Sometimes the ghosts forgotten go
Along the hill-top way,
And with long scythes of silver mow
Meadows of moonlit hay,
Until the cocks of Cotswold crow
The coming of the day.
There’s Tony Turkletob who died
When he could drink no more,
And Uncle Heritage, the pride
Of eighteen-twenty-four,
And Ebenezer Barleytide,
And others half a score.
They fold in phantom pens, and plough
Furrows without a share,
And one will milk a faery cow,
And one will stare and stare,
And whistle ghostly tunes that now
Are not sung anywhere.
The moon goes down on Oakridge lea,
The other world’s astir,
The Cotswold farmers silently
Go back to sepulchre,
The sleeping watchdogs wake, and see
No ghostly harvester.
A MAN’S DAUGHTER
There is an old woman who looks each night
Out of the wood.
She has one tooth, that isn’t too white.
She isn’t too good.
She came from the north looking for me,
About my jewel.
Her son, she says, is tall as can be;
But, men say, cruel.
My girl went northward, holiday making,
And a queer man spoke
At the woodside once when night was breaking,
And her heart broke.
For ever since she has pined and pined,
A sorry maid;
Her fingers are slack as the wool they wind,
Or her girdle-braid.