Far in the country—Did you ever fast
Through a long summer’s day? or, sturdy, go
To pluck the crab, the bramble, and the sloe,
The hyp, the cornel, and the beech, the food
And the wild solace of the gypsy brood?
To pick the cress, embrown’d by summer sun,
From the dry bed where streams no longer run?
Have you, like school-boy, mingling play and toil, 110
Dug for the ground-nut, and enjoy’d the spoil?
Or chafed with feverish hand the ripening wheat,