A laden ass, a maid with wicker maun',
A shepherd lad driving his lambs to sell,
Gaudy-dressed girls move in the rosy dawn,
Women whose cloaks become the landscape well,
Farmers whose thoughts on crops and prizes dwell;
An old man with his cow and calf draws near.
Anon you hear the village carrier's bell;
Then does his gray old tilted cart appear,
Moving so slow, you think he never will get there.
They come from still green nooks, woods old and hoary,
The silent work of many a summer night,
Ere those tall trees attained their giant glory,
Or their dark tops did tower that cloudy height:
They come from spots which the gray hawthorns light,
Where stream-kissed willows make a silver shiver.
For years their steps have worn those footpaths bright
Which wind along the fields and by the river,
That makes a murmuring sound, a "ribble-bibble" ever.
A troop of soldiers pass with stately paceTheir early music wakes the village street: Through yon white blinds peeps many a lovely face, Smiling-perchance unconsciously how sweet! One does the carpet press with blue-veined feet, Not thinking how her fair neck she exposes, But with white foot timing the drum's deep beat; And, when again she on her pillow dozes, Dreams how she'll dance that tune 'mong Summer's
So let her dream, even as beauty should!
Let the white plumes athwart her slumbers sway!
Why should I steep their swaling snow in blood,
Or bid her think of battle's grim array?
Truth will too soon her blinding star display,
And like a fearful comet meet her eyes.
And yet how n aceful they pass on their way!
How grand the sight, as up the hill they rise!-
I will not think of cities reddening in the skies.
How sweet those rural sounds float by the hill!
The grasshopper's shrill chirp rings o'er the ground,
The jingling sheep-bells are but seldom still,
The clapping gate closes with hollow bound,
There's music in the church-clock's measured sound.
The ring-dove's song, how breeze-like comes and goes,
Now here, now there, it seems to wander round:
The red cow's voice along the upland flows;
His bass the brindled bull from the far meadow lows.
"Cuckoo! cuckoo!" ah! well I know thy note,
Those summer-sounds the backward years do bring,
Like Memory's locked-up bark once more afloat:
They carry me away to life's glad spring,
To home, with all its old boughs rustleing.
'Tis a sweet sound! but now I feel not glad;
I miss the voices which were wont to sing,
When on the hills I roamed a happy lad.
"Cuckoo !" it is the grave-not thou that makes me sad.
Tell me, ye sages, whence these feelings rise-
Sorrowful mornings on the darkened soul;
Glimpses of broken, bright, and stormy skies,
O'er which this earth-the heart-has no control?
Why does the sea of thought thus backward roll?
Memory's the breeze that through the cordage raves,
And ever drives us on some homeward shoal,
As if she loved the melancholy waves
That, murmuring shoreward, break, over a reef of graves.
Hark, how the merry bells ring o'er the vale, Now near, remote, or lost, just as it blows. The red cock sends his voice upon the gale; From the thatched grange his answering rival crows: The milkmaid o'er the dew-bathed meadow goes, Her tucked-up kirtle ever holding tight; And now her song rings thro' the green hedge-rows, Her milk-kit hoops glitter like silver bright :I hear her lover singing somewhere out of sight.
Where soars that spire, our rude forefathers prayed; Thither they came, from many a thick-leaved dell, Year after year, and o'er those footpaths strayed, When summoned by the sounding Sabbath bellFor in those walls they deemed that God did dwell: And still they sleep within that bell's deep sound. Ycn spire doth here of no distinction tell; O'er rich and poor, marble, and earthly mound, The monument of all-it marks one common ground.
See yonder smoke, before it curls to heaven,
Mingles its blue amid the elm-trees tall,
Shrinking like one who fears to be forgiven;
So on the earth again doth prostrate fall,
And mid the bending green each sin recall.
Now from their beds the cottage-children rise,
Roused by some early playmate's noisy bawl;
And, on the door-step standing, rub their eyes,
Stretching their little arms, and gaping at the skies
The leaves "drop, drop," and dot the crispèd stream
So quick, each circle wears the first away;
Far out the tufted bulrush seems to dream,
And to the ripple nods its head alway;
The water-flags with one another play,
Bowing to every breeze that blows between
While purple dragon-flies their wings display:
The restless swallow's arrowy flight is seen,
Dimpling the sunny wave, then lost amid the green
The boy who last night passed that darksome lane,
Trembling with every sound, and pale with fear;
Who shook when the long leaves talked to the rain,
And tried to sing, his sinking heart to cheer;
Hears now no brook wail ghost-like on his ear,
No fearful groan in the black beetle's wing;
But where the deep-dyed butterflies appear,
And on the flowers like folded pea-blooms swing,
With napless hat in hand, he after them doth spring
In the far sky the distant landscape melts, Like pilèd clouds tinged with a darker hue; Even the wood which yon high upland belts Looks like a range of clouds, of deeper blue. One withered tree bursts only on the viewA bald bare oak, which on the summit grows (And looks as if from out the sky it grew): That tree has borne a thousand wintry snows, And seen unnumbered mornings gild its gnarlèd boughs.
Yon weather-beaten gray old finger-post
Stands like Time's land-mark, pointing to decay;
The very roads it once marked out are lost:
The common was encroached on every day
By grasping men who bore an unjust sway
And rent the gift from Charity's dead hands.
That post doth still one broken arm display,
Which now points out where the new workhouse
As if it said, "Poor man! those walls are all thy lands."
Where o'er yon woodland-stream dark branches bow, Patches of blue are let in from the sky, Throwing a checkered underlight below, Where the deep waters steeped in gloom roll by; Looking like Hope, who ever watcheth nigh, And throws her cheering ray o'er life's long night, When wearied man would fain lie down and die. Past the broad meadow now it rolleth bright, Which like a mantle green seems edged with silver light.
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