Country Sentiment

Note: Some of the poems included in this volume have appeared in The New Statesman , The Owl , Reveille , Land and Water , Poetry , and other papers, English and American.
Mother Alice, dear, what ails you, Dazed and white and shaken? Has the chill night numbed you? Is it fright you have taken? Alice
Mother, I am very well, I felt never better, Mother, do not hold me so, Let me write my letter. Mother Sweet, my dear, what ails you? Alice No, but I am well; The night was cold and frosty, There's no more to tell. Mother Ay, the night was frosty, Coldly gaped the moon, Yet the birds seemed twittering Through green boughs of June. Soft and thick the snow lay, Stars danced in the sky. Not all the lambs of May-day Skip so bold and high. Your feet were dancing, Alice, Seemed to dance on air, You looked a ghost or angel In the starlight there. Your eyes were frosted starlight, Your heart fire and snow. Who was it said, I love you ? Alice Mother, let me go!
Make a song, father, a new little song, All for Jenny and Nancy. Balow lalow or Hey derry down, Or else what might you fancy? Is there any song sweet enough For Nancy and for Jenny? Said Simple Simon to the pieman, Indeed I know not any. I've counted the miles to Babylon, I've flown the earth like a bird, I've ridden cock-horse to Banbury Cross, But no such song have I heard. Some speak of Alexander, And some of Hercules, But where are there any like Nancy and Jenny, Where are there any like these?
Mother Oh, what a heavy sigh! Dicky, are you ailing? Dicky Even by this fireside, mother, My heart is failing. To-night across the down, Whistling and jolly, I sauntered out from town With my stick of holly. Bounteous and cool from sea The wind was blowing, Cloud shadows under the moon Coming and going. I sang old roaring songs, Ran and leaped quick, And turned home by St. Swithin's Twirling my stick. And there as I was passing The churchyard gate An old man stopped me, Dicky, You're walking late. I did not know the man, I grew afeared At his lean lolling jaw, His spreading beard. His garments old and musty, Of antique cut, His body very lean and bony, His eyes tight shut. Oh, even to tell it now My courage ebbs... His face was clay, mother, His beard, cobwebs. In that long horrid pause Good-night, he said, Entered and clicked the gate, Each to his bed. Mother Do not sigh or fear, Dicky, How is it right To grudge the dead their ghostly dark And wan moonlight? We have the glorious sun, Lamp and fireside. Grudge not the dead their moonshine When abroad they ride.