Come queen of months in company Wi all thy merry minstrelsy The restless cuckoo absent long And twittering swallows chimney song And hedge row crickets notes that run From every bank that fronts the sun And swathy bees about the grass That stops wi every bloom they pass And every minute every hour Keep teazing weeds that wear a flower And toil and childhoods humming joys For there is music in the noise The village childern mad for sport In school times leisure ever short That crick and catch the bouncing ball And run along the church yard wall Capt wi rude figured slabs whose claims In times bad memory hath no names Oft racing round the nookey church Or calling ecchos in the porch And jilting oer the weather cock Viewing wi jealous eyes the clock Oft leaping grave stones leaning hights Uncheckt wi mellancholy sights The green grass swelld in many a heap Where kin and friends and parents sleep Unthinking in their jovial cry That time shall come when they shall lye As lowly and as still as they While other boys above them play Heedless as they do now to know The unconcious dust that lies below The shepherd goes wi happy stride Wi moms long shadow by his side Down the dryd lanes neath blooming may That once was over shoes in clay While martins twitter neath his eves Which he at early morning leaves The driving boy beside his team Will oer the may month beauty dream And cock his hat and turn his eye On flower and tree and deepning skye And oft bursts loud in fits of song And whistles as he reels along Crack[ing] his whip in starts of joy A happy dirty driving boy The youth who leaves his corner stool Betimes for neighbouring village school While as a mark to urge him right The church spires all the way in sight Wi cheerings from his parents given Starts neath the joyous smiles of heaven And sawns wi many an idle stand Wi bookbag swinging in his hand And gazes as he passes bye On every thing that meets his eye Young lambs seem tempting him to play Dancing and bleating in his way Wi trembling tails and pointed ears They follow him and loose their fears He smiles upon their sunny faces And feign woud join their happy races The birds that sing on bush and tree Seem chirping for his company And all in fancys idle whim Seem keeping holiday but him He lolls upon each resting stile To see the fields so sweetly smile To see the wheat grow green and long And list the weeders toiling song Or short not[e] of the changing thrush Above him in the white thorn bush That oer the leaning stile bends low Loaded wi mockery of snow Mozzld wi many a lushing thread Of crab tree blossoms delicate red He often bends wi many a wish Oer the brig rail to view the fish Go sturting by in sunny gleams And chucks in the eye dazzld streams Crumbs from his pocket oft to watch The swarming struttle come to catch Them where they to the bottom sile Sighing in fancys joy the while Hes cautiond not to stand so nigh By rosey milkmaid tripping bye Where he admires wi fond delight And longs to be there mute till night He often ventures thro the day At truant now and then to play Rambling about the field and plain Seeking larks nests in the grain And picking flowers and boughs of may To hurd awhile and throw away Lurking neath bushes from the sight Of tell tale eyes till schools noon night Listing each hour for church clocks hum To know the hour to wander home That parents may not think him long Nor dream of his rude doing wrong Dreading thro the night wi dreaming pain To meet his masters wand again Each hedge is loaded thick wi green And where the hedger late hath been Tender shoots begin to grow From the mossy stumps below While sheep and cow that teaze the grain will nip them to the root again They lay their bill and mittens bye And on to other labours hie While wood men still on spring intrudes And thins the shadow solitudes Wi sharpend axes felling down The oak trees budding into brown Where as they crash upon the ground A crowd of labourers gather round And mix among the shadows dark To rip the crackling staining bark From off the tree and lay when done The rolls in lares to meet the sun Depriving yearly where they come The green wood pecker of its home That early in the spring began Far from the sight of troubling man And bord their round holes in each tree In fancys sweet security Till startld wi the woodmans noise It wakes from all its dreaming joys The blue bells too that thickly bloom Where man was never feared to come And smell smocks that from view retires Mong rustling leaves and bowing briars And stooping lilys of the valley That comes wi shades and dews to dally White beady drops on slender threads Wi broad hood leaves above their heads Like white robd maids in summer hours Neath umberellas shunning showers These neath the barkmens crushing treads Oft perish in their blooming beds Thus stript of boughs and bark in white Their trunks shine in the mellow light Beneath the green surviving trees That wave above them in the breeze And waking whispers slowly bends As if they mournd their fallen friends Each morning now the weeders meet To cut the thistle from the wheat And ruin in the sunny hours Full many wild weeds of their flowers Corn poppys that in crimson dwell Calld `head achs` from their sickly smell And carlock yellow as the sun That oer the may fields thickly run And `iron weed` content to share The meanest spot that spring can spare Een roads where danger hourly comes Is not wi out its