A nest in a hollow, "with buds to follow,"
I think occurred next in his nimble strain;
And clay that was "kneaden" of course in Eden—
A rhyme most novel I do maintain:
Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,
And all least furlable things got furled;
Not with any design to conceal their glories,
But simply and solely to rhyme with world.
O if billows and pillows and hours and flowers,
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together, this genial weather,
And carted or carried on wafts away,
Nor ever again trotted out—ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be.
C.S. Calverley
AN IMITATION OF WORDSWORTH
There is a river clear and fair,
'Tis neither broad nor narrow;
It winds a little here and there—
It winds about like any hare;
And then it takes as straight a course
As on the turnpike road a horse,
Or through the air an arrow.
The trees that grow upon the shore,
Have grown a hundred years or more;
So long there is no knowing.
Old Daniel Dobson does not know
When first these trees began to grow;
But still they grew, and grew, and grew,
As if they'd nothing else to do,
But ever to be growing.
The impulses of air and sky
Have rear'd their stately heads so high,
And clothed their boughs with green;
Their leaves the dews of evening quaff,—
And when the wind blows loud and keen,
I've seen the jolly timbers laugh,
And shake their sides with merry glee—
Wagging their heads in mockery.
Fix'd are their feet in solid earth,
Where winds can never blow;
But visitings of deeper birth
Have reach'd their roots below.
For they have gain'd the river's brink,
And of the living waters drink.