Classic Poem

And there by our houses, beside the hill brow,
With houses of neighbours around,
Were ash trees out-branching in many a bough
O'er slow-wheeling shades on the ground;
And thistle-down, wavering white
From grass-stalk to stalk giddy-flighted.

Then warm was the wall-side, by ivy leaves green,
Or gray flakes of moss overlaid;
And cool seemed the blue sheet of sky that was seen
Through tree-boughs, dark-green in the shade,
Where people, with slow-lagging feet,
Came glowing in face, over-heated.

There down in some nook in the stubble-brown'd lands
Were gleaming the rick-trimmers' hooks,
And leazers, all plying their down-dipping hands,
Stepped onward, with down-stooping looks,
Or girls up the hill, by the trees,
Came on with their headloads of leazings.

The horseman, unseen in the lane, let us see,
From up-springing dust-clouds, his speed,
As foot-folk came tripping, by tree after tree
Of thorns on the down, to the mead,
Where shunning, in shadows, the glare
Of the sun, stood the cows of the dairy.