Birket Foster's pictures of English landscape . rd of my boyhood still. Its aspect facing to the sheep-fed hill ; The thick leaf-piles that swayed with murmurous sound, Bee-haunted limes, elms where rooks wheeled and watch Above the roofs, green-mossed and russet-thatched, That on grey posts the fold-yard shaded round: The open cart-shed—shed and gale in one; The pigs and heifers basking in the sun, About the leg-deep litter, trod to paste In the brown runnings careless let to waste : The ragged rails, the faggot-pile beyond; The hoof-poached edge of the green-mantled pond, Its marge and surfa
Birket Foster's pictures of English landscape . rd of my boyhood still. Its aspect facing to the sheep-fed hill ; The thick leaf-piles that swayed with murmurous sound, Bee-haunted limes, elms where rooks wheeled and watch Above the roofs, green-mossed and russet-thatched, That on grey posts the fold-yard shaded round: The open cart-shed—shed and gale in one; The pigs and heifers basking in the sun, About the leg-deep litter, trod to paste In the brown runnings careless let to waste : The ragged rails, the faggot-pile beyond; The hoof-poached edge of the green-mantled pond, Its marge and surface with white feathers dotted ; The high-ridged barn with orange lichen spotted ; Eude plenty everywhere, if somewhat slattern, That seemed akin to Natures liberal ways, All alien from the trim right-angled pattern That science fits her farms to now-a-days. Twas doubtless ignorance such farms that planned, And knowledge, doubtless, sweeps them from the land, But leave me, ignorant, still to enjoy The rude farm-yard I loved so when a boy. I I. 7 VIII. THE HAT FIELD. When, wliite and wet, the morning-dewClung close on swathe and spray, Our rakes, I know not how, still drewTogether in the hay. And when the sun rode hot and high, As at noon-tide we ate,Though there were prettier girls than I, Tvvas still our hands that met. And when they heaped the latest wain Upon the sun-set lea,I raked for him, and he was fain Still to fork after me. And when my sisters child I tookDown to the flag-fringed weir, The water-lilies from the hrookHe still would land-wards steer. And though apart we labour now,And though our place lies wide, Home and afield, I know not how,Our paths come side by side.
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Keywords: ., bookauthordalzielgeorge18151902, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860
