William Allingham
In Snow
O English mother, in the ruddy glow Hugging your baby closer when outside You see the silent, soft, and cruel snow Falling again, and think what ills betide Unshelter’d creatures, your sad thoughts may
Places and Men
In Sussex here, by shingle and by sand, Flat fields and farmsteads in their wind-blown trees, The shallow tide-wave courses to the land, And all along the down a fringe one sees Of ducal
The Boy
The Boy from his bedroom-window Look’d over the little town, And away to the bleak black upland Under a clouded moon. The moon came forth from her cavern, He saw the sudden gleam Of
Robin Redbreast
Good-bye, good-bye to Summer! For Summer’s nearly done; The garden smiling faintly, Cool breezes in the sun; Our Thrushes now are silent, Our Swallows flown away, But Robin’s here, in coat of brown, With
On a Forenoon of Spring
I’m glad I am alive, to see and feel The full deliciousness of this bright day, That’s like a heart with nothing to conceal; The young leaves scarcely trembling; the blue-grey Rimming the cloudless
A Gravestone
Far from the churchyard dig his grave, On some green mound beside the wave; To westward, sea and sky alone, And sunsets. Put a mossy stone, With mortal name and date, a harp And
Abbey Assaroe
Gray, gray is Abbey Assaroe, by Belashanny town, It has neither door nor window, the walls are broken down; The carven-stones lie scatter’d in briar and nettle-bed! The only feet are those that come
Wayside Flowers
Pluck not the wayside flower, It is the traveller’s dower; A thousand passers-by Its beauties may espy, May win a touch of blessing From Nature’s mild caressing. The sad of heart perceives A violet
A Singer
That which he did not feel, he would not sing; What most he felt, religion it was to hide In a dumb darkling grotto, where the spring Of tremulous tears, arising unespied, Became a
In a Spring Grove
Here the white-ray’d anemone is born, Wood-sorrel, and the varnish’d buttercup; And primrose in its purfled green swathed up, Pallid and sweet round every budding thorn, Gray ash, and beech with rusty leaves outworn.
Meadowsweet
Through grass, through amber’d cornfields, our slow Stream Fringed with its flags and reeds and rushes tall, And Meadowsweet, the chosen of them all By wandering children, yellow as the cream Of those great
Lepracaun or Fairy Shoemaker, The
Little Cowboy, what have you heard, Up on the lonely rath’s green mound? Only the plaintive yellow bird Sighing in sultry fields around, Chary, chary, chary, chee-ee! – Only the grasshopper and the bee?
After Sunset
The vast and solemn company of clouds Around the Sun’s death, lit, incarnadined, Cool into ashy wan; as Night enshrouds The level pasture, creeping up behind Through voiceless vales, o’er lawn and purpled hill
A Dream
I heard the dogs howl in the moonlight night; I went to the window to see the sight; All the Dead that ever I knew Going one by one and two by two. On
Autumnal Sonnet
Now Autumn’s fire burns slowly along the woods, And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt, And night by night the monitory blast Wails in the key-hold, telling how it pass’d O’er
Adieu to Belshanny
Adieu to Belashanny! where I was bred and born; Go where I may, I’ll think of you, as sure as night and morn. The kindly spot, the friendly town, where every one is known,
The Fairies
Up the airy mountain, Down the rushy glen, We daren’t go a-hunting For fear of little men; Wee folk, good folk, Trooping all together; Green jacket, red cap, And white owl’s feather! Down along
These Little Songs
These little Songs, Found here and there, Floating in air By forest and lea, Or hill-side heather, In houses and throngs, Or down by the sea – Have come together, How, I can’t tell:
Aeolian Harp
O pale green sea, With long, pale, purple clouds above – What lies in me like weight of love? What dies in me With utter grief, because there comes no sign Through the sun-raying
Down on the Shore
Down on the shore, on the sunny shore! Where the salt smell cheers the land; Where the tide moves bright under boundless light, And the surge on the glittering strand; Where the children wade
The Little Dell
Doleful was the land, Dull on, every side, Neither soft n’or grand, Barren, bleak, and wide; Nothing look’d with love; All was dingy brown; The very skies above Seem’d to sulk and frown. Plodding
Late Autumn
October – and the skies are cool and gray O’er stubbles emptied of their latest sheaf, Bare meadow, and the slowly falling leaf. The dignity of woods in rich decay Accords full well with
The Touchstone
A man there came, whence none could tell, Bearing a Touchstone in his hand; And tested all things in the land By its unerring spell. Quick birth of transmutation smote The fair to foul,
A Day-Dream's Reflection
Chequer’d with woven shadows as I lay Among the grass, blinking the watery gleam, I saw an Echo-Spirit in his bay Most idly floating in the noontide beam. Slow heaved his filmy skiff, and
A Memory
Four ducks on a pond, A grass-bank beyond, A blue sky of spring, White clouds on the wing; What a little thing To remember for years – To remember with tears!
Amy Margaret's Five Year Old
Amy Margaret’s five years old, Amy Margaret’s hair is gold, Dearer twenty-thousand-fold Than gold, is Amy Margaret. “Amy” is friend, is “Margaret” The pearl for crown or carkanet? Or peeping daisy, summer’s pet? Which
Half-waking
I thought it was the little bed I slept in long ago; A straight white curtain at the head, And two smooth knobs below. I thought I saw the nursery fire, And in a
The Eviction
In early morning twilight, raw and chill, Damp vapours brooding on the barren hill, Through miles of mire in steady grave array Threescore well-arm’d police pursue their way; Each tall and bearded man a
A Seed
See how a Seed, which Autumn flung down, And through the Winter neglected lay, Uncoils two little green leaves and two brown, With tiny root taking hold on the clay As, lifting and strengthening
Writing
A man who keeps a diary, pays Due toll to many tedious days; But life becomes eventful then His busy hand forgets the pen. Most books, indeed, are records less Of fulness than of