Underwoods | Page 5

along the hazel'd brook
To pass and linger, pause and
look.

A year ago, and blithely paired,
Their rough-and-tumble play they
shared;
They kissed and quarrelled, laughed and cried,
A year ago
at Eastertide.
With bursting heart, with fiery face,
She strove against him in the
race;
He unabashed her garter saw,
That now would touch her skirts
with awe.
Now by the stile ablaze she stops,
And his demurer eyes he drops;

Now they exchange averted sighs
Or stand and marry silent eyes.
And he to her a hero is
And sweeter she than primroses;
Their
common silence dearer far
Than nightingale and mavis are.
Now when they sever wedded hands,
Joy trembles in their
bosom-strands
And lovely laughter leaps and falls
Upon their lips
in madrigals.
V - THE HOUSE BEAUTIFUL
A NAKED HOUSE, A NAKED MOOR,
A SHIVERING POOL
BEFORE THE DOOR,
A GARDEN BARE OF FLOWERS AND
FRUIT
AND POPLARS AT THE GARDEN FOOT:
SUCH IS
THE PLACE THAT I LIVE IN,
BLEAK WITHOUT AND
BARE WITHIN.
Yet shall your ragged moor receive
The incomparable pomp of eve,

And the cold glories of the dawn
Behind your shivering trees be
drawn;
And when the wind front place to place
Doth the unmoored
cloud-galleons chase,
Your garden gloom and gleam again,
With
leaping sun, with glancing rain.
Here shall the wizard moon ascend

The heavens, in the crimson end
Of day's declining splendour; here

The army of the stars appear.
The neighbour hollows dry or wet,

Spring shall with tender flowers beset;
And oft the morning muser
see
Larks rising from the broomy lea,
And every fairy wheel and

thread
Of cobweb dew-bediamonded.
When daisies go, shall winter
time
Silver the simple grass with rime;
Autumnal frosts enchant the
pool
And make the cart-ruts beautiful;
And when snow-bright the
moor expands,
How shall your children clap their hands!
To make
this earth our hermitage,
A cheerful and a changeful page,
God's
bright and intricate device
Of days and seasons doth suffice.
VI - A VISIT FROM THE SEA
Far from the loud sea beaches
Where he goes fishing and crying,

Here in the inland garden
Why is the sea-gull flying?
Here are no fish to dive for;
Here is the corn and lea;
Here are the
green trees rustling.
Hie away home to sea!
Fresh is the river water
And quiet among the rushes;
This is no
home for the sea-gull
But for the rooks and thrushes.
Pity the bird that has wandered!
Pity the sailor ashore!
Hurry him
home to the ocean,
Let him come here no more!
High on the sea-cliff ledges
The white gulls are trooping and crying,

Here among the rooks and roses,
Why is the sea-gull flying?
VII - TO A GARDENER
Friend, in my mountain-side demesne
My plain-beholding, rosy,
green
And linnet-haunted garden-ground,
Let still the esculents
abound.
Let first the onion flourish there,
Rose among roots, the
maiden-fair,
Wine-scented and poetic soul
Of the capacious salad
bowl.
Let thyme the mountaineer (to dress
The tinier birds) and
wading cress,
The lover of the shallow brook,
From all my plots
and borders look.
Nor crisp and ruddy radish, nor

Pease-cods for the child's pinafore


Be lacking; nor of salad clan
The last and least that ever ran
About
great nature's garden-beds.
Nor thence be missed the speary heads

Of artichoke; nor thence the bean
That gathered innocent and green

Outsavours the belauded pea.
These tend, I prithee; and for me,
Thy most long-suffering master,
bring
In April, when the linnets sing
And the days lengthen more
and more
At sundown to the garden door.
And I, being provided
thus.
Shall, with superb asparagus,
A book, a taper, and a cup
Of
country wine, divinely sup.
La Solitude, Hyeres
VIII - TO MINNIE
(With a hand-glass)
A picture-frame for you to fill,
A paltry setting for your face,
A
thing that has no worth until
You lend it something of your grace
I send (unhappy I that sing
Laid by awhile upon the shelf)
Because
I would not send a thing
Less charming than you are yourself.
And happier than I, alas!
(Dumb thing, I envy its delight)
'Twill
wish you well, the looking-glass,
And look you in the face to-night.
1869.
IX - TO K. DE M.
A lover, of the moorland bare
And honest country winds, you were;

The silver-skimming rain you took;
And loved the floodings of the
brook,
Dew, frost and mountains, fire and seas,
Tumultuary
silences,
Winds that in darkness fifed a tune,
And the high-riding,
virgin moon.

And as the berry, pale and sharp,
Springs on some ditch's
counterscarp
In our ungenial, native north -
You put your frosted
wildings forth,
And on the heath, afar from man,
A strong and bitter
virgin ran.
The berry ripened keeps the rude
And racy flavour of the wood.

And you that loved the empty plain
All redolent of wind and rain,

Around you still the curlew sings -
The freshness of the weather
clings -
The maiden jewels of the rain
Sit in your dabbled locks
again.
X - TO N. V. DE G. S.
The unfathomable sea, and time, and tears,
The deeds of heroes and
the crimes of kings
Dispart us; and the river of events
Has, for an
age of years, to east and west
More widely borne our cradles. Thou to
me
Art foreign, as when seamen at the dawn
Descry a land far off
and know not which.
So I approach uncertain; so I cruise
Round thy
mysterious islet, and behold
Surf and