THE SCHOLAR GIPSY
Of flowers—the frail-leaf 'd, white anemony,
Dark bluebells drench'd with dews of summer
eves,
And purple orchises with spotted leaves—
But none hath words she can report of thee.
And, above Godstow Bridge, when hay-time's here
In June, and many a scythe in sunshine flames,
Men who through those wide fields of breezy
grass
Where black-wing5 d swallows haunt the glittering
Thames,
To bathe in the abandon'd lasher pass,
Have often pass'd thee near 10
Sitting upon the river bank o'ergrown ;
Mark'd thine outlandish garb, thy figure spare,
Thy dark vague eyes, and soft abstracted air—
But, when they came from bathing, thou wast
gone !
At some lone homestead in the Cumner hills,
Where at her open door the housewife darns,
Thou hast been seen, or hanging on a gate
To watch the threshers in the mossy barns.
Children, who early range these slopes and late
For cresses from the rills, 20
Have known thee eying, all an April-day,
The springing pastures and the feeding kine ;
And mark'd thee, when the stars come out and
shine,
Through the long dewy grass move slow away.
In autumn, on the skirts of Bagley Wood—
Where most the gipsies by the turf-edged way
Pitch their smoked tents, and every bush you see
With scarlet patches tagg'd and shreds of grey,