A Ballad of Nursery Rhyme

Strawberries that in gardens grow
Are plump and juicy fine,
But sweeter far as wise men know
Spring from the woodland vine.
No need for bowl or silver spoon,
Sugar or spice or cream,
Has the wild berry plucked in June
Beside the trickling stream.
One such to melt at the tongue's root,
Confounding taste with scent,
Beats a full peck of garden fruit:
Which points my argument.
May sudden justice overtake
And snap the froward pen,
That old and palsied poets shake
Against the minds of men;
Blasphemers trusting to hold caught
In far-flung webs of ink
The utmost ends of human thought,
Till nothing's left to think.
But may the gift of heavenly peace
And glory for all time
Keep the boy Tom who tending geese
First made the nursery rhyme.
By the brookside one August day,
Using the sun for clock,
Tom whiled the languid hours away
Beside his scattering flock,
Carving with a sharp pointed stone
On a broad slab of slate
The famous lives of Jumping Joan,
Dan Fox and Greedy Kate;
Rhyming of wolves and bears and birds,
Spain, Scotland, Babylon,
That sister Kate might learn the words
To tell to Toddling John.
But Kate, who could not stay content
To learn her lesson pat,
New beauty to the rough lines lent
By changing this or that;
And she herself set fresh things down
In corners of her slate,
Of lambs and lanes and London Town.
God's blessing fall on Kate!
The baby loved the simple sound,
With jolly glee he shook,
And soon the lines grew smooth and round
Like pebbles in Tom's brook,
From mouth to mouth told and retold
By children sprawled at ease
Before the fire in winter's cold,
In June beneath tall trees;
Till though long lost are stone and slate,
Though the brook no more runs,
And dead long time are Tom, John, Kate,
Their sons and their sons' sons;
Yet, as when Time with stealthy tread
Lays the rich garden waste,
The woodland berry ripe and red
Fails not in scent or taste,
So these same rhymes shall still be told
To children yet unborn,
While false philosophy growing old
Fades and is killed by scorn.

Contents / Contents, p. 2

A Frosty Night

Mother:

Alice, dear, what ails you,
Dazed and white and shaken?
Has the chill night numbed you?
Is it fright you have taken?

Alice:

Mother I am very well,
I felt never better;
Mother, do not hold me so,
Let me write my letter.

Mother:

Sweet, my dear, what ails you?

Alice:

No, but I am well.
The night was cold and frosty,
There's no more to tell.

Mother:

Ay, the night was frosty,
Coldly gaped the moon,
Yet the birds seemed twittering
Through green boughs of June.
Soft and thick the snow lay,
Stars danced in the sky.
Not all the lambs of May-day
Skip so bold and high.
Your feet were dancing, Alice,
Seemed to dance on air,
You looked a ghost or angel
In the starlight there.
Your eyes were frosted starlight,
Your heart, fire, and snow.
Who was it said 'I love you?'

Alice:

Mother, let me go!

Contents / Contents, p. 2

True Johnny

Mary:

Johnny, sweetheart, can you be true
To all those famous vows you've made?
Will you love me as I love you
Until we both in earth are laid?
Or shall the old wives nod and say
'His love was only for a day,
The mood goes by,
His fancies fly,
And Mary's left to sigh.'

Johnny:

Mary, alas, you've hit the truth,
And I with grief can but admit
Hot-blooded haste controls my youth,
My idle fancies veer and flit
From flower to flower, from tree to tree,
And when the moment catches me
Oh, love goes by,
Away I fly,
And leave my girl to sigh.

Mary:

Could you but now foretell the day,
Johnny, when this sad thing must be,
When light and gay you'll turn away
And laugh and break the heart in me?
For like a nut for true love's sake
My empty heart shall crack and break,
When fancies fly
And love goes by
And Mary's left to die.

Johnny:

When the sun turns against the clock,
When Avon waters upward flow,
When eggs are laid by barn-door cock,
When dusty hens do strut and crow,
When up is down, when left is right,
Oh, then I'll break the troth I plight,
With careless eye
Away I'll fly
And Mary here shall die.

Contents / Contents, p. 2

The Cupboard

Mother:

What's in that cupboard, Mary?

Mary:

Which cupboard, mother dear?

Mother:

The cupboard of red mahogany
With handles shining clear.

Mary:

That cupboard, dearest mother,
With shining crystal handles?
There's nought inside but rags and jags
And yellow tallow candles.

Mother:

What's in that cupboard, Mary?

Mary:

Which cupboard, mother mine?

Mother:

That cupboard stands in your sunny chamber,
The silver corners shine.

Mary:

There's nothing there inside, mother,
But wool and thread and flax,
And bits of faded silk and velvet
And candles of white wax.

Mother:

What's in that cupboard, Mary?
And this time tell me true.

Mary:

White clothes for an unborn baby, mother..
But what's the truth to you?

Contents / Contents, p. 2

The Voice of Beauty Drowned

Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
The other birds woke all around;
Rising with toot and howl they stirred
Their plumage, broke the trembling sound,
They craned their necks, they fluttered wings,
'While we are silent no one sings,
And while we sing you hush your throat,
Or tune your melody to our note.'
Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
The screams and hootings rose again:
They gaped with raucous beaks, they whirred
Their noisy plumage; small but plain
The lonely hidden singer made
A well of grief within the glade.
'Whist, silly fool, be off,' they shout,
'Or we'll come pluck your feathers out.'
Cry from the thicket my heart's bird!
Slight and small the lovely cry
Came trickling down, but no one heard;
Parrot and cuckoo, crow, magpie,
Jarred horrid notes, the jangling jay
Ripped the fine threads of song away;
For why should peeping chick aspire
To challenge their loud woodland choir?
Cried it so sweet, that unseen bird?
Lovelier could no music be,
Clearer than water, soft as curd,
Fresh as the blossomed cherry tree.
How sang the others all around?
Piercing and harsh, a maddening sound,
With Pretty Poll, Tuwit-tuwoo
Peewit, Caw Caw, Cuckoo-Cuckoo.
How went the song, how looked the bird?
If I could tell, if I could show
With one quick phrase, one lightning word,
I'd learn you more than poets know;
For poets, could they only catch
Of that forgotten tune one snatch,
Would build it up in song or sonnet,
And found their whole life's fame upon it.

Contents / Contents, p. 3

Rocky Acres

This is a wild land, country of my choice,
With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.
Seldom in these acres is heard any voice
But voice of cold water that runs here and there
Through rocks and lank heather growing without care.
No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry
For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.
He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings,
He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye,
He catches the trembling of small hidden things,
He tears them in pieces dropping from the sky:
Tenderness and pity the land will deny,
Where life is but nourished from water and rock,
A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.
Time has never journeyed to this lost land,
Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,
The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand,
Careless if the season be early or late.
The skies wander overhead, now blue now slate:
Winter would be known by his cold cutting snow
If June did not borrow his armour also.
Yet this is my country beloved by me best,
The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood,
Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest,
Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood
Bold immortal country whose hill-tops have stood
Strongholds for the proud gods when on earth they go,
Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.

Contents / Contents, p. 3