Who, on this drear December day, Rearest above mine Essex clay Thy wand of buds as green as they Who spend their Yule Hearing remoter church-bells play In St. Gudule.
Hail, noble alien, I see Thou bear’st in exile and for me A neat-curl’d row of progeny, (Not all unlike Some purse-proud donor’s family, By John van Eyck)
For me unmindful of thy place (Comrade of carpets and of lace) Who class thee with the vulgar race Of Beet and Bean, And call thee—to thy very face— The Knobby-green.
THE CARCANET
The world’s a quarry for whose spoils Love, the untiring miner, toils Early and late, such stones to get As may be cut devised and set Into his mistress’ carcanet.
Alack that love can never choose But bring thee pebbles of no use:— Glance at the gift and thou shalt see Each facet in his treasury Of stones doth but diminish thee.
TO A TOWN CRIER
“Whiffin, proclaim silence!”—Pickwick