares,
And on the blight of reason found repose.
But when the strife of nature ceased her throes,
And other hearts would beat for my return,
I trusted fate to ease my world of woes,
Seeking love's harbour where I now sojourn;
But hell is heaven, could I cease to mourn

For her, for one whose very name is yet
My hell or heaven, and will ever be.
Falsehood is doubt—but I can ne'er forget
Oaths virtuous falsehood volunteered to me,
To make my soul new bonds, which God made free.
God's gift is love, and do I wrong the giver
To plead affections wrong from God's decree?
No, when farewell upon my lips did quiver
And all seemed lost, I loved her more than ever.

Now come the balm and breezes of the spring;
Not with the pleasures of my early days,
When nature seemed one endless song to sing
Of joyous melody and happy praise.
Ah, would they come agen! But life betrays
Quicksands, and gulfs, and storms that howl and sting
All quiet into madness and delays.
Care hides the sunshine with its raven wing,
And hell glooms sadness o'er the songs of spring.

My mind is dark and fathomless, and wears
The hues of hopeless agony and hell;
No plummet ever sounds the soul's affairs;
There death eternal never sounds the knell;
There love imprisoned sighs the long farewell,
And still may sigh, in thoughts no heart hath penned,
Alone, in loneliness where sorrows dwell;
And hopeless hope hopes on and meets no end,
Wastes without springs and homes without a friend.

390

Yet love lives on in every kind of weather,
In heats and colds, in sunshine and in gloom;
Winter may blight and stormy clouds may gather,
Nature invigorates and love will bloom;
It fears no sorrow in a life to come,
But lives within itself from year to year,
As doth the wild flower in its own perfume;
As in the Lapland snows spring's blooms appear,
So true love blooms and blossoms everywhere.

The dew falls on the weed and on the flower,
The rose and thistle bathe their heads in dew;
The lowliest heart may have its prospering hour,
The saddest bosom meets its wishes true;
E'en I may love and happiness renew,
Though not the sweets of my first early days,
When one sweet face was all the loves I knew,
And my soul trembled on her eyes to gaze,
Whose very censure seemed intended praise.

Flow on, my verse, though barren thou mayst be
Of thought; yet sing, and let thy fancies roll;
In early days thou swept a mighty sea,
All calm in troublous deeps, and spurned control.
Thou fire and iceberg to an aching soul,
And still an angel in my gloomy way,
Far better opiate than the draining bowl,
Still sing, my muse, to drive care's fiends away,
Nor heed what loitering listener hears the lay.

Her looks were like the spring, her very voice
Was spring's own music, more than song to me;
Choice of my boyhood, nay, my soul's first choice,
From her sweet thraldom I am never free.
Yet here my prison is a spring to me,
Past memories bloom like flowers where'er I rove,
My very bondage, though in snares, is free;
I love to stretch me in this shady grove
And muse upon the memories of love.

391

Hail, solitude, still peace, and lonely good,
Thou spirit of all joys to be alone,
My best of friends, these glades and this green wood,
Where nature is herself, and loves her own;
The heart's hid anguish, here I make it known,
And tell my troubles to the gentle wind;
Friends' cold neglects have froze my heart to stone,
And wrecked the voyage of a quiet mind,
With wives and friends and every hope disjoined;

Wrecked of all hopes save one, to be alone,
Where solitude becomes my wedded mate;
Sweet forest! with rich beauties overgrown,
Where solitude is queen and reigns in state;
Hid in green trees I hear the clapping gate
And voices calling to the rambling cows.
I laugh at love and all its idle fate;
The present hour is all my lot allows;
An age of sorrow springs from lovers' vows.

Sweet is the song of birds, for that restores
The soul to harmony, the mind to love;
'Tis nature's song of freedom out of doors,
Forests beneath, free winds and clouds above;
The thrush and nightingale and timid dove
Breathe music round me where the gipsies dwell;
Pierced hearts, left burning in the doubts of love,
Are desolate where crowds and cities dwell;
The splendid palace seems the gates of hell.

