Fringilla

"Dear wife; if your poor feet are right,
The miracles of this cycle
Will give you a noble appetite,
For the roast goose of Saint Michael."

In a twinkle, we had baskets twain
Of the right stuff for a journey,
And beautiful gooseberry Champagne,
Superior to Epernay,

What myriad joys of heart and mind
Flit in and out our brief age!
That day it was grand to see how kind
The sun looked through the leafage!

While the leaves for their part pricked their lips,
With a dewy simper waiting;
They were conscious of some amber tips—
But those Were his own creating.

Can the heart of man alone be dull,
And the mind of man be spiteful,
When all above is beautiful,
And all below delightful?

When Season bright, and Season rich,
Make bids against each other;
And earth, uncertain which is which,
Smiles up at Nature Mother.

The copse, the lane, the meadow path,
The valleys, banks, and hedges,
Were green with summer's aftermath,
And gold with autumn's pledges.

Wild rose hung coral beads above,
And satchel'd nuts grew nigh them;
Like tips of a little maiden's glove,
Ere ever she has to buy them.

But ours are not the maids to bite
A gore or gusset undone;
How neat they look, how trim and tight!
Those frocks were made in London.

Long time, we glance in awe and doubt,
Suppressing all frivolity;
Till the spirit of the age breaks out,
And all is mirth and jollity.

One flash, that stole from eyes demure,
Hath scattered all convention;
And then a pearly laugh makes sure
That fun is her intention.

The smiling elders march ahead;
We dance, without a fiddler,
We play at cross-touch, White and Red,
Tip-cat, and Tommy Tidier.

We laugh and shout, much more than speak,
No etiquette importunes;
The trees were made for hide-and-seek,
The flowers to tell our fortunes;

The hills, for pretty girls to pant,
And glow with richer roses;
The wind itself, to toss askant
The curls that hide their noses.

Then sprightly Carry shouts in French—
"All boys and girls, come nutting!"
We are slipping down a mighty trench—
Why, it is the Railway cutting I

Before us yawns a dark-browed arch,
Paved with a muddy runnel;
A thousand giant navvies march
To delve the White-Ball tunnel.

Oh, if a man of them but did
Presume to glance at Carry,
Though he were Milo, or John Ridd,
I would toss him to Old Harry.

I pull my jacket off, like him
Who would shatter England's pillars—
From the tunnel comes an order grim,
"Get out of the way you chillers!"

And the same stern order doth apply
To the pranks of this remote age!
We are sure alike to be thrust by,
In our nonage, and our dotage.

Yet who shall grudge the tranquil age,
When nought can now betide ill,
To glance, from a distant hermitage,
At a summer morning idyll?