FullReads

She with her anxious, watchful glance,
Blue under her glasses,
Was meat and drink and providence
To us five lasses.
Out she fetcht from hidden stores
White frocks for Sundays,
And always nice clean pinafores
Against school, Mondays.

She and Dad were little people,
But most of us were tall,
And I shot up like Chichester steeple;
Fan, she was small.
You never saw a kinder face
Or met with bluer eyes:
If ever there was a kissing-case
On her mouth it lies.

vii

When I was old enough for skipping
My school days began;
By Mary’s side you’d see me tripping–
I was baby then.
A B C and One-two-three
Were just so much Greek;
But I could read, it seems to me,
As soon as I could speak.

Before I knew how fast I grew
I was the tallest there;
Before my time was two-thirds thro’
I must plait my hair;
Before our Alice took a place
And walkt beside her fancy,
I had on my first pair of stays
And saw myself Miss Nancy.

And then goodbye to form and desk
And sudden floods of noise
When fifteen minutes’ fun and frisk
Make happy girls and boys.
As shrill as swifts in upper air
Was our young shrillness:
‘Twas joy of life, ’twas strength to fare
Broke the morning stillness.

I see us flit, as here I sit
With wet-fring’d eyes,
And never rime or reason to it–
Like a maze of flies!
The boys would jump and catch your shoulder
Just for the fun of it–
They tease you worse as you grow older
Because you want none of it.

I hear them call their saucy names–
Mine was Maypole Nance;
I see our windy bickering games,
Half like a dance;
The opening and closing ring
Of pinafored girls,
And the wind that makes the cheek to sting
Blowing back their curls!

There in the midst is Sally Waters,
As it might be I,
With the idle song of Sons and Daughters
Drifting out and by
Sons and daughters! Break, break,
Heart, if you can–
How have they taught us treat sons and daughters
Since I began?

viii

There is a bank that always gets
The noon sun full;
There we’d hunt for violets
After morning school.
White and blue we hunted them
In the moss, and gave them,
Dropping-tir’d and short in stem,
To Mother. She must have them.

Primrose-mornings in the copse,
Autumn berrying
Where the dew for ever stops,
And the serrying,
Clinging shrouds of gossamers
Glue your eyes together;
Gleaning after harvesters
In the mild blue weather–

Life so full of bud and blossom,
Fallen like a tree!
Who gave me a woman’s bosom–
And who has robb’d me?

III

i

When from the folds the shepherd comes
At the shut of day,
The fires are lit in valley homes,
The smoke blue and grey–
So still, so still!–hangs o’er the thatch;
So still the night falls,
My love might know me at the latch
By my heart-calls.

And hear you me, my love, this night
Where Grief and I are set?
And look you for the beacon light,
And can you see it yet?
Or is the sod too deep, my love,
Which they piled over you?
Or are you bound in sleep, my love,
Lying in the dew?

ii

When I was done with schooling days,
Turn’d sixteen,
My mother found me in a place
My own bread to win.
I had not been a month in place,
A month from the start,
When there show’d grace upon my face
That smote a man’s heart.