WRITTEN IN A THUNDERSTORM, 15 JULY 1841

The heavens are wroth; the thunder's rattling peal
Rolls like a vast volcano in the sky;
Yet nothing starts the apathy I feel,
Nor chills with fear eternal destiny.

392

My soul is apathy, a ruin vast;
Time cannot clear the ruined mass away;
My life is hell, the hopeless die is cast,
And manhood's prime is premature decay.

Roll on, ye wrath of thunders, peal on peal,
Till worlds are ruins, and myself alone;
Melt heart and soul, cased in obdurate steel,
Till I can feel that nature is my throne.

I live in love, sun of undying light,
And fathom my own heart for ways of good;
In its pure atmosphere, day without night
Smiles on the plains, the forest, and the flood.

Smile on, ye elements of earth and sky,
Or frown in thunders as ye frown on me;
Bid earth and its delusions pass away,
But leave the mind, as its creator, free.

HOMELESS

I've wandered many a weary mile
—Love in my heart was burning—
To seek a home in Mary's smile,
But cold is life's sojourning;
The cold ground was a feather-bed,
—Truth never acts contrary—
I had no home above my head,
My home was love and Mary.

I had no home in early youth,
When my first love was thwarted;
But if her heart still beats with truth
We'll nevermore be parted.

393

And changing as her love may be,
My own shall never vary;
Nor night nor day I'm never free,
But sigh for absent Mary.

Nor night nor day, nor sun nor shade,
Week, month, nor rolling year,
Repairs the breach wronged love hath made:
There madness, misery here.
Life's lease was lengthened by her smiles,
—Are truth and love contrary?
No ray of hope my fate beguiles;
I've lost love, home, and Mary.

THE RETURN: NORTHBOROUGH, 1841

Now melancholy autumn comes anew
With showery clouds and fields of wheat tanned brown;
Along the meadow banks I peace pursue
And see the wild flowers gleaming up and down,
Like sun and light; the ragwort's golden crown
Mirrors like sunshine when sunbeams retire,
And silver yarrow: there's the little town,
And o'er the meadows gleams that slender spire,
Reminding me of one, and waking fond desire.

I love thee, nature, in my inmost heart;
Go where I will, thy truth seems from above;
Go where I will, thy landscape forms a part
Of heaven: e'en these fens, where wood nor grove
Are seen, their very nakedness I love,
For one dwells nigh that secret hopes prefer
Above the race of women; like the dove,
I mourn her absence; fate, that would deter
My hate for all things, strengthens love for her.

394

That form from boyhood loved and still loved on,
That voice, that look, that face of one delight,
Love's register for years, months, weeks, time past and gone,
Her looks were ne'er forgot nor out of sight.
Mary, the muse of every song I write,
Thy cherished memory never leaves my own;
Though care's chill winter doth my manhood blight,
And freeze, like Niobe, my thoughts to stone,
Our lives are two, our end and aim is one.

'Tis pleasant, now day's hours begin to pass
To dewy eve, to walk down narrow close,
And feel one's feet among refreshing grass,
And hear the insects in their homes discourse,
And startled blackbird fly, from covert close
Of whitethorn hedge, with wild fear-fluttering wings,
And see the spire and hear the clock toll hoarse,
And whisper names and think o'er many things
That love hurds up in truth's imaginings.

Fame blazed upon me like a comet's glare;
Fame waned and left me like a fallen star,
Because I told the evil what they were
And truth and falsehood never wished to mar;
My life hath been a wreck—and I've gone far
For peace and truth and hope, for home and rest;
Like Eden's gates, fate throws a constant bar;
Thought may o'ertake the sunset in the west,
Man meet no home within a woman's breast.

Though they are blazoned in the poet's song
And all the comforts which our lives contain,
I read and sought such joys my whole life long,
And found the best of poets sung in vain.
But still I read and sighed and sued again,
And lost no purpose where I had the will;
I almost worshipped; when my toils grew vain,
Finding no antidote my pains to kill,
I sigh, a poet and a lover still.

