But swiftly in shuddering gloom the splendours fail, As the harrying North-wind beareth A cloud of skirmishing hail The grievèd woodland to smite: In a hurricane through the trees he teareth, Raking the boughs and the leaves rending, And whistleth to the descending Blows of his icy flail. Gold and snow he mixeth in spite, And whirleth afar; as away on his winnowing flight He passeth, and all again for awhile is bright. 17 FIRST SPRING MORNING A CHILD’S POEM Look! Look! the spring is come: O feel the gentle air, That wanders thro’ the boughs to burst The thick buds everywhere! The birds are glad to see The high unclouded sun: Winter is fled away, they sing, The gay time is begun. Adown the meadows green Let us go dance and play, And look for violets in the lane, And ramble far away To gather primroses, That in the woodland grow, And hunt for oxlips, or if yet The blades of bluebells show: There the old woodman gruff Hath half the coppice cut, And weaves the hurdles all day long Beside his willow hut. We’ll steal on him, and then Startle him, all with glee Singing our song of winter fled And summer soon to be. 18 A VILLAGER There was no lad handsomer than Willie was The day that he came to father’s house: There was none had an eye as soft an’ blue As Willie’s was, when he came to woo. To a labouring life though bound thee be, An’ I on my father’s ground live free, I’ll take thee, I said, for thy manly grace, Thy gentle voice an’ thy loving face. ’Tis forty years now since we were wed: We are ailing an’ grey needs not to be said: But Willie’s eye is as blue an’ soft As the day when he wooed me in father’s croft. Yet changed am I in body an’ mind, For Willie to me has ne’er been kind: Merrily drinking an’ singing with the men He ’ud come home late six nights o’ the se’n. An’ since the children be grown an’ gone He ’as shunned the house an’ left me lone: An’ less an’ less he brings me in Of the little he now has strength to win. The roof lets through the wind an’ the wet, An’ master won’t mend it with us in’s debt: An’ all looks every day more worn, An’ the best of my gowns be shabby an’ torn. No wonder if words hav’ a-grown to blows; That matters not while nobody knows: For love him I shall to the end of life, An’ be, as I swore, his own true wife. An’ when I am gone, he’ll turn, an’ see His folly an’ wrong, an’ be sorry for me: An’ come to me there in the land o’ bliss To give me the love I looked for in this. 19 Weep not to-day: why should this sadness be? Learn in present fears To o’ermaster those tears That unhindered conquer thee.