Part 16

NOTE.—“The Chimes” (line 6) will be listened for in vain here at midnight now, having been abolished some years ago.

THE DARK-EYED GENTLEMAN

I PITCHED my day’s leazings in Crimmercrock Lane, To tie up my garter and jog on again, When a dear dark-eyed gentleman passed there and said, In a way that made all o’ me colour rose-red, “What do I see— O pretty knee!” And he came and he tied up my garter for me.

’Twixt sunset and moonrise it was, I can mind: Ah, ’tis easy to lose what we nevermore find!— Of the dear stranger’s home, of his name, I knew nought, But I soon knew his nature and all that it brought. Then bitterly Sobbed I that he Should ever have tied up my garter for me!

III

Yet now I’ve beside me a fine lissom lad, And my slip’s nigh forgot, and my days are not sad; My own dearest joy is he, comrade, and friend, He it is who safe-guards me, on him I depend; No sorrow brings he, And thankful I be That his daddy once tied up my garter for me!

NOTE.—“Leazings” (line 1).—Bundle of gleaned corn.

TO CARREY CLAVEL

YOU turn your back, you turn your back, And never your face to me, Alone you take your homeward track, And scorn my company.

What will you do when Charley’s seen Dewbeating down this way? —You’ll turn your back as now, you mean? Nay, Carrey Clavel, nay!

You’ll see none’s looking; put your lip Up like a tulip, so; And he will coll you, bend, and sip: Yes, Carrey, yes; I know!

THE ORPHANED OLD MAID

I WANTED to marry, but father said, “No— ’Tis weakness in women to give themselves so; If you care for your freedom you’ll listen to me, Make a spouse in your pocket, and let the men be.”

I spake on’t again and again: father cried, “Why—if you go husbanding, where shall I bide? For never a home’s for me elsewhere than here!” And I yielded; for father had ever been dear.

But now father’s gone, and I feel growing old, And I’m lonely and poor in this house on the wold, And my sweetheart that was found a partner elsewhere, And nobody flings me a thought or a care.

THE SPRING CALL

DOWN Wessex way, when spring’s a-shine, The blackbird’s “pret-ty de-urr!” In Wessex accents marked as mine Is heard afar and near.

He flutes it strong, as if in song No R’s of feebler tone Than his appear in “pretty dear,” Have blackbirds ever known.

Yet they pipe “prattie deerh!” I glean, Beneath a Scottish sky, And “pehty de-aw!” amid the treen Of Middlesex or nigh.

While some folk say—perhaps in play— Who know the Irish isle, ’Tis “purrity dare!” in treeland there When songsters would beguile.

Well: I’ll say what the listening birds Say, hearing “pret-ty de-urr!”— However strangers sound such words, That’s how we sound them here.

Yes, in this clime at pairing time, As soon as eyes can see her At dawn of day, the proper way To call is “pret-ty de-urr!”

JULIE-JANE

SING; how ’a would sing! How ’a would raise the tune When we rode in the waggon from harvesting By the light o’ the moon!

Dance; how ’a would dance! If a fiddlestring did but sound She would hold out her coats, give a slanting glance, And go round and round.

Laugh; how ’a would laugh! Her peony lips would part As if none such a place for a lover to quaff At the deeps of a heart.

Julie, O girl of joy, Soon, soon that lover he came. Ah, yes; and gave thee a baby-boy, But never his name . . .

—Tolling for her, as you guess; And the baby too . . . ’Tis well. You knew her in maidhood likewise?—Yes, That’s her burial bell.