Farewell to the cornfield

Farewell to the cornfield & meadow so green
Farewell to the white thorn & willow & Jean
Farewell to the haunts O' her childhood & mine
Where green banks had peace & my Jean looked divine
Were parted & may be for ever we part
Still Jeanie shall be the choice girl of my heart

Farewell to the cornfield & meadow so green
Farewell to the white thorn & willow & Jean
The meadows will be just as green when Im gone
To the eyes o' my Jean while my heart like a stone
Lies cold in my breast while the scene I survey
To think of to morrow that bears me away

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The Lineian arrangement

 

A Ploughmans skill at Classification after the Lineian arrangement

‘Go wipe your shoes’ says mistress shrew
To Hodge who up for's dinner drew
‘'Tis'n't fitting that such hogs as you
‘Shou'd come into a house’
‘Why not’ says hodge—‘if thats the case
‘I cant come in a better place
‘For surely there is no disgrace

For hogs to herd wi' Sows

Friend take my advice...

Friend take my advice would you do yourself good,

& get your house custom & peace?

Take down from that doorpost the billet of Wood

& hang up your Wife in its place.

A Simile

A mushroom its goodness but shortly endures

Decaying as soon as its peeping —

Woman much like them — for its known very Well

That they seldom get better by keeping

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Harvest home

As rests warm rapture rousd the rustics lay
The thread bare ballad from each quavering tongue
As ‘peggy bond’ or the ‘sweet month of may’
As how he joyd to hear each ‘good old song’
That on nights pausing ear did echo loud & strong
The muse might sing too for he well did know
The freaks & plays that harvest home doth end
How the last load is crownd wi boughs & how
Wi floating ribbons diznd at their end
The swains & maids wi fork & rake attend
& how the children on the load delight
Wi shouts of harvest home their throats to rend
& how the dames peep out to mark the sight
& all the feats that crown the harvest supper night

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Ducks & Ducklings

Among the tawny tasselled reed 
The ducks & ducklings float and feed
With head oft dabbing in the flood 
They fish all day the weedy mud
& tumbler-like are bobbing there
Heels topsy-turvy in the air
Then up and quack and down they go
Heels over head again below

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Photo by my friend John Abbott

Farwell

Farwell thou favorite spot farwell
Since every efforts vain
All I can do is still to tell
Of thy delightful plain
But that pro[v]es short—increasing years
That did my youth presage
Will now as each new day appears
Bring on declining age

Reflection pierces deadly keen
While I the moral scan
As are the changes of the green
So is the life of man
Youth brings age with faultering tongue
That does the exit crave
Theres one short scene presents the throng
Another shows the grave

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What is Life

& what is Life an hour-glass on the run
A mist retreating from the morning sun
A busy bustling still repeated dream
Its length a minutes pause a moments thought
& happiness a bubble on the stream
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought

What are vain Hopes the puffing gale of morn
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn
& robs each floweret of its gem & dies
A cobweb hiding disappointments thorn
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise

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Burning

Love though it is not chill & cold
But burning like eternal fire
Is yet not of approaches bold
Which gay dramatic tastes admire
Oh timid love more fond than free
In daring song is ill pourtrayed
Where as in war the devotee
By valour wins each captive maid

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