Classic Poem

A merry waste of happy sights & sounds
In fresh green meadows every path surrounds
& all is joyous music save that noise
That comes in murmured oaths from tending boys
Who run & shout yet cannot drive away
The restless sheep from tresspass in the hay
Nor make them cross the shallow ford again
So here the stubborn tresspassers remain
Although the water is so shallow grown
That gudgons scarcely hide beneath the stone
& larger flints & pebbles even lye
Half out of water with their surface dry
Some grounds are mown & gathered & they lie
As smooth as bowling greens before the eye
While in a sheltered nook of each mown ground
A little haystack stands protected round
With circling fence—that rural shelter forms
For shepherds often from the autumn storms
When no old ancient hollow trees are nigh
& cowsheds farthest from their labours lie
& some are still in swath were noises come
Of merry songs & shoutings never dumb
—Loud screams the timid maid & shudders back
As if a snake was coiling in her track
Frit at the yellow frog that jumps away
From where her fork turns oer the rustling hay
While inscets in the grass & in the trees
With their ear piercing pleasures ever teaze
The passing traveller on his summer way
So ceasless & so dinning is their play
Here flowers in swarms too numerous to be got
Where cattle come not crowd in every spot
& the white butterflyes like flakes of snow
Flop crowding round them wheresoere we go
Here blue & yellow fetches climb nor stop
Untill they reach the meadow hedges top
& there they spread about their wreaths of flowers
To glad hay makers in the sunny hours
While meadow sweet & kecks in varied show
Spread lengthened borders on the bank below
& in the dyke that without noise proceeds
A running jump in width through flowers & weeds
The rich forget me not a swarming throng
Looks out like scraps of beauty in a song
& with its rich blue rim & yellow eye
Smiles love & welcome to the passer bye
The wild hedge woodbine smells so sweet—the ground
Seems steaming up with fragrance all around
The wild bee bounding past them wonders why
Such fragrance greets & turns about to try
& in the greatest hurry stops to smell
That aids him on his journey passing well
Where leaves of meadow sweet of darkest green
Appear—till winds like fairys change the scene
Then up they turn as majic were applied
& shine all hoary on their under side