O I never thought that joys would run away from boys, Or that boys would change their minds and forsake such summer joys; But alack I never dreamed that the world had other toys To petrify first feelings like the fable into stone, Till I found the pleasure past and a winter come at last, Then the fields were sudden bare and the sky got overcast And boyhood's pleasing haunt like a blossom in the blast Was shrivelled to a withered weed and trampled down and done, Till vanished was the morning spring and set the summer sun And winter fought her battle strife and won. By Langley Bush I roam, but the bush hath left its hill, On Cowper Green I stray, tis a desert strange and chill, And the spreading Lea Close oak, ere decay had penned its will, To the axe of the spoiler and self-interest fell a prey, And Crossberry Way and old Round Oak's narrow lane With its hollow trees like pulpits I shall never see again, Enclosure like a Buonaparte let not a thing remain, It levelled every bush and tree and levelled every hill And hung the moles for traitors--though the brook is running still It runs a sicker brook, cold and chill. O had I known as then joy had left the paths of men, I had watched her night and day, be sure, and never slept agen, And when she turned to go, O I'd caught her mantle then, And wooed her like a lover by my lonely side to stay; Ay, knelt and worshipped on, as love in beauty's bower, And clung upon her smiles as a bee upon a flower, And gave her heart my posies, all cropt in a sunny hour, As keepsakes and pledges all to never fade away; But love never heeded to treasure up the may, So it went the common road to decay. _The Cottager_