Love’s riddle

"Unriddle this riddle, my own Jenny love,
Unriddle this riddle for me,
And if ye unriddle the riddle aright,
A kiss your prize shall be,
And if ye riddle the riddle all wrong,
Ye're treble the debt to me:

I'll give thee an apple without any core;
I'll give thee a cherry where stones never be;
I'll give thee a palace, without any door,
And thou shalt unlock it without any key;
I'll give thee a fortune that kings cannot give,
Nor any one take from thee."

"How can there be apples without any core?
How can there be cherries where stones never be?
How can there be houses without any door?
Or doors I may open without any key?
How can'st thou give fortunes that kings cannot give,
When thou art no richer than me?"

"My head is the apple without any core;
In cherries in blossom no stones ever be;
My mind is love's palace without any door,
Which thou can'st unlock, love, without any key.
My heart is the wealth, love, that kings cannot give,
Nor any one take it from thee

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Loitering

& here the shepherd with his sheep
& with his lovley maid
Together where these waters creep
In loitering dalliance playd 

& here the Cow boy lovd to sit
& plate his rushy thongs
& dabble in the fancied pit
& chase the Minnow throwngs

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Infant April

The infant April joins the spring
& views its watery skye
As youngling linnet trys its wing
& fears at first to flye
With timid step she ventures on
& hardly dares to smile
The blossoms open one by one
& sunny hours beguile
But finer days approacheth yet
With scenes more sweet to charm
& suns arive that rise & set
Bright strangers to a storm
& as the birds with louder song
Each mornings glory cheers

With bolder step she speeds along
& looses all her fears

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The ploughman’s song

"My love is young & handsome 
As any in the town
Shes worth a ploughmans ransom 
In the drab cotton gown”
He sang & turned his furrow oer 
& urged his team along
While on the willow as before 
The old crow croaked his song
The ploughman sung his rustic lay 
& sung of Phoebe all the day

The crow he was in love no doubt 
& [so were] many things
The ploughman finished many a bout
& lustily he sings
"My love she is a milking maid 
With red rosy cheek
Of cotton drab her gown was made
I loved her many a week”
His milking maid the ploughman sung 
Till all the fields around him rung

 

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Green & Happy

The blossom burthened never weary May 
Again with natures folks keeps holiday
Trees hide themselves in green & happy birds 
Sing sweeter songs that can be breathed in words
The very winds sing sonnets to the sky
& sunshine bids them welcome so that I 
Feel a new being as from healthier climes
& shape my idle fancies into rhymes 
Of natures ecstasy in bursting flowers

& birds nest-building & sunshiny showers 
That on the south west wind in singing moods 

Sprinkle their drops like manna oer the woods, 
Where I still love my careless limbs to fling 
Among the shadows of young leafy spring

 

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Wild life

The frog croaks loud & maidens dare not pass 
But fear the noisome toad & shuns the grass
& on the sunny banks they fear to go 
Where hissing snakes run to the floods below
The nuthatch noises loud in wood & wild
Like women turning skreekers to a child
The schoolboy hears & brushes through the trees 
& runs about till drabbled to the knees
The old hawk winnows round the old crows nest
The schoolboy hears & wonder fills his breast
He throws his basket down to climb the tree 
& wonders what the red blotched eggs can be
The green woodpecker bounces from the view 
& hollow as they buzz along kew kew 




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Ploughman singing

Here morning in the ploughmans songs is met
Ere yet one footstep shows in all the sky,
And twilight in the east, a doubt as yet,
Shows not her sleeve of grey to know her bye.
Woke early, I arose and thought that first
In winter time of all the world was I.
The old owls might have hallooed if they durst,
But joy just then was up and whistled bye
A merry tune which I had known full long,
But could not to my memory wake it back,
Until the ploughman changed it to the song.
O happiness, how simple is thy track.
Tinged like the willow shoots, the east's young brow
Glows red and finds thee singing at the plough




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