TO A CHILD RETURNING HOME
UPON A WINDY DAY
Prythee what mad contentments canst thou find, Rosy-cheeked Betsey, in this blust’rous wind Loved of thy Babyhood? Without the door His leaves as running footmen go before Thy lagging feet who with compliant grace Smilest, his kisses mantling on thy face.
Go back and bid him use while yet he may His favour brief and pre-determined day; Bear with his wooing, nor forbid him now Lift the light hair from thine untroubled brow, Whom thou shalt dub a churl, when thou art grown A woman, but for ruffling of thy gown.
THE DEATH OF SIR MATHO
[“Nam quis iniquæ Tam patiens urbis, tam ferreus ut teneat se Causidici nova cum veniat lectica Mathonis Plena ipso.”—Juvenal, I. 30.]
When Sir Matho lay a-dying and his feet were growing cold, For the fire was out and left the place in gloom, And he could not see the night-light on his cornices of gold And the nurses that were hired for him some grisly gossip told As they lingered in the little dressing-room, There was none to light him candles or to kneel by him and pray And the youth that fed the fire-dogs had packed up and gone away— For where’s the sense of waiting on a man whose days are done? And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run.
As Sir Matho lay a-shivering, for Death crept on apace, Came an agèd woman in the flickering light; Like the women of the village, but he didn’t know her face, For his 50-h.p. Panhard used to go at such a pace That he never knew his cottagers by sight. He saw her twist her apron in her ugly withered hands As the poor did who awaited, while he lived, his high commands And Sir Matho blinked upon her like an old dog in the sun. And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run.
Then Sir Matho saw she looked on him and waited his desire And he conjured the poor mis-shapen witch To bring some logs of cedar and of oak to light his fire, For he counted on the pity that is never had for hire And is all the poor possess to give the rich. But she wrung her hands and cried to him, “Ah, Sir, I’ve done the oil Wherewith upon a little stove my mess of greens I boil; And coal is dear, and very dear, and fuel have we none.” And the faggots lie a-rotting where the brown pheasants run.