A Widow’s weeds

A poor old Widow in her weeds
Sowed her garden with wild-flower seeds;
Not too shallow, and not too deep,
And down came April drip drip drip.
Up shone May, like gold, and soon
Green as an arbour grew leafy June.
And now all summer she sits and sews
Where willow herb, comfrey, bugloss blows,
Teasle and pansy, meadowsweet,
Campion, toadflax, and rough hawksbit;
Brown bee orchis, and Peals of Bells;
Clover, burnet, and thyme she smells;
Like Oberon’s meadows her garden is
Drowsy from dawn to dusk with bees.
Weeps she never, but sometimes sighs,
And peeps at her garden with bright brown eyes;
And all she has is all she needs ­
A poor Old Widow in her weeds.

‘Sooeep!’

Black as a chimney is his face,
And ivory white his teeth,
And in his brass-bound cart he rides,
The chestnut blooms beneath.

‘Sooeep, Sooeep!’ he cries, and brightly peers
This way and that, to see
With his two light-blue shining eyes
What custom there may be.

And once inside the house, he’ll squat,
And drive his rods on high,
Till twirls his sudden sooty brush
Against the morning sky.

Then, ’mid his bulging bags of soot,
With half the world asleep,
His small cart wheels him off again,
Still hoarsely bawling, ‘Sooeep!’

Mrs. MACQUEEN (or the Lollie-shop)

With glass like a bull’s-eye,
And shutters of green,
Down on the cobbles
Lives Mrs. MacQueen,

At six she rises;
At nine you see
Her candle shine out
In the linden tree:

And at half-past nine
Not a sound is nigh
But the bright moon’s creeping
Across the sky;

Or a far dog baying;
Or a twittering bird
In its drowsy nest,
In the darkness stirred;

Or like the roar
Of a distant sea
A long-drawn S-s-sh
In the linden tree.

The little green orchard

Some one is always sitting there,
In the little green orchard;
Even when the sun is high
In noon’s unclouded sky,
And faintly droning goes
The bee from rose to rose,
Some one in shadow is sitting there
In the little green orchard.

Yes, when the twilight’s falling softly
In the little green orchard;
When the grey dew distills
And every flower-cup fills;
When the last blackbird says,
‘What what!’ and goes her way ssh!
I have heard voices calling softly
In the little green orchard

Not that I am afraid of being there,
In the little green orchard;
Why, when the moon’s been bright,
Shedding her lonesome light,
And moths like ghosties come,
And the horned snail leaves home:
I’ve sat there, whispering and listening there,
In the little green orchard.

Only it’s strange to be feeling there,
In the little green orchard;
Whether you paint or draw,
Dig, hammer, chop or saw;
When you are most alone,
All but the silence gone...
Some one is watching and waiting there,
In the little green orchard.

Poor ‘Miss 7’

Lone and alone she lies,
Poor Miss 7,
Five steep flights from the earth,
And one from heaven;
Dark hair and dark brown eyes,
Not to be sad she tries,
Still still it’s lonely lies
Poor Miss 7.

One day-long watch hath she,
Poor Miss 7,
Not in some orchard sweet
In April Devon
Just four blank walls to see,
And dark come shadowily,
No moon, no stars, ah me!
Poor Miss 7.

And then to wake again,
Poor Miss 7,
To the cold night, to have
Sour physic given;
Out of some dream of pain,
Then strive long hours in vain
Deep dreamless sleep to gain:
Poor Miss 7.

Yet memory softly sings
Poor Miss
Songs full of love and peace
And gladness even;
Clear flowers and tiny wings,
All tender, lovely things,
Hope to her bosom brings
Happy Miss 7.

Sam

When Sam goes back in memory,
It is to where the sea
Breaks on the shingle, emerald-green,
In white foam, endlessly;
He says with small brown eye on mine-
’I used to keep awake,
And lean from my window in the moon,
Watching those billows break.
And half a million tiny hands,
And eyes, like sparks of frost,
Would dance and come tumbling into the moon,
On every breaker tossed.
And all across from star to star,
I’ve seen the watery sea,
With not a single ship in sight,
Just ocean there, and me;
And heard my father snore. And once,
As sure as I’m alive,
Out of those wallowing, moon-flecked waves
I saw a mermaid dive;
Head and shoulders above the wave,
Plain as I now see you,
Combing her hair, now back, now front,
Her two eyes peeping through;
Calling me, ‘Sam!’ -quietlike- ’Sam!’...
But me .... I never went,
Making believe I kind of thought
’Twas some one else she meant....
Wonderful lovely there she sat,
Singing the night away,
All in the solitudinous sea
Of that there lonely bay.