395

Dull must that being live who sees unmoved
The scenes and objects that his childhood knew;
The schoolyard and the maid he early loved,
The sunny wall where long the old elms grew,
The grass that e'en till noon retains the dew
Beneath the walnut shade—I see them still,
Though not such fancies do I now pursue;
Yet still the picture turns my bosom chill,
And leaves a void nor love nor hope may fill.

After long absence how the mind recalls
Pleasing associations of the past:
Haunts of his youth, thorn hedges and old walls,
And hollow trees that sheltered from the blast,
And all that map of boyhood, overcast
With glooms and wrongs and sorrows not his own,
That o'er his brow like the scathed lightning past,
That turned his spring to winter, and alone
Wrecked name and fame and all, to solitude unknown.

So on he lives in glooms and living death,
A shade like night, forgetting and forgot;
Insects, that kindle in the spring's young breath,
Take hold of life and share a brighter lot
Than he, the tenant of the hall and cot;
The princely palace too hath been his home,
And gipsy's camp when friends would know him not;
In midst of wealth, a beggar still to roam,
Parted from one whose heart was once his home.

And yet not parted; still love's hope illumes,
And like the rainbow, brightest in the storm,
It looks for joy beyond the wreck of tombs,
And in life's winter keeps love's embers warm.
The ocean's roughest tempest meets a calm,
Care's thickest cloud shall break in sunny joy;
O'er the parched waste, showers yet shall fall like balm,
And she, the soul of life, for whom I sigh,
Like flowers shall cheer me when the storm is by.

396

SEPTEMBER MORNINGS

Sweet come the misty morning in September;
Among the dewy paths 'tis sweet to stray,
Greensward or stubbles, as I well remember
I have done, and the mist it curleth grey
And thick as smoke; like net-work on the spray
Or seeded grass, the cobweb draperies run,
Beaded with pearls of dew at early day;
And on the pleachy stubbles peeps the sun,
The lamp of day when that of night is done.

The blackbird startles from the homestead hedge,
Raindrops and leaves fall yellow as he springs;
Such images are nature's sweetest pledge,
To me there's music in his rustling wings.
‘Prink, prink,’ he cries, and loud the robin sings;
The small hawk like a shot drops from the sky
Close to my feet for mice and creeping things,
Then, swift as thought, again he suthers by,
And hides among the clouds from each pursuing eye.

The meadow flowers now rustle, bleached and dank
And misted o'er with down as fine as dew.
The sloe and dewberry shine along the bank
Where weeds in bloom's luxuriance lately grew.
Red rose the sun, and up the moor-hen flew;
From bank to bank the meadow arches stride,
Where foamy floods in winter tumble through
And spread a restless ocean foaming wide,
Where now the cow-boys sleep, nor fear the coming tide.

397

MARY

'Tis autumn now, and nature's scenes,
The pleachy fields and yellowing tree,
Lose all their blooming hues and greens;
But nature finds no change in me.
The fading woods, the russet grange,
The hues of nature may desert;
But naught in me shall find a change
To wrong the angel of my heart.
For Mary is my angel still
Through every month and every ill.

The leaves they loosen from the branch
And fall upon the gusty wind;
But my heart's silent love is staunch,
And naught can tear her from my mind.
The flowers are gone from dell and bower,
Though crowds from summer's lap were given;
But love is an eternal flower,
Like purple amaranths of heaven.
To Mary first my heart did bow.
And if she's true she keeps it now.

398

Just as the summer keeps the flower
Which spring concealed in hoods of gold,
Or unripe harvest met the shower
And made earth's blessings manifold;
Just so my Mary lives for me,
A silent thought for months and years;
The world may live in revelry,
Her name my lonely quiet cheers;
And cheer it will, whate'er may be,
While Mary lives in bloom for me.