purple blooms And leaves wi points like thistles round Thickset that have no strength to wound That shrink to childhoods eager hold Like hair-and with its eye of gold And scarlet starry points of flowers Pimpernel dreading nights and showers Oft calld `the shepherds weather glass` That sleep till suns have dyd the grass Then wakes and spreads its creeping bloom Till clouds or threatning shadows come Then close it shuts to sleep again Which weeders see and talk of rain And boys that mark them shut so soon will call them `John go bed at noon And fumitory too a name That superstition holds to fame Whose red and purple mottled flowers Are cropt by maids in weeding hours To boil in water milk and way1 For washes on an holiday To make their beauty fair and sleak And scour the tan from summers cheek And simple small forget me not Eyd wi a pinshead yellow spot I`th`2 middle of its tender blue That gains from poets notice due These flowers the toil by crowds destroys And robs them of their lowly joys That met the may wi hopes as sweet As those her suns in gardens meet And oft the dame will feel inclind As childhoods memory comes to mind To turn her hook away and spare The blooms it lovd to gather there My wild field catalogue of flowers Grows in my ryhmes as thick as showers Tedious and long as they may be To some, they never weary me The wood and mead and field of grain I coud hunt oer and oer again And talk to every blossom wild Fond as a parent to a child And cull them in my childish joy By swarms and swarms and never cloy When their lank shades oer morning pearls Shrink from their lengths to little girls And like the clock hand pointing one Is turnd and tells the morning gone They leave their toils for dinners hour Beneath some hedges bramble bower And season sweet their savory meals Wi joke and tale and merry peals Of ancient tunes from happy tongues While linnets join their fitful songs Perchd oer their heads in frolic play Among the tufts of motling may The young girls whisper things of love And from the old dames hearing move Oft making `love knotts` in the shade Of blue green oat or wheaten blade And trying simple charms and spells That rural superstition tells They pull the little blossom threads From out the knapweeds button heads And put the husk wi many a smile In their white bosoms for awhile Who if they guess aright the swain That loves sweet fancys trys to gain Tis said that ere its lain an hour Twill blossom wi a second flower And from her white breasts hankerchief Bloom as they ne`er had lost a leaf When signs appear that token wet As they are neath the bushes met The girls are glad wi hopes of play And harping of the holiday A hugh blue bird will often swim Along the wheat when skys grow dim Wi clouds-slow as the gales of spring In motion wi dark shadowd wing Beneath the coming storm it sails And lonly chirps the wheat hid quails That came to live wi spring again And start when summer browns the grain They start the young girls joys afloat Wi `wet my foot` its yearly note So fancy doth the sound explain And proves it oft a sign of rain About the moor `mong sheep and cow The boy or old man wanders now Hunting all day wi hopful pace Each thick sown rushy thistly place For plover eggs while oer them flye The fearful birds wi teazing cry Trying to lead their steps astray And coying him another way And be the weather chill or warm Wi brown hats truckd beneath his arm Holding each prize their search has won They plod bare headed to the sun Now dames oft bustle from their wheels Wi childern scampering at their heels To watch the bees that hang and swive In clumps about each thronging hive And flit and thicken in the light While the old dame enjoys the sight And raps the while their warming pans A spell that superstition plans To coax them in the garden bounds As if they lovd the tinkling sounds And oft one hears the dinning noise Which dames believe each swarm decoys Around each village day by day Mingling in the warmth of may Sweet scented herbs her skill contrives To rub the bramble platted hives Fennels thread leaves and crimpld balm To scent the new house of the swarm The thresher dull as winter days And lost to all that spring displays Still mid his barn dust forcd to stand Swings his frail round wi weary hand While oer his head shades thickly creep And hides the blinking owl asleep And bats in cobweb corners bred Sharing till night their murky bed The sunshine trickles on the floor Thro every crevice of the door And makes his barn where shadows dwell As irksome as a prisoners cell And as he seeks his daily meal As schoolboys from their tasks will steal ile often stands in fond delay To see the daisy in his way And wild weeds flowering on the wall That will his childish sports recall Of all the joys that came wi spring The twirling top the marble ring The gingling halfpence hussld up At pitch and toss the eager stoop To pick up heads, the smuggeld plays Neath hovels upon sabbath days When parson he is safe from view And clerk sings amen in his pew The sitting down when school was oer Upon the threshold by his door Picking from mallows sport to please Each crumpld seed he calld a cheese And hunting from the stackyard sod The stinking hen banes belted pod By youths vain fancys sweetly fed Christning them his loaves of bread He sees while rocking down the street Wi weary hands and crimpling feet Young childern at the self same games And hears the self