Dark and darker glooms the sky; Sleep ’gins close the labourer’s eye: Dobson leaves his greensward seat, Neighbours where they neighbours meet Crops to praise and work in hand, And battles tell from foreign land. While his pipe is puffing out, Sue he’s putting to the rout, Gossiping, who takes delight To shool her knitting out at night, And back-bite neighbours ’bout the town-- Who’s got new caps, and who a gown, And many a thing, her evil eye Can see they don’t come honest by. Chattering at a neighbour’s house, She hears call out her frowning spouse Prepar’d to start, she soodles home, Her knitting twirling o’er her thumb, As, loth to leave, afraid to stay, She bawls her story all the way: The tale so fraught with ’ticing charms. Her apron folded o’er her arms, She leaves the unfinished tale, in pain, To end as evening comes again; And in the cottage gangs with dread To meet old Dobson’s timely frown, Who grumbling sits, prepar’d for bed, While she stands chelping ’bout the town. The night-wind now, with sooty wings, In the cotter’s chimney sings; Now, as stretching o’er the bed, Soft I raise my drowsy head, Listening to the ushering charms That shake the elm tree’s mossy arms; Till sweet slumbers stronger creep, Deeper darkness stealing round, Then, as rock’d, I sink to sleep, ’Mid the wild wind’s lulling sound. PATTY Ye swampy falls of pasture ground, And rushy spreading greens; Ye rising swells in brambles bound, And freedom’s wilder’d scenes; I’ve trod ye oft, and love ye dear, And kind was fate to let me; On you I found my all, for here ’Twas first my Patty met me. Flow on, thou gently plashing stream, O’er weed-beds wild and rank; Delighted I’ve enjoy’d my dream Upon thy mossy bank: Bemoistening many a weedy stem, I’ve watched thee wind so clearly; And on thy bank I found the gem That makes me love thee dearly. Thou wilderness, so rudely gay; Oft as I seek thy plain, Oft as I wend my steps away, And meet my joys again, And brush the weaving branches by Of briars and thorns so matty; So oft Reflection warms a sigh,-- Here first I meet my Patty. PATTY OF THE VALE Where lonesome woodlands close surrounding Mark the spot a solitude, And nature’s uncheck’d scenes abounding Form a prospect wild and rude, A cottage cheers the spot so glooming, Hid in the hollow of the dale, Where, in youth and beauty blooming Lives sweet Patty of the Vale.