XXIII. WRITTEN IN MARCH, While resting on the Bridge at the Foot of Brother's Water. THE Cock is crowing, The stream is flowing, The small birds twitter, The lake doth glitter, The green field sleeps in the sun; The oldest and youngest Are at work with the strongest ; The cattle are grazing, Their heads never raising; There are forty feeding like one! Like an army defeated The Snow hath retreated, On the top of the bare hill; There's joy in the mountains; Blue sky prevailing ; The rain is over and gone! XXIV. GIPSIES. YET are they here?—the same unbroken knot Their bed of straw and blanket-walls. - Twelve hours, twelve bounteous hours, are gone while I Have been a Traveller under open sky, Much witnessing of change and cheer, Yet as I left I find them here! The weary Sun betook himself to rest. Then issued Vesper from the fulgent West, Outshining like a visible God The glorious path in which he trod. And now, ascending, after one dark hour, She looks as if at them — but they The stars have tasks but these have none ! Yet, witness all that stirs in heaven and earth! In scorn I speak not; - they are what their birth And breeding suffers them to be; Wild outcasts of society! XXV. BEGGARS. SHE had a tall Man's height, or more; What other dress she had I could not know; Only she wore a Cap that was as white as snow. In all my walks, through field or town, Her face was of Egyptian brown: Fit person was she for a Queen, To head those ancient Amazonian files: Or ruling Bandit's Wife, among the Grecian Isles. |