Classic Poem

Within a field, where here and there there lies
a vine, that with its trail of scarlet burns,
and dawn-fog from the hedge seems still to rise,

the men are ploughing: one, with callings slow,
goads the slow ox; another sows; one turns
the ridges back again, with patient hoe;

because, the sparrow, wise, now laughs at heart,
and, from the mulberry's rough branch, spies all;
and robin redbreast … from the hedge apart
is heard, like gold, the thin note of his call.