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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.
A wrinkled crabbed man they picture thee,
Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey
As the long moss upon the apple-tree;
Blue-lipt, an icedrop at thy sharp blue nose,
Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way
Plodding alone through sleet and drifting snows.
They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth,
Old Winter! seated in thy great armed chair,
Watching the children at their Christmas mirth;
Or circled by them as thy lips declare
Some merry jest, or tale of murder dire,
Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night,
Pausing at times to rouse the mouldering fire,
Or taste the old October brown and bright.
IF I should ever by chance grow rich
I'll buy Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,
Roses, Pyrgo, and Lapwater,
And let them all to my elder daughter.
The rent I shall ask of her will be only
Each year's first violets, white and lonely,
The first primroses and orchises--
She must find them before I do, that is.
But if she finds a blossom on furze
Without rent they shall all for ever be hers,
Codham, Cockridden, and Childerditch,
Roses, Pyrgo and Lapwater,--
I shall give them all to my elder daughter.
The candle is a fairy house
That’s smooth and round and white,
And Mother carries it about
Whenever it is night.
Right at the top a fairy lives,
A lovely yellow one,
And if you blow a little bit
It has all sorts of fun.
It bows and dances by itself
In such a clever way,
And then it stretches very tall;
“Well, it grows fast,” you say.
The little chimney of the house
Is black and really sweet,
And there the candle fairy stands
Though you can’t see its feet.
Come, let us all sing very high
And all sing very loud
And keep on singing in the street
Until there’s quite a crowd;
And keep on singing in the house
And up and down the stairs;
Then underneath the furniture
Let’s all play Polar bears;
And crawl about with doormats on,
And growl and howl and squeak,
Then in the garden let us fly
And play at hide and seek;
And “Here we gather Nuts and May,”
“I wrote a Letter” too,
“Here we go round the Mulberry Bush,”
“The Child who lost its shoe”;
Ciaran, the master of horses and lands,
Once had no more than the horn on his hands.
But Ciaran is rich now, and Ciaran is great,
And rides with the air of a squire of estate.
O Christ! and to see the man up on the back
Of a thoroughbred stallion, a bay or a black!
There's not a horsebreeder from Banna to Laoi
Can handle the snaffle so pretty as he!
And Ciaran, for all, has the wit of a child,
A heart just as soft, and an eye just as mild.
No maker of ballads puts curse at his door:
He handsels the singer, and harbours the poor.
For Ciaran, the master of horses and lands,
Once had no more than the horn on his hands.
Clear from the deep sky pours the moon
Her silver on the heavy dark;
The small stars blink.
Against the moon the maple bough
Flutters distinct her leafy spears;
All sound falls weak....
Weak the train's whistle, the dog's bark,
Slow steps; and rustling into her nest
At last, the thrush.
All's still; only earth turns and breathes.
Then that amazing trembling note
Cleaves the deep wave
Of silence. Shivers even that silvery one;
Sigh all the trees, even the cedar dark
----O joy, and I.
In a nook
That opened south,
You and I
Lay mouth to mouth.
A snowy gull
And sooty daw
Came and looked
With many a caw;
“Such,” I said,
“Are I and you,
When you’ve kissed me
Black and blue!”
How slow you move, old Time;
Walk a bit faster!
Old fool, I’m not your slave....
Beauty’s my master!
You hold me for a space....
What are you, Time?
A ghost, a thing of thought,
An easy rhyme.
Some day I shall again,
For all your scheming,
See Severn valley clouds
Like banners streaming.
And walk in Cranham lanes,
By Maisemore go....
But, fool, decrepit Fool,
You are SO SLOW!!!
The woodpecker pecked out a little round hole
And made him a house in the telephone pole.
One day when I watched he poked out his head,
And he had on a hood and a collar of red.
When the streams of rain pour out of the sky,
And the sparkles of lightning go flashing by,
And the big, big wheels of thunder roll,
He can snuggle back in the telephone pole.
His bridle hung around the post.
The sun and the leaves made spots come down;
I looked close at him through the fence;
The post was drab and he was brown.
His nose was long and hard and still,
And on his lip were specks like chalk.
But once he opened up his eyes,
And he began to talk.
He didn't talk out with his mouth;
He didn't talk with words or noise.
The talk was there along his nose;
It seemed and then it was.
He said the day was hot and slow,
And he said he didn't like the flies;
They made him have to shake his skin,
And they got drowned in his eyes.
This is not water running here,
These thick rebellious streams
That hurtle flesh and bone past fear
Down alleyways of dreams.
This is a wine that must flow on
Not caring how nor where,
So it has ways to flow upon
Where song is in the air.
So it can woo an artful flute
With loose, elastic lips,
Its measurement of joy compute
With blithe, ecstatic hips.