Hurrah, Hall! Hall, now you’re winning,
Feel your stretchers and make the blades bend;
Hard on to it, catch the beginning,
And pull it clean through to the end.
V.
Bump! Bump! O ye gods, how I pity
The ears those sweet sounds never heard;
More tuneful than loveliest ditty
E’er poured from the throat of a bird.
There’s a prize for each honest endeavour,
But none for the man who’s a shirk;
And the pluck that we’ve showed on the river,
Shall tell in the rest of our work.
At the last, whether losing or winning,
This thought with all memories blend,—
We forgot not to catch the beginning,
And we pulled it clean through to the end.
LETTER FROM THE TOWN MOUSE TO THE COUNTRY MOUSE.
I.
Oh for a field, my friend; oh for a field!
I ask no more
Than one plain field, shut in by hedgerows four,
Contentment sweet to yield.
For I am not fastidious,
And, with a proud demeanour, I
Will not affect invidious
Distinctions about scenery.
I sigh not for the fir trees where they rise
Against Italian skies,
Swiss lakes, or Scottish heather,
Set off with glorious weather;
Such sights as these
The most exacting please;
But I, lone wanderer in London streets,
Where every face one meets
Is full of care,
And seems to wear
A troubled air,
Of being late for some affair
Of life or death:—thus I, ev’n I,
Long for a field of grass, flat, square, and green
Thick hedges set between,
Without or house or bield,
A sense of quietude to yield;
And heave my longing sigh,
Oh for a field, my friend; oh for a field!
II.
For here the loud streets roar themselves to rest
With hoarseness every night;
And greet returning light
With noise and roar, renewed with greater zest.
Where’er I go,
Full well I know
The eternal grinding wheels will never cease.
There is no place of peace!
Rumbling, roaring, and rushing,
Hurrying, crowding, and crushing,
Noise and confusion, and worry, and fret,
From early morning to late sunset—
Ah me! but when shall I respite get—
What cave can hide me, or what covert shield?
So still I sigh,
And raise my cry,
Oh for a field, my friend; oh for a field!
III.