POEMS OLD AND NEW
In hat of antique shape, and cloak of grey,
The same the gipsies wore.
Shepherds had met him on the Hurst in spring ;
At some lone alehouse in the Berkshire moors,
On the warm ingle-bench, the smock-frock'd boors
Had found him seated at their entering,
But, 'mid their drink and clatter, he would fly.
And I myself seem half to know thy looks,
And put the shepherds, wanderer 1 on thy trace;
And boys who in lone wheatfields scare the rooks
I ask if thou hast pass'd their quiet place ; ix
Or in my boat I lie
Moor'd to the cool bank in the summer-heats,
9Mid wide grass meadows which the sunshine fills,
And watch the warm, green-mufHed Gumner hills,
And wonder if thou haunt'st their shy retreats.
For most, I know,, thou lov'st retired ground !
Thee at the ferry Oxford riders blithe,
Returning home on summer-nights, have met
Crossing the stripling Thames at Bab-lock-hithe,
Trailing in the cool stream thy fingers wet, 21
As the punt's rope chops round ;
And leaning backward in a pensive dream,
And fostering in thy lap a heap of flowers
Pluck'd in shy fields and distant Wychwood
bowers.
And thine eyes resting on the moonlit stream.
And then they land, and thou art seen no more !—
Maidens, who from the distant hamlets come
To dance around the Fyfield elm in May,
Oft through the darkening fields have seen thee
roam, 30
Or cross a stile into the public way.
Oft thou hast given them store