same simple names Still floating on each happy tongue Touchd wi the simple scene so strong Tears almost start and many a sigh Regrets the happiness gone bye And in sweet natures holiday His heart is sad while all is gay How lovly now are lanes and balks For toils and lovers sunday walks The daisey and the buttercup For which the laughing childern stoop A hundred times throughout the day In their rude ramping summer play So thickly now the pasture crowds In gold and silver sheeted clouds As if the drops in april showers Had woo`d the sun and swoond to flowers The brook resumes its summer dresses Purling neath grass and water cresses And mint and flag leaf swording high Their blooms to the unheeding eye And taper bowbent hanging rushes And horse tail childerns bottle brushes And summer tracks about its brink Is fresh again where cattle drink And on its sunny bank the swain Stretches his idle length again Soon as the sun forgets the day The moon looks down on the lovly may And the little star his friend and guide Travelling together side by side And the seven stars and charleses wain1 Hangs smiling oer green woods agen The heaven rekindles all alive Wi light the may bees round the hive Swarm not so thick in mornings eye As stars do in the evening skye All all are nestling in their joys The flowers and birds and pasture boys The firetail, long a stranger, comes To his last summer haunts and homes To hollow tree and crevisd wall And in the grass the rails odd call That featherd spirit stops the swain To listen to his note again And school boy still in vain retraces The secrets of his hiding places In the black thorns crowded cops~e1 Thro its varied turns and stops The nightingale its ditty weaves Hid in a multitude of leaves The boy stops short to hear the strain And `sweet jug jug` he mocks again The yellow hammer builds its nest By banks where sun beams earliest rest That drys the dews from off the grass Shading it from all that pass Save the rude boy wi ferret gaze That hunts thro evry secret maze He finds its pencild eggs agen All streakd wi lines as if a pen By natures freakish hand was took To scrawl them over like a book And from these many mozzling marks The school boy names them `writing larks` Bum barrels twit on bush and tree Scarse bigger then a bumble bee And in a white thorns leafy rest It builds its curious pudding-nest Wi hole beside as if a mouse Had built the little barrel house Toiling full many a lining feather And bits of grey tree moss together Amid the noisey rooky park Beneath the firdales branches dark The little golden crested wren Hangs up his glowing nest agen And sticks it to the furry leaves As martins theirs beneath the eaves The old hens leave the roost betimes And oer the garden pailing climbs To scrat the gardens fresh turnd soil And if unwatchd his crops to spoil Oft cackling from the prison yard To peck about the houseclose sward Catching at butterflys and things Ere they have time to try their wings The cattle feels the breath of may And kick and toss their heads in play The ass beneath his bags of sand Oft jerks the string from leaders hand And on the road will eager stoop To pick the sprouting thistle up Oft answering on his weary way Some distant neighbours sobbing bray Dining the ears of driving boy As if he felt a fit of joy Wi in its pinfold circle left Of all its company bereft Starvd stock no longer noising round Lone in the nooks of foddering ground Each skeleton of lingering stack By winters tempests beaten black Nodds upon props or bolt upright Stands swarthy in the summer light And oer the green grass seems to lower Like stump of old time wasted tower All that in winter lookd for hay Spread from their batterd haunts away To pick the grass or lye at lare Beneath the mild hedge shadows there Sweet month that gives a welcome call To toil and nature and to all Yet one day mid thy many joys Is dead to all its sport and noise Old may day where`s thy glorys gone All fled and left thee every one Thou comst to thy old haunts and homes Unnoticd as a stranger comes No flowers are pluckt to hail the now Nor cotter seeks a single bough The maids no more on thy sweet morn Awake their thresholds to adorn Wi dewey flowers-May locks new come And princifeathers cluttering bloom And blue bells from the woodland moss And cowslip cucking balls to toss Above the garlands swinging hight Hang in the soft eves sober light These maid and child did yearly pull By many a folded apron full But all is past the merry song Of maidens hurrying along To crown at eve the earliest cow Is gone and dead and silent now The laugh raisd at the mocking thorn Tyd to the cows tail last that morn The kerchief at arms length displayd Held up by pairs of swain and maid While others bolted underneath Bawling loud wi panting breath `Duck under water` as they ran Alls ended as they ne`er began While the new thing that took thy place Wears faded smiles upon its face And where enclosure has its birth It spreads a mildew oer her mirth The herd no longer one by one Goes plodding on her morning way And garlands lost and sports nigh gone Leaves her like thee a common day Yet summer smiles upon thee still Wi natures sweet unalterd will And at thy births unworshipd hours Fills her green lap wi swarms of flowers To crown thee still as thou hast been Of spring and summer months the queen.SourceThe script ran 0.005 seconds.
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