426

DEWDROPS

The dewdrops on every blade of grass are so much like silver drops that I am obliged to stoop down as I walk to see if they are pearls, and those sprinkled on the ivy-woven beds of primroses underneath the hazels, whitethorns, and maples are so like gold beads that I stooped down to feel if they were hard, but they melted from my finger. And where the dew lies on the primrose, the violet and whitethorn leaves, they are emerald and beryl, yet nothing more than the dews of the morning on the budding leaves; nay, the road grasses are covered with gold and silver beads, and the further we go the brighter they seem to shine, like solid gold and silver. It is nothing more than the sun's light and shade upon them in the dewy morning; every

427

thorn-point and every bramble-spear has its trembling ornament: till the wind gets a little brisker, and then all is shaken off, and all the shining jewelry passes away into a common spring morning full of budding leaves, primroses, violets, vernal speedwell, bluebell and orchis, and commonplace objects.

432

SPRING'S NOSEGAY

The prim daisy's golden eye
On the fallow land doth lie,
Though the spring is just begun:
Pewits watch it all the day,
And the skylark's nest of hay
Is there by its dried leaves in the sun.

There the pilewort, all in gold,
'Neath the ridge of finest mould,
Blooms to cheer the ploughman's eye:
There the mouse his hole hath made,
And 'neath the golden shade
Hides secure when the hawk is prowling by.

Here's the speedwell's sapphire blue;
Was there anything more true
To the vernal season still?
Here it decks the bank alone,
Where the milkmaid throws a stone
At noon, to cross the rapid, flooded rill.

Here the cowslip, chill with cold,
On the rushy bed behold,

433

It looks for sunshine all the day.
Here the honey-bee will come,
For he has no sweets at home;
Then quake his weary wing and fly away.

And here are nameless flowers,
Culled in cold and rawky hours
For my Mary's happy home.
They grew in murky blea
Rush-fields and naked lea,
But suns will shine and pleasing spring will come.

460

OH, WERT THOU IN THE STORM

Oh, wert thou in the storm,
How I would shield thee!
To keep thee dry and warm
A camp I would build thee.

Though the clouds poured again,
Not a drop should harm thee;
The music of wind and rain
Rather should charm thee.

Oh, wert thou in the storm,
A shed I would build for thee,
To keep thee dry and warm.
How I would shield thee!

461

The rain should not wet thee
Nor thunderclap harm thee;
By thy side I would set me
To comfort and warm thee.

I would sit by thy side, love,
While the dread storm was over,
And the wings of an angel
My charmer would cover.

470

LOVE CANNOT DIE

In crime and enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die,
Who say to us in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death.
From heaven it came on angel's wing
To bloom on earth, eternal spring;
In falsehood's enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die.

'Twas born upon an angel's breast.
The softest dreams, the sweetest rest,
The brightest sun, the bluest sky,
Are love's own home and canopy.
The thought that cheers this heart of mine
Is that of love—love so divine,
They sin who say in slander's breath
That love belongs to sin and death.

The sweetest voice that lips contain,
The sweetest thought that leaves the brain,
The sweetest feeling of the heart—
There's pleasure in its very smart.
The scent of rose and cinnamon
Is not like love remembered on;
In falsehood's enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die.

478

CHILDHOOD

Oh, dear to us ever the scenes of our childhood,
The green spots we played in, the school where we met,
The heavy old desk where we thought of the wild wood,
Where we pored o'er the sums which the master had set.
I loved the old church school both inside and outside,
I loved the dear ash-trees and sycamore too,
The graves where the buttercups burning gold outvied,
And the spire where pellitory dangled and grew,

479

The bees in the wall that were flying about
The thistles, the henbane and mallows all day,
And crept in the hole when the sun had gone out
And the butterfly ceased on the blossoms to play.
Oh, clear is the round stone upon the green hill,
The pinfold hoof-printed with oxen and bare,
The old prince's-feather-tree growing there still,
And the swallows and martins whirling round in the air;

Where the chaff whipping outwards lodges round the barn door,
And the dunghill cock struts with his hens in the rear,
And sings ‘Cock-a-doodle’ full twenty times o'er,
And then claps his wings as he'd fly in the air;
And there's the old cross with its roundabout steps,
And the weathercock creaking quite round in the wind,
And there's the old hedge with its glossy red hips,
Where the green linnet's nest I have hurried to find

To be in time for the school or before the bell rung;
There's the odd martins' nest o'er the shoemaker's door;
On the shoemaker's chimney the old swallows sung
That had built and sung there in the season before;
Then we went to seek pooties among the old furze
On the heaths, in the meadows, beside the deep lake,
And returned with torn clothes all covered wi' burs,
And oh, what a row my fond mother would make!

