Then I've rose with the sun, to go brushing away at the first early pearly dew,
And to meet Aurory, or whatever's her name, and I always got wetted through;
My shoes are like sops, and I caught a bad cold, and a nice draggle-tail to my gown,
That's not the way that we bathe our feet, or wear our pearls, up in town!
As for picking flow'rs, I have tried at a hedge, sweet eglantine roses to snatch,
But, mercy on us! how nettles will sting, and how the long brambles do scratch;
Besides hitching my hat on a nasty thorn that tore all the bows from the crown,
One may walk long enough without hats branching off, or losing one's bows about town.
But worse than that, in a long rural walk, suppose that it blows up for rain,
And all at once you discover yourself in a real St. Swithin's Lane;