  So ’tis your will to have a cell, My Betsey, of your own and dwell Here where the sun for ever shines That glances off the holly spines— A clearing where the trunks are few Here shall be built a house for you, The little walls of beechen stakes, Wattled with twigs from hazel brakes, Tiled with white oak-chips that lie round The fallen giants on the ground; Under your little feet shall be A ground-work of wild strawberry With gadding stem, a pleasant wort Alike for carpet and dessert. Here Betsey, in the lucid shade, Come, let us twine a green stockade, With slender saplings all about, And a small window to look out, So that you may be “Not at Home” If any mortal callers come. Then shall arrive to make you mirth The four wise peoples of the earth: The thrifty ants who run around To fill their store-rooms underground, The rabbit-folk, a feeble race, From out their rocky sleeping place, The grasshoppers who have no king Yet come in companies to sing, The lizard slim who shyly stands Swaying upon his slender hands— I’ll give them all your new address. For me, my little anchoress, I’ll never stir the bracken by Your house; the brown wood butterfly, Passing you like the sunshine’s fleck That gilds the nape of your warm neck, Shall still report me how you do And bring me all the news of you, And tell me (where I sit alone) How gay you are and how you’re grown A fox-glove’s span in the soft weather.
No? Then we’ll wander home together.
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