Peacock Pie, A Book of Rhymes | Page 8

LITTLE GREEN ORCHARD
Some one is always sitting there,
In the little green orchard;?Even when the sun is high?In noon's unclouded sky,?And faintly droning goes?The bee from rose to rose,?Some one in shadow is sitting there
In the little green orchard.
Yes, when the twilight's falling softly
In the little green orchard;?When the grey dew distills?And every flower-cup fills;?When the last blackbird says,?'What - what!' and goes her way - ssh!?I have heard voices calling softly
In the little green orchard
Not that I am afraid of being there,
In the little green orchard;?Why, when the moon's been bright,?Shedding her lonesome light,?And moths like ghosties come,?And the horned snail leaves home:?I've sat there, whispering and listening there,
In the little green orchard.
Only it's strange to be feeling there,
In the little green orchard;?Whether you paint or draw,?Dig, hammer, chop or saw;?When you are most alone,?All but the silence gone...?Some one is watching and waiting there,
In the little green orchard.
POOR 'MISS 7'
Lone and alone she lies,
Poor Miss 7,?Five steep flights from the earth,
And one from heaven;?Dark hair and dark brown eyes, -?Not to be sad she tries,?Still - still it's lonely lies
Poor Miss 7.
One day-long watch hath she,
Poor Miss 7,?Not in some orchard sweet
In April Devon -?Just four blank walls to see,?And dark come shadowily,?No moon, no stars, ah me!
Poor Miss 7.
And then to wake again,
Poor Miss 7,?To the cold night, to have
Sour physic given;?Out of some dream of pain,?Then strive long hours in vain?Deep dreamless sleep to gain:
Poor Miss 7.
Yet memory softly sings
Poor Miss 7?Songs full of love and peace
And gladness even;?Clear flowers and tiny wings,?All tender, lovely things,?Hope to her bosom brings -
Happy Miss 7.
SAM
When Sam goes back in memory,?It is to where the sea?Breaks on the shingle, emerald-green,?In white foam, endlessly;?He says - with small brown eye on mine-?'I used to keep awake,?And lean from my window in the moon,?Watching those billows break.?And half a million tiny hands,?And eyes, like sparks of frost,?Would dance and come tumbling into the moon,?On every breaker tossed.?And all across from star to star,?I've seen the watery sea,?With not a single ship in sight,?Just ocean there, and me;?And heard my father snore. And once,?As sure as I'm alive,?Out of those wallowing, moon-flecked waves?I saw a mermaid dive;?Head and shoulders above the wave,?Plain as I now see you,?Combing her hair, now back, now front,?Her two eyes peeping through;?Calling me, 'Sam!' -quietlike- 'Sam!'...?But me .... I never went,?Making believe I kind of thought?'Twas some one else she meant....?Wonderful lovely there she sat,?Singing the night away,?All in the solitudinous sea?Of that there lonely bay.
P'raps,' and he'd smooth his hairless mouth,?'P'raps, if 'twere now, my son,?Praps, if I heard a voice say, 'Sam!'...?Morning would find we gone.'
ANDY BATTLE
Once and there was a young sailor, yeo ho!?And he sailed out over the say?For the isles where pink coral and palm branches blow,?And the fire-flies turn night into day,?Yeo ho!?And the fire-flies turn night into day.
But the Dolphin went down in a tempest, yeo ho!?And with three forsook sailors ashore,?The portingales took him wh'ere sugar-canes grow,?Their slave for to be evermore,?Yeo ho!?Their slave for to be evermore.
With his musket for mother and brother, yeo ho!?He warred with the Cannibals drear,?in forests where panthers pad soft to and fro,?And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear,?Yeo ho!?And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear.
Now lean with long travail, all wasted with woe,?With a monkey for messmate and friend,?He sits 'neath the Cross in the cankering snow,?And waites for his sorrowful end,?Yeo ho!?And waits for his sorrowful end.
THE OLD SOLDIER
There came an Old Soldier to my door,?Asked a crust, and asked no more;?The wars had thinned him very bare,?Fighting and marching everywhere,?With a Fol rol dol rol di do.
With nose stuck out, and cheek sunk in,?A bristling beard upon his chin -?Powder and bullets and wounds and drums?Had come to that Soldier as suchlike comes -?With a Fol rol dol rol di do.
'Twas sweet and fresh with buds of May,?Flowers springing from every spray;?And when he had supped the Old Soldier trolled?The song of youth that never grows old,?Called Fol rol dol rol di do.
Most of him rags, and all of him lean,?And the belt round his belly drawn tightsome in?He lifted his peaked old grizzled head,?And these were the very same words he saidA?Fol-rol-dol-rol-di-do.
THE PICTURE
Here is a sea-legged sailor,?Come to this tottering Inn,?Just when the bronze on its signboard is fading,
And the black shades of evening begin.,
With his head on thick paws sleeps a sheep-dog,?There stoops the Shepherd, and see,?All follow-my-leader the ducks waddle homeward,
Under the sycamore tree.
Very brown is the face of the Sailor,?His bundle is crimson, and green?Are the thick leafy boughs that hang dense o'er the Tavern,
And blue the far meadows between.
But the Crust, Ale and Cheese of the Sailor,?His Mug and his platter of Delf,?And the crescent to light home the Shepherd and Sheep-dog
The painter has kept to