  When elm-buds turn from red to green And growing lambs more staidly graze And brighter nettle-tops are seen Along the hedge-rows’ rambling ways; When leaves unclose where late the hail Rustled in naked hawthorn twig, April comes laughing up the vale And Effany comes round to dig. Aloof among her nursery toys From her high casement Betsey sees His vellum-coloured corduroys Stirring behind the apple-trees, Clutching her trowel she descends, With unimagined projects big, For Effany and she are friends, And she helps Effany to dig. Deep in the flowering currant-rows The robin twitters gentle mirth Where Effany with Betsey goes Triumphant o’er the new-turned earth; And the wind wanders out and in As doubting which it loves the best— The grizzly stubble round his chin, Or her be-ruffled golden crest. His coat, lined with carnation red, Hangs in the plum-tree’s forkÈd boughs, Till sun is low and the day sped And Betsey called into the house— He scrapes his spade, her trowel she, She looks and lingers loath to start With little earth-bound feet to tea, He takes his coat down to depart. Half musing on the little maid He trudges towards the coming night, Stooping beneath his shouldered spade, To where across the curtained light With leaves upon its fiery fold His wife’s thin shadow falls alone— For she and Effany are old And all their little ones are gone. |
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