“The Rich Man’s halls, the anxious faces,
The weary Forum, courts, and cases
Should know us not; but quiet nooks,
But summer shade by field and well,
But county rides, and talk of books,
At home, with these, we fain would dwell!
“Now neither lives, but day by day
Sees the suns wasting in the west,
And feels their flight, and doth delay
To lead the life he loveth best.”
So from thy city prison broke,
Martial, thy wail for life misspent,
And so, through London’s noise and smoke
My heart replies to the lament.
For dear as Tagus with his gold,
And swifter Salo, were to thee,
So dear to me the woods that fold
The streams that circle Fernielea!
APRIL ON TWEED.
As birds are fain to build their nest
The first soft sunny day,
So longing wakens in my breast
A month before the May,
When now the wind is from the West,
And Winter melts away.
The snow lies yet on Eildon Hill,
But soft the breezes blow.
If melting snows the waters fill,
We nothing heed the snow,
But we must up and take our will,—
A fishing will we go!
Below the branches brown and bare,
Beneath the primrose lea,
The trout lies waiting for his fare,
A hungry trout is he;
He’s hooked, and springs and splashes there
Like salmon from the sea!
Oh, April tide’s a pleasant tide,
However times may fall,
And sweet to welcome Spring, the Bride,
You hear the mavis call;
But all adown the water-side
The Spring’s most fair of all.