Classic Poem

Walking and musing in a wood, I saw
Some ladies gathering flowers, now this, now t'other,
And crying in delight to one another,
‘Look here, look here: what's this? a fleur-de-lis.
No, no, some roses farther onward there:
How beautiful they are!
O me! these thorns do prick so—only see—
Not that; the other; reach it me.
Hallo, hallo! What is it leaping so?
A grasshopper, a grasshopper.
Come here, come here now, quickly,
The rampions grow so thickly.
No; they're not rampions,
Yes, they are: Anna, Beatrice, or Lisa,
Come here, come here for mushrooms, just a bit
There, there's the betony—you're treading it.
We shall be caught, the weather 's going to change:
See, see it lightens—hush—and there 's the thunder,
Was that the bell for vespers, too, I wonder?
Why, you faint-hearted thing, it isn't noon:
It was the nightingale—I know his tune—
There 's something stirring there!
Where, where?
There, in the bushes.’
Here every lady pokes, and peeps, and pushes;
When suddenly, in middle of the rout,
A great large snake comes out.
‘O lord! O lord! Good heavens! O me! O me!’
And off they go, scampering with all their power,
While from above, down comes a pelting shower.
Frightened, and scrambling, jolting one another,
They shriek, they run, they slide: the foot of one
Catches her gown, and where the foot should be
Down goes the knee,
And hands, and clothes, and all; some stumble on,
Brushing the hard earth off, and some the mud
What they plucked, so glad and heaping,
Now becomes not worth their keeping.
Off it squirrs, leaf, root, and flower;
Yet not the less for that they scream and scower,
In such a passage, happiest she
Who plies her notes most rapidly.
So fixed I stood, gazing at that fair set,
That I forgot the shower, and dripped with wet.