Then to play boiling kettles just by the yard door,
Seeking out for short sticks and a bundle of straw;
Bits of pots stand for teacups after sweeping the floor,
And the children are placed under schoolmistress' awe;
There's one set for pussy, another for doll,
And for butter and bread they'd each nibble a haw,
And on a great stone as a table they loll,
The finest small tea-party ever you saw.

The stiles we rode upon ‘all-a-cock-horse,’
The mile-a-minute swee

480

On creaking gate, the stools o' moss,
What happy seats had we!
There's naught can compare to the days of our childhood,
The mole-hills like sheep in a pen,
Where the clodhopper sings like the bird in the wild wood,
All forgotten before we are men.

482

TO MY WIFE—A VALENTINE

Oh, once I had a true love,
As blest as I could be:
Patty was my turtle-dove,
And Patty she loved me.
We walked the fields together,
By roses and woodbine,
In summer's sunshine weather,
And Patty she was mine.

We stopped to gather primroses,
And violets white and blue,

483

In pastures and green closes
All glistening with the dew.
We sat upon green mole-hills,
Among the daisy flowers,
To hear the small birds' merry trills,
And share the sunny hours.

The blackbird on her grassy nest
We would not scare away,
Who nuzzling sat with brooding breast
On her eggs for half the day.
The chaffinch chirruped on the thorn,
And a pretty nest had she;
The magpie chattered all the morn
From her perch upon the tree.

And I would go to Patty's cot,
And Patty came to mine;
Each knew the other's very thought
As birds at Valentine.
And Patty had a kiss to give,
And Patty had a smile,
To bid me hope and bid me love,
At every stopping stile.

We loved one summer quite away,
And when another came,
The cowslip close and sunny day,
It found us much the same.
We both looked on the selfsame thing,
Till both became as one;
The birds did in the hedges sing,
And happy time went on.

The brambles from the hedge advance,
In love with Patty's eyes:
On flowers, like ladies at a dance,
Flew scores of butterflies.

484

I claimed a kiss at every stile,
And had her kind replies.
The bees did round the woodbine toil,
Where sweet the small wind sighs.

Then Patty was a slight young thing;
Now she's long past her teens;
And we've been married many springs,
And mixed in many scenes.
And I'll be true for Patty's sake,
And she'll be true for mine;
And I this little ballad make,
To be her valentine.

488

BONNY LASSIE O!

Oh, the evening's for the fair, bonny lassie O!
To meet the cooler air and walk an angel there,
With the dark dishevelled hair,
Bonny lassie O!

The bloom's on the brere, bonny lassie O!
Oak-apples on the tree; and wilt thou gang to see
The shed I've made for thee,
Bonny lassie O!

'Tis agen the running brook, bonny lassie O!
In a grassy nook hard by, with a little patch of sky,
And a bush to keep us dry,
Bonny lassie O!

There's the daisy all the year, bonny lassie O!
There's the kingcup bright as gold, and the speedwell never cold,
And the arum leaves unrolled,
Bonny lassie O!

Oh, meet me at the shed, bonny lassie O!
With the woodbine peeping in, and the roses like thy skin
Blushing, thy praise to win,
Bonny lassie O!

I will meet thee there at e'en, bonny lassie O!
When the bee sips in the bean, and grey willow-branches lean,
And the moonbeam looks between,
Bonny lassie O!

498

MARY

It is the evening hour,
How silent all doth lie:
The hornèd moon she shows her face
In the river with the sky.
Prest by the path on which we pass,
The flaggy lake lies still as glass.

Spirit of her I love,
Whispering to me
Stores of sweet visions as I rove,
Here stop, and crop with me
Sweet flowers that in the still hour grew—
We'll take them home, nor shake off the bright dew.

Mary, or sweet spirit of thee,
As the bright sun shines to-morrow
Thy dark eyes these flowers shall see,
Gathered by me in sorrow,
In the still hour when my mind was free
To walk alone—yet wish I walked with thee.

