And Thou my pipkinet shalt see
Give a wave-offering unto Thee.”
He smiled so cheerfully that I enquired:
“Your own verse, reverend sir?”
“My own. My Muse is not always concerned with ladies’ eyes nor with the revels of Mab and Oberon whereof I have also delighted to write. She kneels sometimes, face veiled. And these I call my Noble Numbers.”
There was a moment’s silence, so great that through the singing of the water I might hear the cropping of Clover-lips, his red cow. ’Twas not long however before I resumed.
“Then, sir, the country is now your choice preferred?”
“I said not so. Nay, I long sometimes for the town. But I know and scarce know how, that my lot will be cast there again for some sad years, and then I shall return here to lay my bones in peace among my people.”
“Was this revealed to you in dream, sir? But this question is overbold. Few men reveal their dreams.”
“Mine,” says he, “are so chaste as I dare tell them. Yes, in a dream. Doubtless induced by the present discontents which will wreck our good King Charles and many lesser with him.”