The winter time is over love
White thorns begin to bud
& brown & green of freshness love
Enlivens all the wood

Theres white clouds got agen the sun
One daisey open on the green
The primrose shows its sulphur bud
Just where the hazel stulps are seen

& ere the april time is out
Along the ridings gravel walk
The bedlam primrose blooms about
Wi' twenty blossoms on a stalk

How happy seems the drop of dew
That nestles in the daiseys eye
How blest the cloud seems in the blue
That near the sun appears to lie

The dancing Cowslips come in pleasant hours;
Though seldom sung, they're everybody's flowers:
They hurry from the world, and leave the cold;
And all the meadows turn from green to gold:
The shepherd finds them where he went to play,
And wears a nosegay in his mouth all day:
The maiden finds them in the pleasant grove,
And puts them in her bosom with her love;
She loves the ladysmocks: and just beyond
The water blobs close to the meadow-pond.
I've often gone — about where blackthorns stood —
And got the Bedlam-Cowslips in the wood;

I loved the Forest walks and beechen woods,
Where pleasant STOCKDALE showed me far away
Wild Enfield Chase, and pleasant Edmonton;
While Giant London, known to all the world,
Was nothing but a guess among the trees,
Though only half a day from where we stood.
Such is ambition! only great at home,
And hardly known to quiet and repose.
I loved the Forest walk, and often stood
To hear boys halloo to their wilder sheep;
While quiet TURNER sat upon a hill,
And gentle HOWARD cut his sticks and sang.
The Sticker trailed her faggot on the ground,

I leaned out my window, I smelt the white clover,
Dark, dark was the garden, I saw not the gate;
Now, if there be footsteps, he comes, my one lover —
Hush, nightingale, hush! Oh, sweet nightingale, wait
Till I listen and hear
If a step draweth near,
For my love he is late!

" The skies in the darkness stoop nearer and nearer,
A cluster of stars hangs like fruit in the tree,
The fall of the water comes sweeter, comes clearer:
To what art thou listening, and what dost thou see?
Let the star-clusters grow,

(i)

Death touched me where your head had lain.
What other spot could he have found
So tender to receive a wound,
So versed in all the arts of pain?

(ii)

Love came, and gave me wind and sun,
Love went, and left me light and air.
Nor gave he anything more fair
Than what I found when he was gone.

You promised me, a year ago,
When autumn bleach'd the mistletoe,
That you and I should be as one;
But now another autumn's gone —
Its solemn knell is in the blast,
And love's bright sun is overcast;
Yet flowers will bloom and birds will sing,
And e'en the winter claim the spring.

By A Cottage Near A Wood
Where The Small Birds Build & Sing
In My Dreaming Hours I've Stood
To Review The Lovely Spring
There Once Dwelt A Lovely Maiden
Whose Name I Sought In Vain
Some Called Her Lovely Lucey
& Others Honest Jane

Bye That Cottage Near A Wood
I Have Often Stood Alone
In A Sad Or Happy Mood
& Wished She Was My Own
The Small Birds Flitted Round Me
But Nature Pleased in Vain
For The Dark & Lovely Maiden
I Never Saw Again.

Bye The Cottage Near The Wood
I Wished With Peace To Be

The thunder of Hate may be lost on the gale,
May be stilled in the storm, in the tempest may fail,
But the whisper of Love wings unerring its way
From a star to a star, through the ages for aye.

O woe is me, my heart is sad,
For I should never know
If Love came by like any lad,
Without his silver bow.

Or if he left his arrows sharp
And came a minstrel weary,
I'd never tell him by his harp
Nor know him for my dearie.

" O go your ways and have no fear,
For though Love passes by,
He'll come again a hundred times,
Before your turn to die. "

Oh if I were the velvet rose
Upon the red rose vine,
I'd climb to touch his window
And make his casement fine.

And if I were the bright-eyed bird
That twitters on the tree,
All day I'd sing my love for him
Till he should harken me.

But since I am a maiden
I go with downcast eyes,
And he will never hear the songs
That he has turned to sighs.

And since I am a maiden
My love will never know
That I could kiss him with a mouth
More red than roses blow.