Unstooping

Low on his fours the Lion
Treads with the surly Bear’,
But Men straight upward from the dust
Walk with their heads in air;
The free sweet winds of heaven,
The sunlight from on high
Beat on their clear bright cheeks and brows
As they go striding by;
The doors of all their houses
They arch so they may go,
Uplifted o’er the four-foot beasts,
Unstooping, to and fro.

All but blind

All but blind
In his cambered hole
Gropes for worms
The four-clawed Mole.

All but blind
In the evening sky
The hooded Bat
Twirls softly by.

All but blind
In the burning day
The Barn-Owl blunders
On her way.

And blind as are
These three to me,
So blind to someone
I must be.

Nicholas Nye

Thistle and darnell and dock grew there,
And a bush, in the corner, of may,
On the orchard wall I used to sprawl
In the blazing heat of the day;
Half asleep and half awake,
While the birds went twittering by,
And nobody there my lone to share
But Nicholas Nye.

Nicholas Nye was lean and gray,
Lame of leg and old,
More than a score of donkey’s years
He had been since he was foaled;
He munched the thistles, purple and spiked,
Would sometimes stoop and sigh,
And turn to his head, as if he said,
“Poor Nicholas Nye!”

Alone with his shadow he’d drowse in the meadow,
Lazily swinging his tail,
At break of day he used to bray, ­
Not much too hearty and hale;
But a wonderful gumption was under his skin,
And a clean calm light in his eye,
And once in a while; he’d smile: ­
Would Nicholas Nye.

Seem to be smiling at me, he would,
From his bush in the corner, of may, ­
Bony and ownerless, widowed and worn,
Knobble-kneed, lonely and gray;
And over the grass would seem to pass
’Neath the deep dark blue of the sky,
Something much better than words between me
And Nicholas Nye.

But dusk would come in the apple boughs,
The green of the glow-worm shine,
The birds in nest would crouch to rest,
And home I’d trudge to mine;
And there, in the moonlight, dark with dew,
Asking not wherefore nor why,
Would brood like a ghost, and as still as a post,
Old Nicholas Nye.

The pigs and the charcoal burner

The old Pig said to the little pigs,
’In the forest is truffles and mast,
Follow me then, all ye little pigs,
Follow me fast!’

The Charcoal-burner sat in the shade
With his chin on his thumb,
And saw the big Pig and the little pigs,
Chuffling come.

He watched ’neath a green and giant bough,
And the pigs in the ground
Made a wonderful grizzling and gruzzling
And a greedy sound.

And when, full-fed they were gone, and Night
Walked her starry ways,
He stared with his cheeks in his hands
At his sullen blaze.

Five eyes

In Hans’ old Mill his three black cats
Watch the bins for the thieving rats.
Whisker and claw, they crouch in the night,
Their five eyes smouldering green and bright:
Squeaks from the flour sacks, squeaks from where
The cold wind stirs on the empty stair,
Squeaking and scampering, everywhere.
Then down they pounce, now in, now out,
At whisking tail, and sniffing snout;
While lean old Hans he snores away
Till peep of light at break of day;
Then up he climbs to his creaking mill,
Out come his cats all grey with meal ­
Jekkel, and Jessup, and one-eyed Jill.

Grim

Beside the blaze of forty fires
Giant Grim doth sit,
Roasting a thick-woolled mountain sheep
Upon an iron spit.
Above him wheels the winter sky,
Beneath him, fathoms deep,
Lies hidden in the valley mists
A village fast asleep –­
Save for one restive hungry dog
That, snuffing towards the height,
Smells Grim’s broiled supper-meat, and spies
His watch-fire twinkling bright.

Tit for Tat

Have you been catching of fish, Tom Noddy?
Have you snared a weeping hare?
Have you whistled, ’No Nunny,’and gunned a poor
bunny,
Or a blinded bird of the air?

Have you trod like a murderer through the green
woods,
Through the dewy deep dingles and glooms,
While every small creature screamed shrill to Dame
Nature,
‘He comes ­and he comes!’?

Wonder I very much do, Tom Noddy,
If ever, when you are a-roam,
An Ogre from space will stoop a lean face
And lug you home:

Lug you home over his fence, Tom Noddy,
Of thorn-sticks nine yards high,
With your bent knees strung round his old iron gun
And your head dan-dangling by:

And hang you up stiff on a hook, Tom Noddy,
From a stone-cold pantry shelf,
Whence your eyes will glare in an empty stare,
Till you’re cooked yourself!

Summer evening

The sandy cat by the Farmer’s chair
Mews at his knee for dainty fare;
Old Rover in his moss-greened house
Mumbles a bone, and barks at a mouse
In the dewy fields the cattle lie
Chewing the cud ’neath a fading sky
Dobbin at manger pulls his hay:
Gone is another summer’s day.

Earth Folk

The cat she walks on padded claws,
The wolf on the hills lays stealthy paws,
Feathered birds in the rain-sweet sky
At their ease in the air, flit low, flit high.

The oak’s blind, tender roots pierce deep,
His green crest towers, dimmed in sleep,
Under the stars whose thrones are set
Where never prince hath journeyed yet.