STANZAS

[Oh, the world keeps running round]

Oh, the world keeps running round
With contrariness to me;
There's falsehood in the sound
Of all I hear and see.
My love, she's not so pretty
As many others be,
Nor talkative nor witty,
Yet very dear to me.

In the yellow gorse I see her,
But that's wi' fancy's eye,
For I'm longing to be wi' her
While in prison bonds I lie.

499

Furze-bushes like to gillyflowers
More yellow are than gold;
I've loved her there in summer hours
With joyfulness untold.

The furze-bush is a prickly tree
Whose flowers attract the bees,
But false love's often wounded me
With sharper thorns than these.
I met my love upon the heath
In summer's pleasant hours,
She wore no thorns to be my death,
She brought me naught but flowers.

And she shall be my only love,
No other I'll prefer;
For by that sun that shines above
I'll love but only her.
We'll walk the mole-hill banks between,
Where wild thyme smells so sweet,
And at the dewy close of e'en
I there my love shall meet.

509

SONG

[Oh, haud yer tongues, ye sylvan elves]

Oh, haud yer tongues, ye sylvan elves,
Yer gladness is but waes,
And keep yer sangs within yerselves
For maybe better days;
Another birdie sings to me,
Maks ither music vain,
And fills my heart with sorrow's glee
Till pleasure springs frae pain.
Sae haud yer tongues, ye sylvan elves,
And keep yer singing to yerselves.

I wish I lived in upper skies
Beyond the golden starn;
Angels wi' mercy in their eyes
My secret thoughts might learn.
Oh, for the luv of those bright een
When you war sorrow's ain
Makes me e'en sick o'places green,
My heart cauld as a stane.
Sae haud yer tongues, ye sylvan elves,
And keep yer singing to yerselves.

513

INVITATION TO ETERNITY

Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through the valley-depths of shade,
Of night and dark obscurity;
Where the path has lost its way,
Where the sun forgets the day,
Where there's nor light nor life to see,
Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me?

514

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,
Where plains will rise like ocean's waves,
Where life will fade like visioned dreams
And mountains darken into caves,
Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
Through this sad non-identity,
Where parents live and are forgot,
And sisters live and know us not?

Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me
In this strange death-in-life to be,
To live in death and be the same,
Without this life or home or name,
At once to be and not to be—
That was and is not—yet to see
Things pass like shadows, and the sky
Above, below, around us lie?

The land of shadows wilt thou trace,
Nor look nor know each other's face;
The present marred with reason gone,
And past and present all as one?
Say, maiden, can thy life be led
To join the living and the dead?
Then trace thy footsteps on with me;
We are wed to one eternity.

525

THE SLEEP OF SPRING

Oh, for that sweet, untroubled rest
That poets oft have sung!—
The babe upon its mother's breast,
The bird upon its young,
The heart asleep without a pain—
When shall I know that sleep again?

When shall I be as I have been
Upon my mother's breast
Sweet nature's garb of verdant green
To woo to perfect rest—
Love in the meadow, field, and glen,
And in my native wilds agen?

The sheep within the fallow field,
The herd upon the green,
The larks that in the thistle shield,
And pipe from morn to e'en—
Oh for the pasture, field, and fen!
When shall I see such rest agen?

I love the weeds along the fen,
More sweet than garden flowers,
For freedom haunts the humble glen
That blest my happiest hours.
Here prison injures health and me:
I love sweet freedom and the free.

The crows upon the swelling hills,
The cows upon the lea,
Sheep feeding by the pasture rills,
Are ever dear to me,
Because sweet freedom is their mate
While I am lone and desolate.

526

I loved the winds when I was young,
When life was dear to me;
I loved the song which nature sung,
Endearing liberty;
I loved the wood, the vale, the stream,
For there my boyhood used to dream.

There even toil itself was play;
'Twas pleasure e'en to weep;
'Twas joy to think of dreams by day,
The beautiful of sleep.
When shall I see the wood and plain,
And dream those happy dreams again?