I could have watched them till the daylight fled, Their pretty bower made such a light of day. A small one tumbling sang, ‘Oh! head!’ The rest to comfort her straightway Seized on a branch and thumped down apples red. The tiny creature flashing through green grass, And laughing with her feet and eyes among Fresh apples, while a little lass Over as o’er breeze-ripples hung: That sight I saw, and passed as aliens pass. My footpath left the pleasant farms and lanes, Soft cottage-smoke, straight cocks a-crow, gay flowers; Beyond the wheel-ruts of the wains, Across a heath I walked for hours, And met its rival tenants, rays and rains. Still in my view mile-distant firs appeared, When, under a patched channel-bank enriched With foxglove whose late bells drooped seared, Behold, a family had pitched Their camp, and labouring the low tent upreared. Here, too, were many children, quick to scan A new thing coming; swarthy cheeks, white teeth: In many-coloured rags they ran, Like iron runlets of the heath. Dispersed lay broth-pot, sticks, and drinking-can. Three girls, with shoulders like a boat at sea Tipped sideways by the wave (their clothing slid From either ridge unequally), Lean, swift, and voluble, bestrid A starting-point, unfrocked to the bent knee. They raced; their brothers yelled them on, and broke In act to follow, but as one they snuffed Wood-fumes, and by the fire that spoke Of provender, its pale flame puffed, And rolled athwart dwarf furzes gray-blue smoke. Soon on the dark edge of a ruddier gleam, The mother-pot perusing, all, stretched flat, Paused for its bubbling-up supreme: A dog upright in circle sat, And oft his nose went with the flying steam. I turned and looked on heaven awhile, where now The moor-faced sunset broaden’d with red light; Threw high aloft a golden bough, And seemed the desert of the night Far down with mellow orchards to endow. MARTIN’S PUZZLE. I. There she goes up the street with her book in her hand, And her Good morning, Martin! Ay, lass, how d’ye do? Very well, thank you, Martin!--I can’t understand! I might just as well never have cobbled a shoe! I can’t understand it. She talks like a song; Her voice takes your ear like the ring of a glass; She seems to give gladness while limping along, Yet sinner ne’er suffer’d like that little lass. II. First, a fool of a boy ran her down with a cart. Then, her fool of a father--a blacksmith by trade-- Why the deuce does he tell us it half broke his heart! His heart!--where’s the leg of the poor little maid! Well, that’s not enough; they must push her downstairs, To make her go crooked: but why count the list? If it’s right to suppose that our human affairs Are all ordered by heaven--there, bang goes my fist! III.