Then

Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty
A hundred years ago,
All through the night with lantern bright
The Watch trudged to and fro,
And little boys tucked snug abed
Would wake from dreams to hear
‘Two o’ the morning by the clock,
And the stars a-shining clear!’
Or, when across the chimney-tops
Screamed shrill a North-East gale,
A faint and shaken voice would shout,
‘Three! And a storm of hail!’

The window

Behind the blinds I sit and watch
The people passing passing by;
And not a single one can see
My tiny watching eye.

They cannot see my little room,
All yellowed with the shaded sun;
They do not even know I’m here;
Nor’ll guess when I am gone.

Poor Henry

Thick in its glass
The physic stands,
Poor Henry lifts
Distracted hands;
His round cheek wans
In the candlelight,
To smell that smell!
To see that sight!

Finger and thumb
Clinch his small nose,
A gurgle, a gasp,
And down it goes;
Scowls Henry now;
But mark that cheek,
Sleek with the bloom
Of health next week!

Full moon

One night as Dick lay half asleep,
Into his drowsy eyes
A great still light begins to creep
From out the silent skies.
It was lovely moon’s, for when
He raised his dreamy head,
Her surge of silver filled the pane
And streamed across his bed.
So, for a while, each gazed at each
Dick and the solemn moon
Till, climbing slowly on her way,
She vanished, and was gone.

The bookworm

‘I’m tired Oh, tired of books,’ said Jack,
’I long for meadows green,
And woods, where shadowy violets
Nod their cool leaves between;
I long to see the ploughman stride
His darkening acres o’er,
To hear the hoarse sea-waters drive
Their billows ’gainst the shore;
I long to watch the sea-mew wheel
Back to her rock-perched mate;
Or, where the breathing cows are housed,
Lean dreaming o’er the gate.
Something has gone, and ink and print
Will never bring it back;
I long for the green fields again,
I’m tired of books,’ said Jack.

The quartette

Tom sang for joy and Ned sang for joy and old Sam sang for joy;
All we four boys piped up loud, just like one boy;
And the ladies that sate with the Squire their cheeks were all wet,
For the noise of the voice of us boys, when we sang our Quartette.

Tom he piped low and Ned he piped low and old Sam he piped low;
Into a sorrowful fall did our music flow;
And the ladies that sate with the Squire vowed they’d never forget
How the eyes of them cried for delight, when we sang our Quartette.

Mistletoe

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen and kissed me there.

The lost shoe

Poor little Lucy
By some mischance,
Lost her shoe
As she did dance
’Twas not on the stairs,
Not in the hall;
Not where they sat
At supper at all.
She looked in the garden,
But there it was not;
Henhouse, or kennel,
Or high dovecote.
Dairy and meadow,
And wild woods through
Showed not a trace
Of Lucy’s shoe.
Bird nor bunny
Nor glimmering moon
Breathed a whisper
Of where ’twas gone.
It was cried and cried,
Oyez and Oyez!
In French, Dutch, Latin,
And Portuguese.
Ships the dark seas
Went plunging through,
But none brought news
Of Lucy’s shoe;
And still she patters
In silk and leather,
O’er snow, sand, shingle,
In every weather;
Spain, and Africa,
Hindustan,
Java, China,
And lamped Japan;
Plain and desert,
She hops-hops through,
Pernambuco
To gold Peru;
Mountain and forest,
And river too,
All the world over
For her lost shoe.

The truants

Ere my heart beats too coldly and faintly
To remember sad things, yet be gay,
I would sing a brief song of the world’s little children
Magic hath stolen away.

The primroses scattered by April,
The stars of the wide Milky Way,
Cannot outnumber the hosts of the children
Magic hath stolen away.

The buttercup green of the meadows,
The snow of the blossoming may,
Lovelier are not than the legions of children
Magic hath stolen away.

The waves tossing surf in the moonbeam,
The albatross lone on the spray,
Alone know the tears wept in vain for the children
Magic hath stolen away.

In vain: for at hush of the evening,
When the stars twinkle into the grey,
Seems to echo the far-away calling of children
Magic hath stolen away.