P’raps,’ and he’d smooth his hairless mouth,
’P’raps, if ’twere now, my son,
Praps, if I heard a voice say, ’Sam!’...
Morning would find we gone.’

Andy Battle

Once and there was a young sailor, yeo ho!
And he sailed out over the say
For the isles where pink coral and palm branches blow,
And the fire-flies turn night into day,
Yeo ho!
And the fire-flies turn night into day.

But the Dolphin went down in a tempest, yeo ho!
And with three forsook sailors ashore,
The portingales took him wh’ere sugar-canes grow,
Their slave for to be evermore,
Yeo ho!
Their slave for to be evermore.

With his musket for mother and brother, yeo ho!
He warred with the Cannibals drear,
in forests where panthers pad soft to and fro,
And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear,
Yeo ho!
And the Pongo shakes noonday with fear.

Now lean with long travail, all wasted with woe,
With a monkey for messmate and friend,
He sits ’neath the Cross in the cankering snow,
And waites for his sorrowful end,
Yeo ho!
And waits for his sorrowful end.

The old Soldier

There came an Old Soldier to my door,
Asked a crust, and asked no more;
The wars had thinned him very bare,
Fighting and marching everywhere,
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.

With nose stuck out, and cheek sunk in,
A bristling beard upon his chin
Powder and bullets and wounds and drums
Had come to that Soldier as suchlike comes
With a Fol rol dol rol di do.

’Twas sweet and fresh with buds of May,
Flowers springing from every spray;
And when he had supped the Old Soldier trolled
The song of youth that never grows old,
Called Fol rol dol rol di do.

Most of him rags, and all of him lean,
And the belt round his belly drawn tightsome in
He lifted his peaked old grizzled head,
And these were the very same words he said-
A Fol-rol-dol-rol-di-do.

The picture

Here is a sea-legged sailor,
Come to this tottering Inn,
Just when the bronze on its signboard is fading,
And the black shades of evening begin.

With his head on thick paws sleeps a sheep-dog,
There stoops the Shepherd, and see,
All follow-my-leader the ducks waddle homeward,
Under the sycamore tree.

Very brown is the face of the Sailor,
His bundle is crimson, and green
Are the thick leafy boughs that hang dense o’er the Tavern,
And blue the far meadows between.

But the Crust, Ale and Cheese of the Sailor,
His Mug and his platter of Delf,
And the crescent to light home the Shepherd and Sheep-dog
The painter has kept to himself.

The little old Cupid

’Twas a very small garden;
The paths were of stone,
Scattered with leaves,
With moss overgrown;
And a little old Cupid
Stood under a tree,
With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.

The dog-rose in briars
Hung over the weeds,
The air was aflock
With the floating of seed,
And a little old Cupid
Stood under a tree,
With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.

The dovecote was tumbling,
The fountain dry,
A wind in the orchard
Went whispering by;
And a little old Cupid
Stood under a tree,
With a small broken bow
He stood aiming at me.

King David

King David was a sorrowful man:
No cause for his sorrow had he;
And he called for the music of a hundred harps,
To ease his melancholy.

They played till they all fell silent:
Played-and play sweet did they;
But the sorrow that haunted the heart of King David
They could not charm away.

He rose; and in his garden
Walked by the moon alone,
A nightingale hidden in a cypress-tree
Jargoned on and on.

King David lifted his sad eyes
Into the dark-boughed tree-
’’Tell me, thou little bird that singest,
Who taught my grief to thee?’

But the bird in no wise heeded
And the king in the cool of the moon
Hearkened to the nightingale’s sorrowfulness,
Till all his own was gone.

The old house

A very, very old house I know-
And ever so many people go,
Past the small lodge, forlorn and still,
Under the heavy branches, till
Comes the blank wall, and there’s the door.
Go in they do; come out no more.
No voice says aught; no spark of light
Across that threshold cheers the sight;
Only the evening star on high
Less lonely makes a lonely sky,
As, one by one, the people go
Into that very old house I know.