Classic Poem

(Near Dogbury Gate, 1867)

The hills uncap their tops
Of woodland, pasture, copse,
And look on the layers of mist
At their foot that still persist:
They are like awakened sleepers on one elbow lifted,
Who gaze around to learn if things during night have shifted.

A waggon creaks up from the fog
With a laboured leisurely jog;
Then a horseman from off the hill-tip
Comes clapping down into the dip;
While woodlarks, finches, sparrows, try to entune at one time,
And cocks and hens and cows and bulls take up the chime.

With a shouldered basket and flagon
A man meets the one with the waggon,
And both the men halt of long use.
" Well," the waggoner says, " what's the news?"
" — 'Tis a boy this time. You've just met the doctor trotting back.
She's doing very well. And we think we shall call him " Jack " .

" And what have you got covered there?"
He nods to the waggon and mare.
" Oh, a coffin for old John Thinn:
We are just going to put him in."
" — So he's gone at last. He always had a good constitution."
" — He was ninety-odd. He could call up the French Revolution."