Beside the fire

Beside the fire large apples lay to roast

& in a hugh brown pitcher creaming ale

Was warming seasoned with a nut meg toast

The merry group of gossips to regale

With in the chimney top the threating gale             

Howld angrily & loud but coud not scare                           

The crickets raptures from its merry tale                          

Around her feet the glad cat curld her tail

Listing the crickets song with half shut eyes            

While in the chimney top loud roars the gale

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Old meadow lake

Ive often gazed with pleasure by the edge 
Of the old meadow lake floodwashed & crookd, 
The water rat slow rustling in the sedge 
The fish ring wavering in the clear I've looked 
In rapture on the mellow summer shine 
Of the still water gleaming in the sun 
Just wrinkled by the plash of quiet kine 
Who knee deep in the flags would drink—& done, 
Back to their feed on the shorn sward again 
The flags the bulrush & the barbd leaf 
Of water-weed bethread with lighter vein 
& water-lily giving flies relief

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The dreary fen

The dreary fen a waste of water goes

With nothing to be seen but Royston crows
The traveller journeying on the road for hours
Sees nothing but the dykes & water-flowers
The lonely lodges scattered miles away
Lock up from fear & robbers all the day
The merry maiden that no place dislikes
Runs out & fills her kettle from the dykes
She hurries wildly from the face of men
& knows no company but cock and hen
Here highland maiden sees in Sundays hour
The glorious sight of sainfoin grounds in flower
& meets the savoury smells that wake the morn
The woodbine hedges & the poppied corn

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Patty

O once I had a true love
As blest as I could be
Patty was my turtle dove
& Patty she loved me
We walked the fields together
By roses & woodbine
In Summers sunshine weather
& Patty she was mine

We stopped to gather primroses
& violets white & blue
In pastures & green closes
All glistening with the dew
We sat upon green mole-hills
Among the daisy flowers
To hear the small birds merry trills
& share the sunny hours

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I think of thee

I think of thee at early day

& wonder where my love can be

& when the evening shadows grey

O how I think of thee

Along the meadow banks I rove

& down the flaggy fen

& hope my first & early love

To meet thee once agen

I think of thee at dewy morn

& at the sunny noon

& walks with thee—now left forlorn

Beneath the silent moon

I think of thee I think of all

How blest we both have been—

The sun looks pale upon the wall

& autumn shuts the scene

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Image from my friend Carry Akroyd

Their passing bell

Their lives were nothing but a sunny shower
Melting on flowers as tears melt from the eye
Their deaths were dew-drops on heavens amaranthine bower
Was tolled on flowers as Summer gales went by
They bowed & trembled yet they heaved no sigh
& the sun smiled to show the end was well
Infants have nought to weep for ere they die
All prayers are needless beads they need not tell
White flowers their mourners are Nature their passing bell

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Death and Eternity

A dark inevitable night
A blank that will remain
A waiting for the morning light
Where waiting is in vain
A gulph where pathway never led 
To show the depth beneath
A thing we know not yet we dread
That dreaded thing is Death

The vaulted void of purple sky 
That everywhere extends
That stretches from the dazzled eye
In space that never ends
A morning whose uprisen sun 
No setting e'er shall see
A day that comes without a noon
Such is Eternity.

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