A sharp snatch, swirling to-fro of the line, He's lost, he's won, with splash and scuffling shine Past the low-lapping brandy-flowers drawn in, The ogling hunchback perch with needled fin. And there beside him one as large as he, Following his hooked mate, careless who shall see Or what befall him, close and closer yet-- The startled boy might take him in his net That folds the other. Slow, while on the clay, The other flounces, slow he sinks away. What agony usurps that watery brain For comradeship of twenty summers slain, For such delights below the flashing weir And up the sluice-cut, playing buccaneer Among the minnows; lolling in hot sun When bathing vagabonds had drest and done; Rootling in salty flannel-weed for meal And river shrimps, when hushed the trundling wheel; Snapping the dapping moth, and with new wonder Prowling through old drowned barges falling asunder. And O a thousand things the whole year through They did together, never more to do. THE GIANT PUFFBALL From what sad star I know not, but I found Myself new-born below the coppice rail, No bigger than the dewdrops and as round, In a soft sward, no cattle might assail. And so I gathered mightiness and grew With this one dream kindling in me, that I Should never cease from conquering light and dew Till my white splendour touched the trembling sky. A century of blue and stilly light Bowed down before me, the dew came again, The moon my sibyl worshipped through the night, The sun returned and long abode; but then Hoarse drooping darkness hung me with a shroud And switched at me with shrivelled leaves in scorn. Red morning stole beneath a grinning cloud, And suddenly clambering over dike and thorn A half-moon host of churls with flags and sticks Hallooed and hurtled up the partridge brood, And Death clapped hands from all the echoing thicks, And trampling envy spied me where I stood; Who haled me tired and quaking, hid me by, And came again after an age of cold, And hung me in the prison-house adry From the great crossbeam. Here defiled and old I perish through unnumbered hours, I swoon, Hacked with harsh knives to staunch a child's torn hand; And all my hopes must with my body soon Be but as crouching dust and wind-blown sand. THE CHILD'S GRAVE I came to the churchyard where pretty Joy lies On a morning in April, a rare sunny day; Such bloom rose around, and so many birds' cries That I sang for delight as I followed the way. I sang for delight in the ripening of spring, For dandelions even were suns come to earth; Not a moment went by but a new lark took wing To wait on the season with melody's mirth. Love-making birds were my mates all the road, And who would wish surer delight for the eye Than to see pairing goldfinches gleaming abroad Or yellowhammers sunning on paling and sty?